According to John
According to John is my take on a Gospel piano ballad. I originally composed it for the able fingers of John McDonald, my mentor at Tufts University, and so you have Gospel, according to John. Try not to read any deep symbolism into this, for I assure you there is none.
Although this piece is firmly rooted in the jazz and Gospel traditions, its genesis was due to an entirely different tradition. I was sitting in a practice room at Tufts, pausing between exploratory improvisations, when I heard the pianist in the next room practicing something. It sounded like Chopin; maybe it was a waltz or a mazurka. I didn't recognize the piece, but I definitely recall that the opening notes were B#-C#-G#, and then the chords picked up in F# minor. This progression struck me much more than the piece itself, partly because the unseen pianist kept repeating the first few measures, over and over. Annoyed at hearing the same melody leading into the same chords over and over without closure, I decided to vent my frustrations by borrowing that same melodic figure, and taking it in a new direction. Right away my fingers picked out some juicy chords, outlining a basic ii-V-I progression in A major, but with added notes and substitutions and a subversion of the first cadence which, come to think of it, might have suited Chopin just fine.
Really, this music is all about the harmonies, not necessarily for their progressions, but for their sounds. Taking a nice, tall chord and adding in a couple of extra notes that might not even belong in the key. Letting the boundaries between harmonies blur, building up a sensuous wash of sound. Landing on a chord that sounds so good, I just have to stop time and slowly pick it apart. Don't get me wrong -- there's melody and rhythm too, and they're important. The melody shapes the harmonies, tells them where to go, and the rhythm makes both melody and harmony breathe, come alive. Add a pianist who can bring all this together, and you get According to John. Not a bad place for a decontextualized snippet from the practice room to end up.
