I am going to post about my latest CD track by track. But first I want to provide a general overview of the project.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/schlegel8

Ever since I was a little kid I’ve loved these songs. I remember hearing them in my parent’s and grandparent’s homes. I remember hearing them in movie musicals. I remember loving the scene in “An American In Paris” in which Gene Kelly dances for the kids while singing Gerswhin’s “I Got Rhythm”. I remember loving the way Ella Fitzgerald’s voice sounds when I heard her on Duke’s “Mood Indigo”. I remember loving Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” everytime it came on TV or the radio announcing the beginning of a hockey broadcast!

After becoming obsessed with the idea of a totally solo performance career, I soon discovered there are really only two genres that fully support this approach: classical and jazz.

I’ve done classical and will continue to do it in the future. I’ve play jazz since I was a teenager. I’ve played in big band ensembles, small groups, in orchestra pits for Broadway musicals. But I’ve never done a jazz CD.

For the last decade I’ve been listening to Joe Pass and Art Tatum. I’ve come to regard these giants as the epitome of what the solo instrumentalist can accomplish in jazz. I’ve also enjoyed George Van Eps and Johnny Smith. And, even though it is not jazz, the constant presence of Beethoven’s piano sonatas in my life has added to the wealth of ideas in which I’ve been immersed as I built my skills and repertoire as a solo artist.

For the last decade I’ve been writing and arranging pieces for solo guitar. In 2007 Gibson-Epiphone gave me the Joe Pass model Emperor guitar. Since then I’ve been recording demos of myself playing tunes from the Great American Songbook. I’ve got over 140 of them on my studio computer!

This year I finally arrived at ten tunes that had a good arrangement and I was pleased with the performance I captured. And the result is Solo Jazz Guitar Standards, Vol. 1.

What about the other 130? You’ll see ten more of them on volume 2.