I cannot say for certain what drew me, so late in my career, to the realms of jazz, and emboldened me to write these three pieces. Probably it was that incessant curiosity that enlivens the existence of the musician, and that is accountable for the diversity of styles - impressive or annoying - that accosts the visitor to this site. It also may have had something to do with the desire for an untamed joy - a joy the classical musician might find irresponsible, and the avant-garde composer naive.

So be it. Our recording session was filled with smiles (despite my rhythmic struggles) and in the aftermath my heart feels washed clean. I don't know enough to say for sure that this is actually good jazz, or even really jazz at all. Perhaps these little pieces are but mirages of jazz. No matter: the homeland of the musician is always some imaginary place - or places, as Sue heard things, when I asked her to listen with her heart, and she saw, in the first piece, waves of blue and silver, in the second, swaths of orange and maroon, and in the third, red and gold all over.

That second piece, The Rose of Memory, takes it opening theme and character from a piano work I wrote many years ago, inspired by the harmonies of my mentor, Robert Starer; I see myself as groping, back then, toward the apprehension of some unnameable object whose essence, though it still eludes me, I approach more nearly each year, even as I seek, over time, to become more compassionate, less of a burden to the world. Thus do we stumble toward goodness and toward bliss.