I moved to Buffalo, New York in 2009 and things were such that I had to do some work on an assembly line in Hamburg, NY. I worked on a printing press and the second night I was there; I noticed it made a rhythm and a pitch whenever the worker on that printing press pushed the foot pedal. It was two sixteenth notes, then an eighth note, and followed by a quarter note during inconsistent time signatures. I started writing Jazz Machine then, but didn’t finish it until 2011. Nonetheless, I swore to myself I’d record it one day. Consequently, Sessions Studio (where it was recorded with Chuck Madden as the recording engineer) is on the same street that I drove on my way to get assembly line work and whatever else I could find to survive. It was a very sober moment when I drove up to Sessions Studio to record Jazz Machine in January of 2011. Micheal McNeill plays piano, Russ Algera plays drums, and Dave Arenius plays bass. In short, Micheal McNeill’s jazz trio. As Joseph Campbell said, “Follow your bliss.” May this inspire you to do just that.
