With profoundest love, respect, admiration and gratitude,
this is for Tabitha Halley
‘The less we say about it the better; make it up as we go along,’ – David Byrne, ‘This must be the place (Naïve melody)’
'Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.'
– W. B. Yeats
This is my seventh solo piano album, and they’re fun to make. If you’ve been following, you may have noticed that I move from studio to studio to give each one a slightly different feel and sound; although all three of the church ones were recorded at Pughouse for consistency within a series, the others have been done at various places in Sydney and Melbourne.
Most of the pieces on this album come from that very fruitful year of 2016, although some selections are much older. The daily composition effort in the leap year was, and remains, the only time in my life when I have kept a new year’s resolution, and it showed me some valuable things. Not all the compositions were worth playing again, but the best of them I like, and I wish to preserve. There are also a couple of free improvisations, just to keep things fresh. Making it up as we go along. And (wait, no?!) a standard.
This is a digital-only release, because CDs are expensive to manufacture and people have stopped buying them like they used to and they take up space at home. I’m interested to see how things go with this, so it’s a learning experience. If you want to burn your own CD, obviously you can, if you’ve bought the music.
Composition is a thing that has interested me since childhood; I wrote some dreadful music that was performed when I was in primary school and I’m very pleased to think that it’s been forgotten. But when I started studying improvisation I took leads from people who had written the material they played and that seemed like something for which to aim. Writing the book, as the saying goes, was very attractive to me so when I was a member of Browne – Haywood – Stevens my objective was to make the larger part of the band’s repertoire original. I was lucky to have friends like Al and Nick to deal with what I delivered, and they did so with graciousness and interest that was deeply rewarding.
Some pieces, like 'The Unmistaken', take ages to write because you're a bit young and you've got hold of something that you really want to use but can't quite handle. Yet. Others are a matter of an hour or two, and because you've practised you can see more clearly the possibilities of an idea and the way in which to get from here to there. The effort is always to make something serviceable enough to warrant repeated performance, something that feels extendable, that doesn't suck.
This music is, as I say, for Tabitha, whose company I have enjoyed for over thirty years. Sometimes you meet someone and it feels a bit like you never didn’t know them. Tab and I met in the last years of high school. She is my closest friend in the world after my wife and our kids, and I thank God for her. Mr Byrne more or less nails our relationship.
Now. Thanks are due to some very dear friends. My beloved trio and double trio colleagues: Madeleine Jevons, Phoebe Green, Naomi Wileman, Ben Robertson, Marty Holoubek, Tony Floyd, and Dave Beck. You’re all so ridiculously special, and I love you all like mad. To Myles, my gratitude for a wonderful session. Respect and thanks. To my darling Luci, my honoured thanks for the beautiful paperwork, and to Cheryl Orsini, most serious thanks for making the cover look so fine. Fond thanks to my radio supporters: David Moyle, Andrew Ford, Mal Stanley, and Jessica Nicholas. And everyone else, nation-wide, who broadcast bits of 'There’ll be some changes played'. Dear pals who keep me going: Meg Morley, Alison Lemoh, Mth Mel Clark, Mth Colleen Clayton, Fr John Baldock, Fr Hugh Kempster, Jennifer Mills, Dr Penelope Preston, Gary Warne, Patrick Jaffe, Sophie Allen, Tony Gould, Andrew Ogburn, and Leah Scholes. Blessings on the lot of you; I need you because you're all so important to me. To Tab, the dedicatee, all the stuff I’ve said up top. You’re a totally marvellous friend and a sustaining good influence and I’m so very glad we met. I love you, although you could be in no doubt about that by now. And to my exquisite family, the peerless Sally James, and Oliver, Frederick and Lucinda, my heart, as ever. I am so grateful for your company and your support and your enthusiastic love. You are supreme.
1. Well, I mostly hide 05:53
2. Try it on 03:44
3. Sweet silent thought 03:10
4. Cocktails before noon 04:13
5. The vault 05:08
6. Yours and mine 02:45
7. This quiet life 03:49
8. Inkling 04:18
9. The new ships 04:03
10. Into cleanness leaping 05:31
11. The unmistaken 04:36
12. How long has this been going on? 07:22
All compositions and improvisations by Tim Stevens, except 'How long has this been going on?' by George and Ira Gershwin (thanks, boys)
Tim Stevens, piano
Produced by Tim Stevens
Recorded by Myles Mumford at Rolling Stock Recording Rooms on 3 February 2022
Edited, mixed and mastered also by Myles, the champ
Executive producer Tim Stevens
Cover by Luci James and Cheryl Orsini
