The Small Hunter

In a departure from the previous releases, "The Small Hunter" is the result of a fun afternoon jam with a couple of very musical friends.

My bass playing partner-in-time, Richard Ogden, paid a flying visit to our home in the Blue Mountains, which prompted a discussion about maybe producing a recording.

This struck me as a good idea, and with the very generous consideration of Jane and the kids, and a few logistical and audio engineering hurdles, we turned our lounge room into a studio for the day.  The room had lots of heavy, soft curtains and soft furnishing, and I'd always felt, up until this time, that it would be a fun live space to work in.  This proved to be correct, and I got a very clean, intimate sound as a result.

It was a fantastic stroke of luck that my friend Cameron Scott agreed to not only come along and play some alto sax, but also to lend us his bass and amp for the session. It's hard to overstate how Cameron's playing shaped the end result, but what was very clear was that he could tune-in to how Richard and I had structured rhythm sections and chord voicings, and performed in a way that complemented the overall sound in an exciting and very pleasing way.

We quickly settled into a structured session.  Richard and I had worked out the recording method, and ironed out the majority of gremlins in the set-up the night before.  I don't mind saying that my patience was worn particularly thin by gear that I had been using for years suddenly not working in a way I would have expected.  Nevertheless we had three separate jams, using a fairly open chord sequence and varying the rhythmic elements in each iteration.  We would play together, quickly forming an idea for a rhythm section, and then we all took turns improvising our individual parts (Cameron on alto, Rich on bass, and myself on piano).

The end result reflects the changes in style, and the dynamic nature of the whole session.  Although I've edited together parts from the whole session, it is largely presented in reverse recording order.  We began with a slow reggae rhythm, and the majority of our performances from that part can be heard in the dub coda.  Likewise, large chunks of the final recordings, when we were probably playing at our best, are included in the opening double-time, futuristic jazz section.

As an exercise in recording and editing, it wasn't without problems, particularly as there is a certain pressure to get the best performance from everyone as quickly as possible.  This conflict between a sort of "professional" behaviour, vs the fact that this was supposed to be a simple, fun exercise, comes up in the editing process, where, for example, timing or intonation issues become much more pronounced.  For what it is, though, I am really proud of how we produced something of a relatively high quality with a minimum of fuss.  The producer in me feels that it still needs work, but this should involve re-recording and mixing it with both Richard and Cameron, keeping it as a collaborative piece.  Hopefully this won't come in the form of a ten or fifteen year old remix!