MandoBasso has two albums available on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, and most streaming services (free links to the music on HearNow are just below the album art). Our first album (MandoBasso) was recorded in studio in 2010. MandoBasso: Porch Music was recorded in summer 2020 on the porch of Gunnar’s home (due to pandemic social distancing protocols…safety first!). There is an immediacy to recording outside on the porch that you don’t have in the studio; while listening, keep your ears open for hummingbirds chittering, neighbor kids shouting, and even sirens wailing (just as we got into the darkest section of the Mahler improvisation, reflecting the intensity of all our lives in the summer of 2020). Both recordings are mostly originals with a smattering of other music. Click the album covers below to listen to the music at HearNow and, if you’d like to support us, you can buy them on the streaming services. For those of you who are digital listeners only we provide the album liner notes below.
MandoBasso
(LINER NOTES)
B’veld Bounce (Bradbury) – A bouncy piece composed during a visit Bill made to his childhood home near Barneveld, NY.
Autumn Meditation (Bradbury) – A quiet meditation written as the days grew shorter and the nights colder…
The Solstice Jig (Bradbury) – Written after a late night jam around the time of the Winter Solstice.
Love is a Killing Thing (Traditional) – An improvisation on a traditional Irish song of the same name, telling a tale of unrequited love.
Hope Springs Eternal/The Favorite Grandson (Bradbury) – The opening/ending slow piece is dedicated to Bill’s mother, Hope, and the faster middle piece is dedicated to her “favorite grandson,” Bill’s son Chase. Played on octave mandolin.
Zanesville Breakdown (Biggs) – Zanesville is Gunnar’s birthtown in southern Ohio.
Captain O’Kane (O’Carolan) – A lovely piece written by the 18th Century Irish harper, Turlough O’Carolan, here given the MandoBasso treatment …
Big Salt Creek (Biggs) – Big Salt Creek is one of two creeks bordering Gunnar’s father’s childhood farm in southern Ohio.
Hands Free G (Biggs) – A little loop action in G minor.
Buttermilk Falls (Bradbury) – Buttermilk Falls is the beautiful park in Ithaca, NY where Bill married his soul mate. Dedicated with love to Dana.
Refrigerator Magnets (Bradbury) – A fun little piece dedicated to MandoBasso’s canine buddies, A.J., Koshi, Steve and M.O.
Augmented Waltz (Bradbury) – This is an odd waltz meandering through three distant keys (G, B, Eb, an augmented triad). I imagined it to have been discovered on an old 78 found in the attic of a mid-Western farmhouse (hence the scratchy record sound and skips). 🙂
MandoBasso: Porch Music
(LINER NOTES)
Stone Soup (Bradbury) – I wrote this tune for a small music festival organized by dear friends in upstate New York. “Stone Soup” is a European folk tale in which a stranger comes to a town in the midst of famine and convinces the villagers that his magic stone placed in a pot of boiling water will create a delicious soup… if only there were a few more ingredients. One by one the townspeople contribute some of their limited scraps of food to make a delicious soup that they all share. The “magic” was the power of working together to overcome hard times…
Brown Dog, Green Water (Biggs) – Bonnie and I adopted a Catahoula Leopard Hound, Koshi, a Hurricane Katrina survivor. Throughout her life as a therapy dog and magical companion, she was always drawn to the depth and mystery of bodies of water green with life.
Mr. Hanford (Bradbury) – Written in Hanford, CA while visiting my in-laws. My father-in-law was an amateur actor who loved to dress as James Madison Hanford, the town’s namesake, and tell tourists all about the history of the town. This tune embodies the jaunty spirit of his performances.
Wish (Bradbury) – The only piece on the album that was not recorded on the porch, recorded 10 years ago just after our first album. The title was originally “I Wish That I Were Young Again,” a song I wrote for an imagined musical theatre scene of an old man sitting on the porch watching his grandchildren playing. The truncated title seemed to make the piece more open to addressing all kinds of wishes…
Choro for Shadow (John Reischman) – This wonderful composition is by mandolin master John Reischman. Choro is a Brazilian music genre, and the tune was dedicated to John’s cat, Shadow. Many thanks to John for permission to include this piece on the album.
B Muse (Biggs) – For Bonnie. She has always been a source of inspiration and love. This is a meditation and celebration of her place in my art and my life.
Canonic Sonata # 2 (Georg Phillip Telemann) – We have been playing this sonata and thought it would be fun to include the third movement on the album. The piece is a canon with mandolin starting and the bass following with the same music a bar later. Fun to play!
Mahler (improvisation on a theme by Gustav Mahler) – One of the most (in)famous bass solos in symphonic literature from Mahler’s 1st symphony; we thought we would lean into the Klezmer tradition a bit. The Klezmer sound is a widely celebrated effect in Gustav Mahler’s music.
Sardinia (Bradbury) – This piece came to me in a dream the night after spending the day with a cousin who had been living on the island of Sardinia. In the dream I strolled through a quaint Sardinian village humming this tune.
Bill’s Blues (Bradbury) – I thought I’d take a stab at writing a 12-bar blues, one of the most prevalent forms in American music. With gratitude for all the great blues musicians…