The imminent release of Four Mages on 2 May 2024 draws every closer, dear readers, and I’m continuing to feature some of the pieces from that album here. Today’s piece, “The Blind Prophet,” is one I particularly enjoy for its playful experimentation with irregular time signatures and multimeter wackiness.
Last week I released Leftovers II, and in just a few weeks I’ll release my next album, Four Mages (2 May 2024). If you’d like to hear my latest release, you can do so here:
Bandcamp ($5 digital download; free streaming for the first three plays): https://tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com/album/leftovers-ii
Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/3xhlvpf
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/leftovers-ii/1735073852
Qobuz (I didn’t even know this service existed!): https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/album/leftovers-ii-tyler-james-cook/hjdpc1g41uucb
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4tLWAlU5O8&list=OLAK5uy_mHn2PKIwpFAbXD8MicZpWdGLHzkql9DvgReaders might have noticed some of the colorful mages popping up over the last few weeks on this blog. I’ve posted three of the Four Mages so far (“Black Mage” is coming this Tuesday, 9 April 2024—stay tuned!), so I thought I’d share them with y’all this Lazy Sunday:
Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
Leftovers II is out now, and Four Mages is just one month away. I’m very excited for Four Mages, and particularly today’s featured track.
I’m continuing on last week’s edition of Open Mic Adventures by featuring tracks from my upcoming fantasy album, Four Mages. This week I have “Red Mage,” which is the second track I composed for the album, but which I have programmed to be first due to its jaunty feel.
On 2 May 2024—the day that is exactly twenty-six weeks, or halfway, to Halloween—I’ll be releasing Four Mages, a color-coded collection of fantasy-inspired instrumental music. I’m really excited for this release (which consists of ten tracks, not just the four mages of the title), and I hope it will capture imaginations with its whimsical, mysterious, fantastical feel.
The first piece I composed for the album is today’s feature, “Blue Mage.” I then immediately composed “Red Mage,” its companion piece, which I will feature next week. Honestly, I like “Red Mage” better, but “Blue Mage” captures the more mystical, esoteric side of this album. “Red Mage,” on the other hand, is more lively and whimsical.
My readers have been clamoring for more covers of classic rock and pop hits, but I continue to deliver up self-indulgent neoclassical foolishness. Have no fear, friends—I will have some timeless classics back soon.
For now, I’m offering a three-for-one deal with a polytonal piece of reedy churchiness.
A couple of weeks ago I purchased a Slade saxophone from Amazon. Amazon is notorious for selling tons of junky Chinese saxophones in garish colors for low prices. These horns are often barely worth the brass and cork they’re made from, but parents looking for affordable horns for their kids buy them without knowing any better. The result is typically frustration with the instrument.
Yours portly desperately needed a reliable saxophone for some upcoming gigs, and repairs to my existing saxes (one alto and two tenors) are prohibitively expensive at the moment. Also, my repair guy is a cantankerous old Northern guy who lives way far out, and the combination of expense, inconvenience, and a Yankee tongue-lashing for not maintaining my horns adequately had yours portly running to the arms of our Chinese overlords.
Well, Slade makes a surprisingly good sax for $230. Typically these Chinese horns have all sorts of problems: leaky keys, pads that don’t seal properly, etc. Horror stories abound of purchases paying the equivalent of the horn’s price (or more!) to get it setup properly.
I decided to bite the bullet and try it after watching a video from Better Sax on YouTube, in which he compared one of the saxes to to his gorgeous (and $4000) Yanagisawa alto:
I ordered the cheapest possible sax, even though I could have spent another $40 or $50 for some cool colors. When the sax arrive last Tuesday night, I was pleasantly surprised to see they’d sent me the wrong sax—their blue model! It is an absolutely gorgeous instrument.
Check out that beauty! Such a beautiful instrument, of course, demands to be played, so I did just that.
On Friday, 2 February 2024 I released Firefly Dance, my latest collection of original digital compositions. It’s a fun album, and I’m pleased with how it came out in the end.
You can purchase and/or stream Firefly Dance through the following services:
Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/firefly-dance/1724130522: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k5xlOgwiUIFHGrMXpJ4bjmKHGGepfpCYM&si=U5tXOlFABVRwmA-EThis week I’m featuring “Triumphant Processional“—a composition that I found buried in one of my music journals, and which turned out to be a quite fun tune.
Late last year I started working on a longer work about Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. I’d seen Ridley Scott’s Napoleon (2023), and while the film is riddled with inaccuracies, I still found it immensely enjoyable and fascinating. I also find Napoleon fascinating as an historical figure, as did the leading philosophers of the nineteenth century. How could his shadow not loom large on European and world history?
So I set about composing “Ode Napoléon“—one of the longer works I’ve composed in some time.
On Friday, 2 February 2024 I released Firefly Dance, my latest collection of original digital compositions. It’s a fun album, and I’m pleased with how it came out in the end.
You can purchase and/or stream Firefly Dance through the following services:
– Bandcamp ($5!): https://tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com/album/firefly-dance
– Apple 🍏 Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/firefly-dance/1724130522
– YouTube 📺: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k5xlOgwiUIFHGrMXpJ4bjmKHGGepfpCYM&si=U5tXOlFABVRwmA-E
Of course, if you’ve been reading the blog regularly, I’ve been posting sneak peeks of the album since late November. So for the next few Sundays, I’ll be featuring past installments of Open Mic Adventures that highlight the tracks:
Enjoy—and, y’know, maybe shell out $5 and help a musician out, eh?
Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
The Portly Politico 