What Times Are These

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For most musicians, Covid changed everything. With no live performances in sight and not knowing what the future would hold, I dove into composing head first. What else could I do, sequestered in a 500 square foot apartment in Hell's Kitchen, NYC? I began writing new music for my Septet+ for what would become our fifth recording. Contemplating what my focus would be for this next project, I wanted to try something new, become submerged, distracted, anything to escape everything going on around me! While spending more time than usual online, I stumbled across Bill Moyers' new website posting entitled "A Poet A Day." His daily posts began with: "During these trying days of social distancing, self-isolating and quarantines, days rife with fear and anxiety, my colleagues and I thought you might like some company. So each day we will be introducing you to poets we have met over the years. The only contagion they will expose you to is a measure of joy, reflection and meditation brought on by "the best words in the best order." Enjoy. - Bill Moyers." I was hooked! Admittedly never a huge poem person, I was comforted and inspired by these writings. And then the proverbial "light-bulb" turned on in my head. It just seemed like the right time and opportunity, since I'd be confined at home for an unknown length of time, to compose music using these poems as lyrics for vocalists, something I'd never done. And here we are! All of the poems on this recording were chosen during those first few months in the spring of 2020, and I'm excited to finally present them to you. It has been quite a journey, beginning with choosing poems that would express not only my feelings during that time, but what we were all experiencing socially, politically and emotionally. I wanted to pick poems that I thought I could work with musically, that would inspire me. I wanted to compose music that would do justice to what the poets were communicating, and feature the right vocalists and soloists to amplify, express and represent those ideas. Of course, it was impossible to know at that time if the music and concept would remain relevant by the time the recording would come out... but, for good and for ill, the messages of these poems remain as current and unresolved today as when they were written. -Jamie Baum