One up, two back
Order the John Doheny Quintet's debut CD 'One Up, Two Back'
Available
at the Louisiana Music Factory
The Webmaster has kindly consented to let Mr. Doheny himself ramble on at some length about the tunes. Highlighted titles may be clicked on for an MP3 sample.
ONE
UP, TWO BACK
"This tune is an example of just how much mileage you
can get out of two diminished scales and a couple of dominant seventh
chords. The ridiculously long form was originally even longer. I'd wanted
to write something with a long and contrasting solo form like Mingus'
"Sue's Changes", and so the original version had a big rhapsodic
ballad section in the middle of it, which I eventually decided was just
too much. Everybody carries on in a grand fashion on this one, especially
our very special guest pianist, Tony Foster."
WE
KNEW
"Fabulous tune by our bassist Al Johnston, in fact it's my personal
favourite on the album. It's really hard to play though. I'm tempted to
complain to Al about that, then I remind myself that I'm often guilty
of the same thing (see ONE UP, TWO BACK). Al cultivates a wise-guy public
persona, but his bass solo here reveals him for the sensitive and poetic
soul he is"
ATTACK
OF THE KILLER CHALMATIONS
"This tune contains my favourite Norm Quinn solo. A "Chalmation",
by the way, is simply someone who lives in Chalmette Louisiana, which
is a suburb of New Orleans. It has the same relationship to New Orleans
as Surrey does to Vancouver i.e. New Orleanians sometimes make unkind
and snobbish jokes at the expense of Chalmations, who are wonderful people
and the salt of the earth even if they do occasionally say things like
"say bra, what time da midnight show start at?"
PLAYER'S
INN
"Was written in honor of a notorious pimp bar in Manhattan, near
44th and Broadway. It was actually called The Sportsman's Paradise, and
was just "50 short pimps" from Times Square. This was in the
70s, the golden age of pimping in America, and for those of you too young
to have experienced first hand the sartorial outrageousness of these guys
I'm here to tell you they make today's hip-hopper pimps look like the
baggy, clueless lumps they are. This tune contains my absolute favourite
Ridley Vinson solo ever, except for maybe the fistfulls 'o' keys she pulled
out on our "second line" version of OLEO at the 2002 DuMaurier
Jazzfest."
DINDI
"Colleen Savage and I have been friends since 1976. In
the last year or so we've worked a number of gigs together and
there are times I'd swear she's channelling Carmen McRae. Listen to her
break your heart on this one. And dig Ridley's "cluster" comping
on the out vamp."
KILLER
CHALMATIONS...SLIGHT RETURN
"I was having a 70s flashback when I wrote this. The "Slight
Return" in the title is an homage to fellow Seattleite Jimi Hendrix,
and refers to the first 7 notes of the melody, which are identical to
ATTACK OF..."
TIME
AFTER TIME
"Hey, it's my wife's favourite song. I played it at our wedding.
This is for you Darlene."
ONCE
IN AWHILE
"Another example of why those in the know rate Tony Foster so highly
as a pianist. Great, swinging flugel solo by Norm Quinn. And let me take
this opportunity to point out that Stan Taylor, who has a heavy reputation
as an aggressive, "outside" player, navigates this classic medium-swing
groove like he was Cozy Cole. In fact if you listen closely to his playing
throughout the record, you'll see that no matter what style of tune we're
playing Stan always does EXACTLY the right thing and is ALWAYS in the
pocket. And that's why he's "first call" with me."
PERDIDO
"My God just listen to what we've done to this poor defenceless standard.
My second favourite Norm Quinn solo on the record. (You shoulda heard
what he did on Strayhorn's "JOHNNY COME LATELY" on the gig a
few weeks back)"
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