My Picks: Manna – Glenn Alexander / Marc Puricelli

This track is from a CD that, unfortunately,  was never released.   It was a duo project – called Manna – with the incredible pianist/composer Marc Puricelli.

Marc and I have played together for years and he had some really cool drum grooves from Scott and Robbie Hardkiss.  We decided to go into the studio and completely improvise to each drum groove. There was no music and no discussions. The only thing that we decided was that with each drum groove we should play in a different key.  So, this music is completely free and improvised, but every track turned out beautifully.

Marc’s creativity and amazing ear made it easy for us to navigate through trading ideas, melodies, doubling sometimes, changing feels – seemingly all with complete ease.  Marc simultaneously played acoustic piano and electric keyboard and I set up an array of guitars and effects.  When we listened back, we were frankly blown away with the results — the melodies, chord changes, forms, everything.  I did later add bass to a couple of tracks to beef up what we had already played and a rhythm guitar part here and there to accentuate what we had improvised.

I regret that this never was released, but, maybe someday.  I do want to unearth more of these tracks and hope to share them with you going forward.  After the fact we did give the songs titles, but I have unfortunately lost all info from that session.  So, here is track three from the Manna Sessions featuring Marc Puricelli – I encourage you to check out his music.

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