I've always wanted to record a jazz album with strings. So I started composing a whole lot of music for strings and a jazz trio. I booked a studio, and some lovely musicians who would help me to record. But the more I listened to my compositions the less I felt like they were 'right' for this album. They sounded like string music with a jazz trio added - and not jazz music with a string quartet added.
So 2 weeks before we went into the studio I threw all the music out !
Then I set myself the task of writing 1 tune a night for 10 nights - no judging, no editing, just composing, accepting, and onto the next one.

During this new process I was trying to figure out how to tie the whole album together. And then I had a dream - and in it I was playing a melody on the saxophone. The tune woke me up (at around 3am) so I quickly sang it into my phone and went back to sleep. When I woke up - at a more reasonable hour - the tune was still playing in my head.
It's a chant of 4 bars, and contains only 15 notes. But it's simple form, when repeated, builds a foundation on which evolving melodic offerings can be explored.
The chant is TRiUNE.

I finished writing the pieces in time for the recording, composing 'timekeepers' on the night before the rehearsal. The quintet played through the music once at the rehearsal and then we went into the studio two days later. So the sounds you will hear are very fresh interpretations of the music. After the recordings were completed I listened to the takes for a few weeks and wrote the string parts to accompany them. We recorded the strings in my loungeroom a few weeks after that.

It was so much fun recording this new music with all of my lovely, talented, generous, musicy friends. I really hope you enjoy this album.
Love yas all,
Spike

p.s. I’d like to give a shout out to all the beautiful people at Arts Tasmania. If I hadn’t received the financial support through a grant for this album it simply wouldn’t have happened. I can’t thank them enough.

It's always a joy to book a studio, call some musos, and ask them to create some new music with you in the moment.
You never know what you'll get.
But you hope it will sound lovely.
SHORT contains all of the freely improvised solos and duos that alf, damien, and I, played in 4 hours on a rainy tasmanian saturday afternoon.
On the day of the recording we laughed a lot, damien got sick, and alf brought kiwifruit - I hypnotised one of zarven's chickens.
I think the music is lovely, and I hope you do too - it's offering is as pure as we could make it at least…

THIS IS THE 10th ALBUM IN MY "10 ALBUMS IN 10yrs PROJECT"

ABC's JAZZ ALBUM OF THE WEEK - https://www.abc.net.au/jazz/featured-music/feature-albums/another-moment-in-time-spike-mason/12910170

I'm really proud of this album, but I can't take all the credit - this album is a collaborative effort between all five of us. The wonderful musicians on this recording have been some of my dearest friends for about 25yrs - so much music has been shared between us. The compositions are all unique and yet they fit together so well. After the success of our first album "A Moment In Time" - Mike, Mark, Henri and I really wanted to record a second one. But it took about another 4yrs to get us all in the same city again.
We also decided to add a drummer to the group and Cameron Reid was the correct choice - the lovliest cat ever, and a deep and beautiful musician also.
We really hope you enjoy the performances of these tunes.
When the world is open again we'll have to tour this and the first album's music all about the place.

Stay safe and show love to all.

"The interesting outcome of the 10 albums project is that I already have another album ready to release, another one half completed, and another set of tunes that I still have to record. It seems like this project will keep going for a while longer. I guess the process turned the tap on - so I'm just going to let it keep flowing…”

Barney and I met in an improvisation class at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 1994. We were both studying the Jazz Course. We quickly became friends and started playing music and talking about music together. We've just kept playing and talking for 25 years, so we thought we'd record some improvisations over some forms we know. We never know where we're going to start or end, and that's the fun of what we do. We captured that fun with two mics over two late nights. And we're sharing this recording with anyone who wants it...
We hope you enjoy it.

btw - this isn't my 10th album from the "10 albums in 10yrs" project, this is an extra one, the 10th album will be released next year in 2020 :)

“the nine days after easter” is the 9th album in my "10 albums in 10 years" project. It's also my first solo album, in that I play all of the instruments on it - saxophones, piano and drums.

Four years ago my friend Greg Dixon recorded me playing three hours of freely improvised piano solos in his studio. They were recorded on the night before we recorded the album "A Moment In Time". I didn’t know at that time what I would do with the tracks, but I knew that somehow they would become an album in the future.
Earlier this year, in my home studio, I spent the nine days after easter editing the piano improvisations into nine different forms. A few weeks later I recorded myself improvising along with the piano tracks on the drums. But I wasn’t listening to the piano while I was playing the drums - I just knew how long each track went for and then I just recorded myself playing freely improvised drums for that amount of time. After a little bit more editing these two parts together I then started recording the saxophone over the top. I chose to sometimes play pretty melodies along with the chords, or double a piano melody, and then sometimes I chose melodies that didn’t fit with the chords at all. Sometimes the saxophone melodies sort of fit the rhythms of the drums or the piano and sometimes they don’t. When I was recording the saxophone I just tried to play completely in the moment and as freely as I could. I hope you like what came out…

For 20yrs, since the creation of FREE FOR ALL and the release of my OXIMETRIC album, I have been thinking a lot about music that is not held together rhythmically or harmonically, but sonically. Freely improvised music that is played by an ensemble in the same sonic space and held together by intention, mood, dynamics, energy and timbre. Each member of the group plays with their own rhythmic pulse and harmony.
On this album the ensemble is just me…