David Kraus: The Listening Room
Up and Over
David Kraus ~ acoustic steel string guitarsBuy the Album
Mark van Gulden ~ vibraphone
Jamie Masefield ~ mandolin
Clyde Stats ~ acoustic bass
Gary Gordon ~ flute
The title "Up and Over" came from an image that kept coming to mind of...believe it or not...a gymnast hurtling herself over the parallel bar and landing gracefully on the other side, and done with what seems to be a sense of such ease that we as witnesses have no inkling of how much energy, practice, discipline, and concentration went into that single fleeting movement. So 'up and over' can really apply to any worthwhile endeavor in life that requires so much work and commitment which, to an observer, seems over too quickly, easily executed, and indeed is so well done that it really seems that no work was required at all. It's "as if it just happened" without effort. Being a professional musician most of my life I know all too well just how untrue this is. It is the job of a performer to work for many years to make a moment seem "easy."
When I was writing this piece, I also kept imagining the last waltz that is always played at the conclusion of a traditional country dance gig, particularly the barn dances that were so numerous in the New England hills, especially in the maple syrup producing sugar shacks which thoroughly dot the Vermont landscape. Having played electric guitar in countless country bands in the early to mid-eighties, before the "Nashville goes Hollywood pop" era of today's washed out "country" sound, I became and still am intimately acquainted with good Nashville singer-songwriter material. This tune is more complex and more richly developed than your typical three quarter time waltz, but the "feel" of it can still be heard. It begins with a duo of overdubbed steel string guitars (yours truly:) with one finger picking the chords and the other playing the melody. On the second round the mandolin joins in with it's beautiful "tremelo" sound and strongly doubles the melody with the guitar to give a more Appalachian or even a Bluegrass feel, while the vibes can be heard pianissimo giving the melody a subtle bright bell-like effect, and the bass provides a solid bottom for the song to kind of "sit in." The "B" section melody is played by guitar, mandolin, and vibes and continue together through the last "A" section. Mandolin takes the first solo over the first two "A" sections, followed by the vibraphone on the "B" and last "A" section. The melody returns on the "B" followed up by the last "A" with the guitar rejoining the mandolin and vibes. The piece then leads into to a surprising and unexpected ending. There is a stop, then the tempo picks up with the introduction by the solo guitar of a two chord vamp, each chord having two different voicings of "major 9th's" and "add 9's." Then the band kicks in driven by a lively and forward moving bass. The mandolin adds syncopated staccato upbeat strokes which almost imply a reggae type feel, with the vibes playing a repetitive bell-like descending line. Once the band's two chord vamp becomes firmly established, a new instrument is introduced previously not heard anywhere in the entire song. The flute enters with a "high-flying" and soaring refrain lifting the music as if it is opening a window to a soft breeze while gazing out over the natural landscape and up towards an expansive blue sky. A free solo ensues with the smiling image of the pied piper dancing through the fields, which is followed by the flute's opening theme being heard over and over again while the music slowly fades over the horizon.
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