During the initial shutdown in Spring of 2020, I had a little time to express my feelings about all that was going on. Here’s my take on it in musical form.
Nylon Project II
Here’s a sequel to the original Nylon Project playlist.
Romance
Some very romantic tunes.
Acoustic Christmas
Recordings of some holiday favorites a while back. Now with a bonus jazz guitar track of The Christmas Song.
Tele In The Studio
In 2014, I happened to be playing an R&B gig in a club. Matt Greco, a local sound engineer, was in the audience there and came up afterwards to ask me if I would like to play some guitar on a country music project. I said, “Sure.” This is part of the session that followed, with me playing Matt’s Telecaster.
The Nylon Project
I have always played some level of solo guitar, but as solo guitar became more the rule than the exception (2010-ish), I purchased a Taylor nylon string guitar. With that, I recorded a selection of tunes to demo for playing weddings, restaurants, and such, and called it The Nylon Project. It worked! And it was the beginning of a long relationship with nylon string guitar.
Blackbird
I was inspired to arrange this instrumental version of Paul McCartney’s wonderful tune, Blackbird. The intro was inspired by something I saw Martin Taylor play. I asked him about the intro, and chuckling, asked him if I could steal it for my own use. He said, “Sure, I stole it from Johnny Smith”. Martin and I shared a number of such stories in that time period around 2011.
Bright Size Life – Solo Guitar Version
This solo version of Bright Size Life, by Pat Metheny, is one of my most played videos on youtube. Pat’s clever tunes are always interesting to work on and always a pleasure to revisit.
Playing “True”
This song by Martin Taylor is fun to play and has a beautiful melody. It’s a wonderful piece to know on the guitar. I have a written arrangement for it as well.
Mood For A Day
This is a favorite solo guitar piece that I learned a long time ago. I think I was fifteen when the Yes album, Fragile came out, which included this tune by Steve Howe. He was one of my favorite guitarists at that impressionable age, so I immediately took on the task of figuring out how it play it. It remains in my repertoire to this day. My version of it has probably evolved a little over the years.