What a week? Now that we can breathe again, I’d love to share a bit of music that seems to have given me a bit of respite lately. A bit twee for some, a bit too measured for others, for some reason, the pianoscapes of Michael Jones have hit that perfect spot for me lately — and specifically, this work with ECM cello master David Darling. The cover says it all: Amber – Music For Cello and Piano. Found on the Narada label, Amber is a definite high point in their world of pastoral, melodic New Age. And here it’s of a variety that American musicians were capable of when they tapped into a degree of landscape-derived inspiration.
To describe Michael Jones’s music as melancholic would be an understatement. A deep, early love for the piano spurred Michael to devote himself to the “classical” learning of it from his native home in Ontario, Canada. Inspired by the native landscapes of his home, he’d often deviate from the classical school of thinking and sidetrack on his own into compositions that were these impressionist things more tied to our nature out there.
By the time Michael went to university, music studies became less important and studies in psychology, teaching, and business would become more pressing. In a way, this letting go of the classical school for the school of life allowed Michael to finally come into his own as his own musician.
A chance meeting with the head of the Toronto Dance Theatre treated him to a new school he’d devote himself entirely to. Rather than play the standards of yore he expected on this side gig, this dance teacher pushed him to play visually, to improvise and create music that spoke to a scene — rainfall, wind, etc. This shift in tone, spurred him to go back to those early days when as a young child he really enjoyed playing all of the piano. His body could now understand the real technique needed to play his music.
Now, when Michael would go out to consult businesses or to run seminars, if there was a piano in the room, he’d often liven up the proceedings by treating himself to improvised ditties to keep himself entertained. Resigned to pursuing a 9 to 5 job, Michael didn’t think much of that side of his life until someone caught him doing this and asked him, Why don’t you pursue that gift? rather than settle for a life as a business consultant. And so he did.
Five or so albums later, now that germ of an idea had translated into a whole career of largely piano-led New Age music. Amber would be truly striking because it was, arguably, the first album of Michael’s career where he was put in contact with another music that could match his ideas. In 1987 a chance meeting with longtime Paul Winter Consort cellist, and native Indianan, David Darling in Boulder, Colorado spurred them to try working together. By now David had transformed his earlier likeminded “classical” technique into something far more Zen and less ego-driven, as heard on his own ECM records. So, it made sense to give it a go.
For a few months in 1987, at various home studios, some overlooking Sunshine Canyon in Boulder, others out in some farmstead in the middle of Massachusetts, together David and Michael slowly transformed what was originally a duel of piano and cello into a meditation of sorts. Deeply moved by their increasingly gentle music, somehow, they struck tones and melodies that pointed to communal pastorales linking all communities in the American, Continental Divide. Much like Colorado’s myriad of vistas — mountains, streams, lakes, and more — so too was this music equal in dramatically connected tone poetry.
From the tender, expansive grassland-lilting opener “Rainfall” to the cinematic, quite neoclassical “Shadows Of The Moon” the whole of Amber moves in a gentle, introspective, retrospective way. Songs like “Sunshine Canyon” and “Indian Summer” bring to mind the expansive visual tapestries of America’s Hudson River School, now set to ever-going tape. Experiments like David Darling’s tantric “Wu Wei” show a different outcome from this new blend, as eastern motifs dance like sunlight rays coming through treetops. “Dreamlight” floats around you like an early morning haze. Everything on Amber is so wonderfully, tastefully, arranged that one even has time to notice little moments of reflection. In a way it’s a very “American” record, perhaps one that spoke of a different search in our quest for manifesting destiny.
So, when you feel like really escaping for a moment. When you feel like getting a taste of the brisk warmth of autumn, Amber has that special moment (or moments) made just for rediscovery. In the end it’s just one hue in all its spectra.