A Minor Thing

A musical snippet from Steve Klink's CD Searching the Blue:

I really love this song. For me it is a journey across different gospel universes, shifting from "major" to "minor" moods and finally climaxing in a big gospel finish. I always imagine myself in a huge church when I play this one.

This recording of this song is special to me for a lot of reasons. It was recorded live on October 20th, 2005 in the Loft Jazz Club in Cologne, Germany. On that evening there was a double concert together with the Big Band Convention. In the first half of the concert the big band played Duke Ellington's "Such Sweet Thunder". It was such a thrill for me to play the piano part that evening of Duke's music with such a great big band. If you've never heard this piece of music, you should go and buy it immediately. I think it is one of Ellington's strongest works, a collection of delicious miniatures. It was this work that really turned me on to Duke Ellington in the first place, especially the way he used different forms and sections to build a larger piece of music. I feel that a lot of songs on my new "Searching the Blue" CD are influenced by him in terms of form, including all the sections of this song, "A Minor Thing". So for me it was a special coincidence to be playing "Such Sweet Thunder" and "A Minor Thing" all on the same evening.

For the second half of the concert my trio did a set of music. On that evening there were two premieres: it was the first time ever that we performed "A Minor Thing" live and it was the first performance in the trio with my new bass player Volker Heinze. I'm so happy he's in the band now. And you can hear what a great vibe there is on this song. Volker is incredibly musical, very flexible and an honor to work with.

On this take also check out Marcus Rieck's great drumming, especially the cymbal groove at about 2'15". Also be sure to enjoy the sound of the Loft's unbelievable Steinway Grand Piano!