[See the EPK video on the Facebook page,
JazzHQ] In the three years since the release of his debut recording
Vagabond,
vocalist-songwriter-pianist Spencer Day has spent some time in the
uncomfortable places where light and clarity disappear into the
mysteries of uncertainty. He survived the journey, and he’s come back
with a story to tell and a wiser perspective about himself and the
world. That story – rooted in his own experience, yet filled with
revelations and truths that are universal to any human being who has
ever put his or her heart at risk – is captured in the 13 tracks of
The Mystery of You, his new album set for release March 12, 2013 on Concord Records.
Filled with stylistic nuances that range from smoky noir to Latin jazz to surf guitar to Middle Eastern and Asian melodies,
The Mystery of You tracks
the sometimes exhilarating, sometimes harrowing arc of a romantic
relationship from passionate beginning to painful demise to enlightened
aftermath. More than just a survivor’s tale, the album is Day’s
affirmation to anyone within the sound of his voice that navigating the
human experience is an ongoing balancing act.
“It’s been one of the hardest things I’ve ever dealt with in my adult
life, but it’s also been a huge opportunity for growth,” Day says of the
ill-fated relationship and the music that emerged from it. “Each of
these songs represents a different phase in that growth process. Along
the way, I really started trying to understand my own psychology.”
Self-exploration is nothing new to Day, who recalls a troubled
childhood in a conservative town in Utah, and a volatile home life
resulting from his parents’ troubled marriage. His primary means of
escape were music and movies. He grew up listening to a wide
cross-section of composers, including Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Joni
Mitchell, John Lennon and Paul Simon. And the classic MGM musicals in
the local theater – the only options available in his G-rated hometown –
eventually left their mark on his creative sensibilities.
He didn’t start performing in public until age 21, mostly singing
standards in piano bars and retirement homes. “I was probably three or
four years into that when I realized that that wasn’t totally satisfying
to me,” he recalls. “I realized that I needed to write as well.” That’s
when things got into high gear.
His 2004 debut album,
Introducing Spencer Day, was primarily a collection of standards, but the title track from
Movie of Your Life,
released the following year, won the San Francisco Academy of Art
University’s 2005 competition for best original song. The resulting
video was selected by Dolby Laboratories as a demonstration video for
the global launch of the Dolby 7.1 system.
Day performed at the 2007 San Francisco Jazz Festival, and has been a
recurring headliner in a number of high-profile Bay Area clubs,
including Yoshi’s, the Plush Room, the Great American Music Hall and the
Herbst Theatre. On the opposite coast, he has earned raves for
performances at the Town Hall, Joe’s Pub and the Canal Room in New York
City , and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. He has also appeared at
both the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival.
Vagabond, released in 2009, was a musical hybrid that drew
from the Great American Songbook, but also maintained an alternate
aesthetic that sidestepped easy categorization by borrowing from
influences like Burt Bacharach, Roy Orbison and Dusty Springfield.
But while
The Mystery of You also draws from a
range of sources, the result is a much more personal tale. The story
opens with the noir-ish title track. Filled with the unlikely
combination of James Bond guitar riffs, Middle Eastern strings and
Motown drum fills, the track explores the intrigue that comes with the
early stages of getting to know someone. “The goal was to constantly
surprise the listener’s ear with new sounds,” says Day. “And at the same
time, it’s this classic torch song that talks about love like a crime
scene.”
The minimally produced “Love and War” is an acknowledgment of
vulnerability. “This is the moment when you realize that you may already
be in too deep, and there’s a very real potential to be hurt,” says
Day. “This track comes after three uptempo, fully-produced tracks, so
given the subject matter, it seemed like the right moment to bring the
production down a little bit.”
Further into the set, the symphonic “Soul on Fire” chronicles the
head-over-heels tumble that takes place at the early stage of every
relationship. “This was a chance to write in this unapologetically
dramatic way, with a string arrangement and a great ‘60s nuance,” he
says. “The strings ultimately build to a frenzy and capture the passion
that’s so common early on.”
In the quiet and poignant “I Don’t Want To Know,” vocalist Gaby Moreno
makes one of several appearances on the record to share the lyrics with
Day. “This represents the turning point in the relationship, the moment
when you realize that the end is actually here but you just don’t want
to acknowledge it,” says Day. “There’s a jazz piano solo in the outro,
along with an electronic drum loop. The goal was to create a slow and
steady build, something that would enable the track to gain momentum as
it sails into the distance.”
“The Answer” pays homage to Roy Orbison, a longtime favorite of Day’s –
and perhaps the most gifted writer of heartache songs in the last six
decades of pop music. “That’s basically the moment when you’ve packed
everything in your car and you’re driving away, hoping that someday the
reasons why it all came to an end will be clear.”
And somehow they are, eventually. “Somewhere on the Other Side” is
built on the hope that if you can get through the hard part, things do
get better. “I wrote that in the depths of despair,” says Day. “It’s
almost like an early American Quaker spiritual. I was just trying to
remind myself that if I could make it through this, there would be a
sacred place that I could get to on the other side.”
He finds that place in “I’m Going Home,” which Day refers to as a song
about gratitude. “It’s about returning home – not necessarily a physical
place, but more a matter of redeveloping a relationship with yourself.
This was an opportunity to combine an electric piano with an acoustic
piano solo I recorded in L.A. It really works in this minimalist Brian
Eno kind of way. There are some strange but interesting textures that
pop up and catch your ears.”
In the end, Day sees
The Mystery of You as an
effort to chronicle a relationship in much the same way as an abstract
painting would. “It’s going to be a different experience for everyone,
and different tracks will resonate differently with each listener,” he
says. “But I think the goal is to let people find themselves somewhere
within the music, and find something in common with the experiences that
inspired the writing of the music. I think the goal of any artist
should be to take a situation that’s personal and draw out those things
that are universal.”
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