PIANO IMPROVISATIONS, VOL. 2
DECEMBER 2019
Cover art by Justin Bailie
PIANO IMPROVISATIONS, VOL. 1
MARCH 2019
Stream the album:
SPOTIFY
APPLE MUSIC
GOOGLE PLAY MUSIC
AMAZON MUSIC
TIDAL
YOUTUBE (OFFICIAL PLAYLIST)
YOUTUBE (FULL ALBUM IN ONE VIDEO)
SOUNDCLOUD (OFFICIAL PLAYLIST)
Purchase the album:
BANDCAMP (best for me!)
CDBABY (also great!)
ITUNES STORE
GOOGLE PLAY MUSIC
AMAZON
Inspired by the classic piano improvisation albums by Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea, in late 2018 pianist Jeremy Hatch decided to start a Patreon where he releases three to four piano improvisations every month. He has collected the pieces released during the first several months of the Patreon to make Piano Improvisations, Vol. 1 (out March 1st, 2019). The title is an homage to the classic Corea album of the same name, but it’s also a promise of more volumes to come.
Jeremy recently relocated from the heart of Oakland, California to a suburban part of Portland, Oregon, and the dramatic change of scene and weather was a surprisingly big factor in the creation of these pieces. “The first track on the album is called ‘Rainy Day,’ and the mood of that track, the contemplative quality of a quiet rainy afternoon in a quiet part of the world, runs through all these pieces,” he says. “There is a lot of music inspired by nature on the album too. Since we moved here, my wife and I have spent a lot of time hiking on the trails near our new home and out in the Columbia River Gorge, and a number of these pieces, like ‘Yellow Leaves’ and ‘Waterfall Trail,’ were inspired by the sights and sounds of those weekends.”
The weekly challenge was really inspiring even though the initial audience for these pieces consisted of just a couple very close friends and relatives, and the amount of money involved was very small. “It amounts to less than a dinner out,” he says. “But just having a few dollars involved changed it into something more serious for me — I suddenly felt that I was on the hook to produce on the schedule I’d set, so I started making it happen week after week. The entire existence of this album is due to the support of my two first Patreon supporters.”
PIANO IMPROVISATIONS ON PATREON
NOVEMBER 2018
(Photo by George Becker on Pexels)
I have started a project on Patreon where I produce at least three piano improvisations per month for my patrons, who get exclusive early access to the music for at least one month via a secret podcast link and downloads of the audio as high-quality mp3s and ALAC files. Check out the recordings that I’ve made public, and if you’d like to support the creation of this music, your monthly pledge would be accepted with great gratitude. Check it out here.
SEND ME WORD WHEN YOU GET BACK
FEBRUARY 2018
The Dark Music of Dreams
Send Me Word When You Get Back is a concept album built around ten dreams: each instrumental and song on the album were inspired by particular dreams that Jeremy awoke from and recorded over the years and turned into prose poems and lyrics. A classically-trained pianist, guitarist and composer who later devoted himself to folk and rock music, Jeremy has combined on this album the rigorous compositional approach of classical music with the direct appeal of folk songs and the hard-driving intensity of rock.
Jeremy wrote and recorded the album after a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2016, which funded the equipment, software and time necessary to complete the project. He performed all the parts himself, working mostly out of his own home studio in Oakland and a friend’s studio in nearby Martinez. The album’s music is dark and rich, and the songs deal with themes of love, loss, and longing.