Yacht Jazz

From SS: Yacht Jazz - in many ways, this is Russian Cutlet part II. I had been exploring the Yacht Rock genre without the irony that normally goes along with it, I grew up with it, and love it unashamedly. More Zawinul here, but more from his Syndicate days. Written after seeing Pharoah Sanders at Byron in '04, in fact a week after studying with Gary Peacock and having written Riverside. Pharoah knocked me out completely, his sound was something that I had never understood from the records. The presence of his tone was so commanding and present, I wanted that sound in there as well. I wrote it the melody specifically for a holistic tenor player with a wide and compelling tone, which Frock got from the wonderful Anton Delecca. This tune was a further development of my starting to use the improvisation sections as equal parts of the composition. Later on I realized the main riff was based on a tune I wrote during a European tour with Frock, when we were in Vienna waiting for the show, called Dexter's Midnight Run. Fuelled by prodigious quantities of schnitzel and the unshakeable spectre of the Austro-Hapsburg empire, the vibe of decay, not leading to regrowth, but further decadence and slightly sinister intentions.