Song for My Father

Horace Silver's tune provides a generational echo that is compelling. On this cut, my son Ari is playing his fretless Fender Jazz Bass. The impetus for this tune is, of course, a story. The day before I left for a conference in Den Haag, I got an email from David Thornburg telling his friends that his father had just passed. While very sad, there was also a celebratory side in terms of what David carried with him, how much of what he was today could be traced to the ever present influence of his father's positivity. That night, jet-lagged, I couldn't sleep, and fingered the notes of Sakura, along with a Peruvian folk song, which seemed to fit with Song for My Father.

The next day, I did my presentation in a hall for 800, at which 20 people showed up. At the end, I asked the audience's indulgence and said that I had a song I wanted to play for my friend David, and performed the piece as it had come to me in bed a few hours before. When I returned home, my son had a piano lesson and I asked his teacher if we could cut the lesson short and record a tune. We did the song, and I converted it to a .wav file and emailed it to David that evening.

Soon, David was using this story as an example of how the Internet need not be dismissed as an impersonal medium, during his global presentations. At one of these, a woman walked up to him afterwards saying "we've never met, but I feel I know you. I was in Den Haag when Ferdi first played that piece."

The echoes around this piece continue to resonate, in hearts around the world.