1. Jungle Tango- This came about through examining similarities in rhythms and syncopations between jungle music and the tango and of course is another tipping of the hat to one of my musical heroes, Astor Piazzolla. The title track is the only song on the CD that has Gil Goldstein doubling on piano and accordion making the band sound even larger. This piece made sense as the title track because it spells out pretty clearly the effort to combine more traditional approaches to song structure and our interest in trying to improvise in a modern context.

2. Freddie- Pieces 2, 4, 8 and 9 are all part of a 25 minute long jam that happened on our first night of recording which was just Ari, Danton and myself. Later Chris Lovejoy overdubbed some percussion very minimally. The jam unequivocally summed up the whole attempt of trying to catch our unique approach to improvising and remained the most talked about music of the whole session. There were many debates about the idea of just putting the unedited 25 minutes of music on the CD. But after a lot consideration that scenario seemed more like eating a whole cow without any vegetables or bread. We opted to edit it down to the four most concise moments and sprinkle them through the other songs so that every one would get a well-balanced meal from us. Sorry to our hard core fans who like just the raw meat. By the way, within the four pieces there is no editing. It’s exactly the way we improvised apart from the addition of the percussion later.

3. At the Pershing- This piece was inspired by Ahmad Jamal’s famous record “But Not For Me, At the Pershing”(1958) and in particular the classic hit of its time “Poinciana”. I was so blown away by the piece, its rhythm and how it swung so hard that I wanted to do something similar so we could try to incorporate that great feeling into our own music. The highlight of the song for me is the crystalline perfect piano solo by Gil Goldstein. His thoughtful playing really brought the Jamal concept together. The middle section is a jam that we always look forward to, over a hemiola like vamp that allows us to morph and go different places every night.

4. Ipanema’s Sister- This gritty improvisation’s rhythm at times reminds me of the sappy bossa nova tune “The Girl from Ipanema”. Of course, if the girl from Ipanema was so pretty maybe her sister turned out a little different.

5. Oh Yeah- Perhaps our most requested tune at shows, this piece marks possibly the simplest song in the JMP repertoire. Danton and I wrote it within the first hour that we ever played together, in his apartment. Later while rehearsing for Danton’s first tour with JMP we used it as the way to end rehearsals at the end of the night. It always felt like such a relief to hear that signature bass line. One night when we got to that point and Danton started playing it, Jon Fishman just said, “Oh Yeah” with a sigh and then we knew the name of the new song.

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6. Proust- This piece was written only days before the recording session while I was developing a technique of tremeloing the bass string while occasionally hitting melody chords on top of it in the hope of sounding like two mandolins instead of one. What does all this have to do with Proust? The piece has such an epic feel to it and Proust's masterpiece (translated as “Remembrance of Things Past” or “In Search of Lost Time”) is a 3000 page long reflection on ones life.

7. Reich’s Boogie- Having a reminiscent sound of a Herbie Hancock Cantaloupe Island, this piece soon morphed into a interchange between myself and Gil Goldstein that reminded me of the minimalist composer Steve Reich’s style of overlapping lines and changing them slightly over their course to gradually reach new places. So it’s his boogie.

8. Pointillism- This is the exact beginning of a 25 minute long improvisation that makes up a good portion of this CD. The second part is “Ipanema’s Sister”, then “Freddie” and lastly, “There’s a Pipe in the Cellar”. Generally they don’t run right into each other, usually there were transitional areas in between them that were edited out but you can play them in order to get a sense of the whole. Pointillism was a type of French painting similar to impressionism that was based on the application of paint applied in small dots that blend together when seen from a distance.

9. There’s a Pipe in the Cellar- This is certainly the darkest thing JMP has ever put on a record and is also a favorite of a lot of fans that got an early listen to this collection. In fact, many wanted it to be the first tune and the title of the album but I figured I was already considered such a freak in the mandolin world that we better tuck in toward the back just like Spot in the Munsters was relegated to the cellar. About 20 seconds into the piece I’m playing a harmonic that through my effects sounded to me like the image of a lunatic trapped in a basement banging metal pipes together, thus the title.

10. Ode to Dark Eyes- We had intended to record the traditional Russian folk song “Dark Eyes” for the record. The group played take after take of it but never reached that place I was trying to get to. Finally everyone was worn out with it and the band went out into the continuous blizzard for the daily sled races down the steep driveway. Gil and I stayed behind and finally got the simple concept I was hoping for. It being the last tune on the record, John Siket (the engineer) and I decided to create the illusion that the tape ran out on the reel to finish the CD. Of course, you know that in reality, if the tape ran out you wouldn’t hear anything,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, but we tricked you!