Courtesy of Benjamin Kaplan
Benjamin Kaplan, a St. Louis–based recording artist who has also operated under the name The Vaad, has just released a five-track suite of piano music on Bandcamp. Called The Falcon in Prussian Blue, the mini album’s the first salvo in what this musician expects to be a busy 2019.
“I don’t work particularly quickly,” he says. “I started composing during the summer of 2016, noodling with melodies and rhythms. Like most of my work, I would write a bit, then set it aside, then come back to it with fresh ears. It took a little over 18 months to complete.”
On Kaplan’s Bandcamp page for the release, he sketches out the backstory:
In the early 1950s Judith Sklar, aged 10, performed Clementi's Sonatina No. 3, Op 36 on the University of Michigan's public radio show, 'Young Artists of the Week.' She was the youngest performer to appear on the show and at that point, had only been playing for three years. Sklar pursued music well into her collegiate career but gave up the dream of being a professional pianist to pursue teaching. Many years later she would give birth to a boy named Benjamin who would function as her page-turner, sheet music disorganizer, and plinker of plaintive melodies while procrastinating math homework. The air of Bach floating through the family home settled upon him and inspired this suite, ‘The Falcon in Prussian Blue.'
Beyond these words, we had a few questions to share with Kaplan, who was kind enough to respond with answers as thoughtful as his music.
Nerd stuff first. You recorded this where and with whom and on what type of equipment?
I recorded this in my home studio, overlooking Tower Grove Park, using a MIDI controller, the soft synth program Reason and a laptop. Completely solo. I have been on the minimal kick with gear of late and so if it can’t fit into a backpack, it doesn’t make the cut. I considered charting it out and engaging a real pianist to perform it, but I liked the sound and feel of the demo, so it became the recording. It is no secret that I am not really a piano player in the traditional sense… traditional meaning that I can actually play the instrument. LOL. But technology has enabled me to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming Bill Evans.
That neat little bio on the Bandcamp page... all true?
Absolutely. My mom was a huge influence. Growing up listening to her play Bach and Chopin in the living room and hearing her records by Thelonious Monk and Ahmad Jamal and Bobby Timmons were foundational. She was a concert pianist in her youth. She went to music school but then decided to become a teacher. She played off and on when we were young. I had this idea a couple of years ago—in an effort to inspire her back to the piano—to write a bunch of tunes for her to play and ultimately record. A nice family affair. But she is very shy about playing anymore, so it became more of an homage to her and her influence on me. Here is the recording.
Did you have any thoughts about adding instruments here, at any point in the creation? Or was this always intended as a spare, piano-driven project?
I have been making and playing really dense, noisy music for the last couple of years and so this piece is definitely meant to be spare and spacious. You know how you hear or experience something but don’t necessarily register it as important until much later in your life?
This happens to me all the time. There were times in grade school when avoiding homework, I would plink out little piano pieces in the living room. But I didn’t know how to play piano, so they were these little atonal sketches. But it wasn’t rock music, so I didn’t take it all that seriously. I was a guitar player, the piano was my sister’s dominion.
Fast-forward to college. There was a point where I would go to Tower Records once a week and purchase something that I would never typically listen to. One week it was Maria Callas, another it was Beausoleil, another it was Babatunde Olatunji. One week I bought a collection of solo piano pieces written by Aaron Copland. The recording was truly staggering in its minimalism, and I would just lose track of time and space listening to it. And then, about 15 years ago, I start messing around with MIDI, and my adult artist brain connects the experience as a kid in the living room with the experience as a college student at Tower records and forms this collection. Boom, just like that.
This might seem like a goofy question, but how do you decide when an album like this is done? Five tracks was what spoke to you and that was it? Or were some sketches left to the side as you created this?
Good question. It’s just a feeling. I want to get lost in something, but not too lost. I was going for a particular vibe, like if The Köln Concert and Rach 3 had a baby and Bill Evans and Gonzalo Rubalcaba were the nannies. And so that set the criteria.
Natural segue to the question of what's next? You hint at a variety of recordings coming out this year. Can you give a snapshot of those?
I reached this point in my life where, while I am really interested in modern music (I have 11- and 8-year-old daughters so you know that I can name you almost every artist played on 107.7 FM), I also see the wealth of music behind me that is so rich and inspiring. For a number of years, I have been taking a stroll through Romanticism and have been working on a string quartet. It is a series of brooding bagatelles, and it is done and charted. The next step is to workshop it with an ensemble and record. I am hoping to pull that off this spring. I also am finishing up a record with the free jazz/collective improv group I formed with saxophonist Rick Deja, drummer Danny Hommes, and guitarist John Horton called Hasty Drinks the Tiger’s Heart. I play laptop. The record is a sprawling, very singular composition, very much inspired by In a Silent Way. I hope that it will be mixed and completed by the fall.
