Tryptophan Daze

Tryptophan Daze

11/23/00

Everytime Thanksgiving rolls around, I dust this tune off. I wrote it on Thanksgiving day in the year 2000. It’s hard to believe it just turned 21! It’s old enough to drink now! I must admit, I think this is one of my more well crafted tunes. It shows the influence of Kenny Wheeler’s compositions and makes explicit use of some of his favorite devices (modal interchange, the return of a section in a different key, etc.). I’ve been sitting on this tune, waiting for the right context for a studio recording, but I have played it live on a number of occasions. A few that stand out for me are with Gilbert Castellanos’ quartet at Dizzy’s in San Diego while it was still fairly new in December of 2000 and also at my second Guitar Night at Spazio in 2007.