The Blues is one of the most important gifts that America has given to the world. Its poetry and music are at the basis of African American expression. Bleue is a 15-minute celebration of this important musical form and stylistic practice. The architecture of the piece is based on the Blues poetic structure, (AAB) a stanza consisting of three phrases. The first two movements, Bleue I, and Bim., reflect on a problem or situation needing resolution similar to the first two phrases of a blues. The last phrase of a Blues stanza provides an unexpected resolution often utilizing wit in order to solve the problem. Similar to the 3rd Blues stanza, I.A.E.B.C., an acronym for “I ain’t even be carin’ “, provides a personal resolution to life’s stresses. This phrase, commonly used in African American vernacular, does not exactly mean, “I don’t care”. Normally after someone lists all their seemingly insurmountable personal problems, “I ain’t even be carin’” is voiced as a way to enact immediate relief to one’s stress. The problems may be unsolved, but one’s personal sanity is maintained.
Work began on Bleue near the end of a two-year stay in Paris. While living there, I fell in love with three paintings by Joan Miro, Bleu I, II, and III. The vibrant blue backgrounds used for these works and their interesting textural interplay with minimal foreground material impressed me deeply. The textures in Bleue are sonic explorations of Miro’s interplay because the background material is actually more active and vibrant than the melodic foreground material it supports. The complex harmonic structure of metallic percussion instruments, Steel Drum, Vibraphone, Tam Tam, and Cymbals coupled with brass instruments offer a palette of timbres necessary to realize Bleue’s important textures. Aware of the fact that my composition would not be completed until I returned to the United States, I decided on a title that starts with the French word for blue and ends in English (ble(u)e). The first movement takes its name from this series of paintings, Bleue I.
The second movement, Bim, is an abbreviation of the word Bimshire, an old name for the island of Barbados. In the summer of 1996, I visited my family in Barbados and witnessed an awe-inspiring scene one night at the beach. Through a partly cloudy sky, a beam of moonlight illuminated a small spot in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. The sounds of night insects and birds flying around the beam of light completed this powerful scene depicted in Bim.
I.A.E.B.C., uses a “Blues progression” of my own creation. The three basic chords in a Blues are the tonic, home chord, and two related chords, subdominant and dominant, and are used to support the AAB poetic form of the Blues. The chords in this movement are organized into three similar categories and cycle through the piece culminating in a strong rhythmic statement near the end. The grounded, resolved nature of the last movement completes the abstract representation of the Blues presented in Bleue.