Heya Xar. I'll respond here although we've already covered some of this by email.
I write, when I can, because:
a) If I didn't write I would be playing other peoples' music exclusively;
b) It brings me into contact with other people who are interested in writing and playing so-called "original" music (although I never use that word to describe my songs);
c) I learn when I do it; and
d) Some of the songs turn out to be worth playing, which is pretty cool.
A long time ago I decided not to wait until I was "as good a writer as" Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock,
Steve Grover or my other writing hereoes. I just plug ahead.
My big project to date was a suite of nine jazz songs drawn from Kahlil Gibran's book
The Prophet. The first song was written in 1994 and the last one came this summer. Some of the songs are found on that ode to unbridled ego, my (cough)
website. I worry sometimes that me and Don Zeb are the only people in the entire world who dearly love melodic modern jazz
and 20th century Arab-English mystic poetry. Ultimately, though, I dug Gibran's book so much that it is lots less important whether other people do.
The suite is done now and I'm working (at my typical glacial pace) on other stuff, with no particular theme beyond "modern jazz." I hope to write more stuff with lyrics -- Chris Humphrey, who sang the Gibran stuff, is a gas to work with and the whole notion of "hey, lyrics!" led to some interesting, unforeseen, positive musical places.
