Waiting

Waiting was one of the tunes I wrote when I was contending for a spot to appear at the TED Conference (see the main page for the Bruce Kaphan Quartet album). As I mentioned on that page, I wrote 5 pieces for pedal steel (with looping device) and electric fretless bass. Writing for looping is very challenging for me- the structure of the music must be fairly simple and that's not really my innate style. Waiting relies extensively on the ability of the musicians performing it for extemporaneous interpretation, and in this recording of Waiting, Jeffrey's, Jason's and John R.'s extemporaneous interpretation was exciting enough to me to warrant including this recording on this album. I also liked the concept of the title of the tune describing what you must do if you listen to the tune expecting to glean much structure within it- you have to wait... It was one of the first pieces produced for this quartet, so another factor in including it on the album is the historical significance it has for me in terms of where this experiment began.

Initially, the title of this song was "Waiting For The Darkness To End". When I wrote the tune, through Congressional hearings, we all finally learned what many of us had already long suspected: the depressing truth that the administration had trumped up its case of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, creating a false pretense for starting another war. For those of us who think war must always be the absolutely last resort and considering the mass destruction of the world economy perpetrated during the George W. Bush administration, for me and most everyone I know, it truly was 8 long years of waiting for the darkness to end.

This track features John R. Burr on piano, Jeffrey Wash on fretless electric bass and Jason Lewis on drums.