Elegy (for Ted Kord)
Lament (for Sasha Bordeaux)
Serenade (for Donna Troy)
Infinite Crisis
Back in April 2005, I was finishing up my first year of my graduate studies at the Manhattan School of Music and was attempting to write my first "chamber jazz" piece. Completely confused about what "chamber jazz" really meant, and completely overwhelmed by the end of the year and scared to death for my first performance of whatever I figured out "chamber jazz" to be, I found myself on Comic Book Wednesday in Midtown Comics, staring at a $1 one-shot issue entitled "Countdown to Infinite Crisis." I was there to buy my monthly Wonder Woman, the only book I was collecting at the time as I was on a strict budget, but as this "Countdown" was only $1, I splurged.
A little later over a slice of greasy pizza, I read the 80 page comic and found myself overcome with grief for Ted Kord. Or perhaps it was just the stress of the year finding an outlet but either way, I was moved. So moved that I dedicated the piece I was working on to Ted Kord and while the piece has undergone many, many revisions since that spring, it is still on of my favorite pieces today.
Inspired by the success of the Ted Kord tune (and amused by the many questions the title incurred) I decided to write an entire suite of songs inspired by the "Infinite Crisis" happenings in the DCU. Keeping in the vein of "B list" characters, I decided to dedicate songs to Donna Troy and Sasha Bordeaux, two lesser characters that were given important roles in the "Infinite Crisis" epic. The suite ends in a Mingus-like tune simply entitled "Infinite Crisis."
While "Elegy" is definitely high among my favorites, "Serenade" would have to sit at the very top. I wrote this song for Donna Troy, the younger twin sister of Wonder Woman and my personal favorite. One of her origin stories (and the first one I was introduced to) is that she was cursed by the villainess Dark Angel "to live endless variants of a life characterized by suffering, with her
life being restarted and erased from the world's memory when Donna was
at her lowest." As a daughter of a marine relocating every 2 years or so, I grew up constantly having to "restart" my life in a sense every time we moved. While my life may have been spared endless suffering, I have always felt a kinship to this character. In a way, I consider her song to be my own musical autobiography. In "Serenade," there is an opening theme stated in the Flugelhorn which I consider Donna's theme. Throughout the rest of the song this theme is repeated, but with other sections of the band playing it with slight variation over the flugelhorn, which sticks with the original unvaried theme . This layering effect is to represent the many different life paths one person has at any given time. (Plus I think it sounds cool!)
"Lament" veers from the large ensemble and was commissioned by John Thomas for the East Carolina Saxophone Quartet. I expanded the quartet by adding an additional tenor sax + rhythm section. I decided to dedicate this tune to Sasha Bordeaux who was playing front in center in one of the "Infinite Crisis" spin-offs, "The OMAC Project." Sasha is a character that always seems to get the shaft. Originally Bruce Wayne's bodyguard (!), then girlfriend, she did time for a murder she and Bruce were framed for, then later, with plastic surgery and dyed hair, she became part cyborg in order to take down Bruce's pet project gone awry. Needless to say, there is a lot of angst in this tune! The recording above is performed by the University of Northern Colorado Saxophone Ensemble. There is an expanded version for the full band which you can hear on the ReverbNation widget below.
The final tune of this song cycle is simply entitled "Infinite Crisis." It's styled after Charles Mingus's "Haitian Fight Song" and uses loud, cacophonous clashes between many instruments, sometimes even the full band, all improvising at the same time. Almost more of a blowing tune for the band, there is lots of space for many soloists.
