Hi everyone,
I’m sitting here sorting my pills into the weekly box - one small compartments-and-routine kind of moment - and it felt like a good time to send another update. A week has passed since I left home, and even though there’s been a lot happening, most of it doesn’t feel like the sort of thing one needs to report on. Some things feel too private, others too ordinary. Still, there is a story in the sum of all those ordinary things, so I’ll try to trace it.
The flight from Berlin to Los Angeles went smoothly. I’d planned a three-hour layover in Newark, just enough time for immigration, stretching, and a reset. By the time I finally reached the place where I stayed in LA, I’d been awake for twenty-three hours. That kind of travel leaves you hollowed-out and slightly unreal. Monday became a day of rest - useful, because Tuesday was the recording session at Chad Wackerman’s studio.
On Monday evening Chad and I went to hear a jazz group at a place called Spaghettini. A smooth jazz restaurant gig, but with a twist: the guest for the night was Marcus Miller. That was special. Mitchel Forman, who played keyboards at my session the next day, was playing there too - so we actually met that night before we met in the studio the next day.
Tuesday morning we began recording: Chad on drums, Mitch on keys, Janek Gwizdala on bass, and me mostly "behind the glass" - producing more than playing. I did add touches here and there, but deliberately kept things loose so that unexpected accidents had room to happen. They did. Even the mistakes I made felt like sparks for something future - little glimpses of direction for my overdubs I will record in Berlin.
We worked on seven pieces over two days. Despite some technical delays, we recorded four of them in three and a half hours on day one. These musicians are fast, intuitive, elegant. I barely needed to say anything - only to say yes when one of them had an idea. Big thanks to my friend Gabriel Riccio, who engraved the music on extremely short notice - five hours together the Friday before I left, and we walked away with notation for the session.
This project still carries the working title Bella Musica, which I love - whimsical, emotional, direct. Except for one piece that goes back to 2011, all the compositions were written on a Clavinova at home, with my daughter sitting next to me or on my lap. These were lullaby-like, minimalist piano miniatures, fragile and repetitive - and then the band turned them into something surprisingly "anthemic". It moved me more than I expected.
On Wednesday we tracked the remaining pieces, including one tentatively called The Cynical Song - a hint maybe toward the emotional weather of recent months. It turned out beautifully. In the afternoon we overdubbed: drum intros, harmonic textures, Janek creating rhythm guitar parts on high-strung bass. By then I’d already catalogued the takes mentally, so it was easy to know which missing colours we still needed.
The recordings are now with Chad. He’ll organize everything, and when I return to LA in about twelve days we’ll continue from there.
Thanksgiving was slow and kind, spent with friends - traditional meal, much music listening, discovering things I’d never heard before. In the afternoon we assembled 100 special-edition CDs of Quit Being So Gray, originally a 2014 digital-only release. New master by Erik Emil Eskildsen. We sat together, folded, inserted, signed. A small ritual. This CD, and "Sky on the Ground" will be on sale at the Stick Men merch booth on this tour.
Friday morning I flew to Seattle - one of the most relaxed flights I can remember - and met Pat, his wife Deborah, and EP McRae, our sound engineer and road manager. Dinner ended up in a casino restaurant by accident, because the place we thought we’d picked turned out to be a food truck. These small travel detours always amuse me.
Saturday was the first Stick Men rehearsal. It was... difficult. We’d brought four new pieces, quite challenging ones, and the rhythms - including fast patterns in 13 - aren’t easy for anyone, myself included. We decided not to introduce all four pieces immediately, but to work through them gradually during soundchecks. With luck, the full set will unfold over the tour.
And now it’s Sunday morning. I’m portioning medication into the little compartments and thinking aloud to you. This isn’t a profound update, more like a travel log - fragments of days, airports, music, meals, mistakes, good people. Still, I meant it when I asked for questions last time. Interaction matters to me. Even silence is its own kind of partner, but it’s good to hear a voice occasionally - to know you’re there.
And here are a couple of questions: Should Bella Musica stay its name? Would you like to hear the lullaby-pieces solo?
Bye for now,
Markus