As we progressed with production of Bruce Kaphan Quartet, the collaborative nature of my relationship with all of the musicians deepened. With no one was this more true than with Jeffrey. We discussed co-writing and very shortly thereafter Jeffrey produced a sketch of a work in progress he was calling Been Here Soon. He handed the sketch to me, I wrote some additional material, handed it back to him, and within a few of these handoffs, voilá, a tune was born. Collaboration has the potential to be a very satisfying endeavor. Been Here Soon was certainly that for me...
And now, a bit more from Jeffrey:
Been Here Soon began with a very simple piano motif:
The initial burst of inspiration lasted about 16 bars. I had sketched out what would
become the A Section of the tune and then was standing at the piano wondering “What
the heck do I do now?†That’s when I had my very first WWBD moment (“What would
Bruce do?). I’d had in the back of my mind that Been Here Soon might be a good tune
for pedal steel and since Bruce and I had discussed the possibility of doing some
collaborative writing it seemed like a good starting point. I emailed Bruce what I had in a
chart and midi file.
A couple of weeks later I was gigging down in San Diego when I got an email from
Bruce with a piano midi file attached. I remember sitting in my room in a high-rise hotel,
looking out over the ships in the harbor and listening to that early draft of BHS, smiling
ear to ear. Bruce had composed a couple of contrasting sections, tied together with
variations on the A theme, Even though we were still working with just piano, it was
exciting to hear the piece taking shape.
We emailed that midi file back and forth a few more times, developing, refining and
expanding the various bits, until it felt ‘done’ to the degree of being ready for live
instruments. When it came time to replace that midi track, Rich K elevated the song to a
whole new level, breathing real life into the composed piano parts and filling it all out
with his own improvisations.
This track features Jeffrey Wash on fretless electric bass, Rich Kuhns on piano and Jason Lewis on drums.
