Recent music #9 - Heyman tour

For this edition…

I’m excited to share some music from this summer’s HEYMAN tour. HEYMAN is a collaborative quartet led by Chicago-based saxophonist Michael Hudson Casanova. I first met Michael during the pandemic for our friend Sandy’s 30th birthday party, hosted in a socially-distant fashion at drummer Matt Scarano’s house. We connected over shared musical interests, especially the Kenny Wheeler record Angel Song. It was hard to believe we had never played together. We finally got a chance to play in July 2023, with Matt and Sandy rounding out the band, and the vibe was pretty much instant. Plans were made to record in December 2023 and a record was released in June 2024. Following the release of our record we did a week-long tour of the Great Lakes region.

The HEYMAN tour was my first extended tour with a band. I had done weekend treks as far north as Burlington, VT, and south as Richmond, VA. This trip was the most extensive and farthest reaching including stops in Detroit, Traverse City, Marquette, and Grand Rapids, MI; South Bend, IN; and a show outside of Chicago. I loved it! Being away from home was quite the gift for me at the time and to be honest, I’d rather spend my time living out of a suitcase and toiling away in Bethlehem, PA if I could manage at this point in my life.

We played the same set of music each night. It was remarkable to hear how much things changed in shape and sound from venue to venue, town to town, and day to day.

Today, I’ll share music I composed for the HEYMAN record, in performance at Merriman’s Playhouse, a long-standing jazz club in South Bend, IN. If you ever find yourself traveling through the Midwest and looking for a place to hear great music, Merriman’s is the spot! It is a coffee house with an extremely welcoming vibe, adoring hosts, home-cooked food, and a cute dog.

First up is my song “Better to Have Lost…” which is an “oldie but a goodie” if you will. First released on my record I Am Watching My Day Slowly Disappear, I brought this tune to our recording session because I felt we could explore some kind of Keith Jarrett European Quartet vibe with it. We opened every show on the tour with this song.

Next is a new song called “Convenience,” written in the summer of 2023. The name was inspired by the feeling of someone only keeping you around because it’s convenient for them.

I had explored it with a trio on a few gigs but felt it would benefit from the weight of hearing the melody on the saxophone. We go into a “time, no changes” section after the melody. It was fun following this piece’s development throughout a week of touring. Listening back, I feel like I’m almost there with this performance. Sandy’s introduction to this piece took so many turns throughout the week. I love his performance here.

Last is another new-ish piece called “B+C.” This one was written in 2020 and is a 12-bar blues with a bridge that is in both B major and C major. It is a fun tune to explore and was perhaps one of our looser and groovier points in the set. The audiences from night to night seemed to dig this one.

All of these pieces are available on the HEYMAN record so I encourage you to check it out by streaming it or buying a copy. Thanks for listening. Here are some photos from our night at Merriman’s.