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"Piano Improvisations" is a live recording from my small part of a classical concert that was given at Hosmer Hall in the Crane School of Music (part of the State University of NY in Potsdam) by the music fraternity Phi Mu Alpha during my college days in 1985.

I had decided to go with a very rough road map, and just play whatever came off the top of my head. It was a semi-courageous move, and one I came close to regretting at a couple of interesting "moments/junctures" where I had no idea where it was going next. You can probably tell where they are when you listen to it. Sometimes I would end up in a key and think, "Oh, I've got a little snippet/piece in that key - okay, I'll take it in that direction." There are little nods to Keith Emerson (one of my favorite musicians) throughout. Interestingly, when I listen back to it now, it actually comes across as a semi-coherent planned written piece of music, since it kind of ends where it began (which was something I planned to do) though it is episodic in nature, moving from one idea to the next without tarrying in any one place for too long.

I recently came across a tape of piano music I was working on at the time that I hadn't heard in a long time and I found it amusing that I'd copped snippets from a number of already-written pieces and kind of spliced them together, so this isn't really an improvisation in the purest sense. Maybe 25% of it was made up on the spot. My original intention was to play for 15-20 minutes, but I panicked, and cut it a bit short. While I was up there, it sure felt like I was playing for a long time, over 10 minutes for sure, so I was a bit surprised at the time to see it was under 7 minutes.

I was amused when when a few of the classical players asked me for a written transcription of it. Some of them didn't believe that I made it up on the spot, and that it was a one of a kind performance! When asked how I could do that without any written music in front of me, I replied citing one of my favorite John Lennon quotes (when he would answer music critics who over-analyzed Beatles music), "It's just chords, man."

This piece may eventually end up on "Music For Piano, Drums, Bass, and...".

Enjoy!

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