Soundscapes based on field recordings of the Mendocino County coast in northern California. Half of the proceeds are donated to the Noyo Center for Marine Science www.noyocenter.org.

Download (benefit)

Coastscapes — first set

Solo Piano

Ambient soundscapes based on field recordings of the Mendocino County coast in northern California.

These tracks and another in process will be combined with those in "Coastscapes - first set" to make a physical and digital CD, which should be released sometime in 2019. You can listen to "Coastscapes - first set" here: soundcloud.com/johngilmorejazz/sets/coastscapes

Half of the proceeds from the complete album will be donated to the Noyo Center for Marine Science — www.noyocenter.org — just as proceeds are now being donated from downloads of the first set.

Coastscapes - second set

Just as colors when mixed can take the form of gradation, passing from one color to another, adding in transparency and thus creating intermediate colors, our individual colors have been mixed in these musical pieces.

Despite the distance in time and space from California to Spain and the process of working through revisions, our music ultimately sounds and feels to us as though we had made it together in a single take at the same time in the same place. That feeling tells us when a piece is ready.

Victor observed that, "Writing about music is always something very subjective and sometimes absurd because each person will feel something different when listening to the same piece. But I tell my feelings, the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, my place of games, the oasis where I was born and live, the art of ancient cultures, the mysteries, the world of my dreams." 

Our hope is that this music immerses listeners in a still place that seems apart from everyday reality. Yet we are already and always there, where we have many possibilities to feel what we really want and need, quietly observing without becoming entangled. Of course, it cannot be a purely idyllic journey to this spot, for danger and threat hover as always in this life.

Victor's music is here here on Bandcamp: 
victoryibril.bandcamp.com
and here on SoundCloud:
soundcloud.com/victoryibril

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John Gilmore & VictorYibril - Gradient Colors

John Gilmore passed away on April 20, 2020. Presented here are some of his unreleased recordings.

Dolphin Dance and Untitled Original were recorded on December 5, 1977 at the Caspar Inn in Caspar, California with John on Fender Rhodes and Kiyoshi Tokunaga on bass. The rest are solo piano recorded at Preston Hall in Mendocino on July 18, 2011.

All tracks are originals except for Dolphin Dance (Herbie Hancock) and Stella By Starlight (Victor Young).

Stella By Starlight

Untitled Original

Postscript (Titles)

Lattices

If My Complaints

Dolphin Dance

Based on recording in Noyo Harbor, Fort Bragg, CA

John Gilmore - Noyo Jetty

Complete album includes standards and pieces by jazz masters. CD of complete album available at http://johngilmore.bandcamp.com and http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/johngilmore1

Complete album and individual tracks available for download from iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/au-naturel-solo-piano/id1068313844 
Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019EAMIU6?ie=UTF8&keywords=john%20gilmore&qid=1452849315&ref_=sr_
Google Play at https://play.google.com/store/music/album/John_Gilmore_Au_Naturel_Solo_Piano?id=B6ulpy4hcnbjjkwrufgj2bucwmi
and from cdbaby.

Digital album (EP) of originals only, including this piece, available for download from Bandcamp at https://johngilmore.bandcamp.com/album/au-naturel-solo-piano

Fellow composers: slices of this track are available for your collaborations and remixes at https://johngilmore.bandcamp.com/album/sliced-prelude-for-collabs-remixes

John Gilmore - Prelude to the Rain

EP of originals, including this piece, available for download from www.johngilmore.bandcamp.com.

Buy on Bandcamp

John Gilmore - Prelude to the Rain - ambient mix

Featuring the mighty Chorus of Amphibia of the Albion Nation, aka frogs in this pond at the Ledford House — http://www.ledfordhouse.com — on the Pacific. May these sights and sounds encourage patience with next January's frost in the hope that this will all return.

John Gilmore - Springsprung Singsong

Locals and visitors can experience the inspiration for this piece any time. Walk the south branch of the Fort Bragg Coastal Trail to the pictured Mexico-Oregon mileage marker. There an eastbound footpath soon ends in a cul-de-sac with a bench where you can take in the quietly magnificent concert with the ocean less prominent and marsh wrens probably not chirping right in your ear. To hear a version more like this recording, plunge through the brush closer to the sea, though you won't find a comfy bench and the wrens likely won't approach you as closely as they did my unattended recorder.

https://noyocenter.org/trails-parks/coastal-trail/

John Gilmore - Abiding Point

John Dowland was a contemporary of Shakespeare. Here his original arrangement for lute and voice alternates and mingles with this John's touches 400 years later. Drawn to this song since hearing Alfred Deller’s recording as a teen, I'm grateful to the Mendocino Music Festival for letting me scratch this and other old itches in its 2011 Village Concert series.

If My Complaint Could Passions Move

John Gilmore - If my complaints could passions move (c. John Dowland)

Field recording outside Three Jewels Dhamma Hall — www.threejewelsfortbragg.org — during indoor meditation one fine Sunday morning. Approximately two miles inland from the Pudding Creek trestle bridge and Pacific Ocean, Fort Bragg, CA.

Loren Gilmore, alto saxophone — https://soundcloud.com/loren-gilmore
Thanks for making this special and love always.

Three Jewels Morning

John & Loren Gilmore - Three Jewels Morning

Composed for the album "We Are Invisible Now, Volume 3," released December 30, 2016. weareinvisiblenow.bandcamp.com/album/we-are-invisible-now-volume-3

©2016 John Gilmore. All rights reserved.

One of the field recordings, in our yard, accidentally and thankfully captured wife Nina in spontaneous song to the day.

Etch-A Sketch drawing by Kaley Vander Kodde.

We Are Invisible Now, Volume 3

Into Light

Free Album Download

John Gilmore - Into Light - from album "We Are Invisible Now, Vol. 3"

From cd "Au Naturel - Solo Piano"

Image is " NY Parlor, 1850-70, c. 1940," one of the  Thorne Miniature Rooms in the Art Institute of Chicago http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/thorne

John Gilmore - Notion

Humpback whales are mostly silent summer residents of the ocean off Fort Bragg, CA, with some venturing to Oregon and Washington. In late fall, when they migrate south to mate and calve, the males begin to sing, some continuing through their return in the spring.

Lone males perform the songs, more frequently at night, when a chorus with two or three separated vocalists can result. Bioacoustician Jeff Jacobsen describes this as, "a collaborative acoustic beacon to the females migrating to the island, girls the boys then fight over. An acoustic 'lek.'"

The songs change over time, so the current version differs from this performance. Jeff explains that, "Males gradually change the song during the winter singing season, so that after about five years the song, sung by all males across the entire North Pacific…all the way to Japan is completely different," though still generally the same across this vast expanse. Much remains to be learned about whale vocalizations and how they transform.

This recording made off Mexico is of humpbacks who hail from the Kodiak Islands in Alaska. Thanks to Jeff and the Noyo Center for Marine Science in Fort Bragg for sharing it. The Center has projects underway to reassemble skeletons of both an orca and a blue whale that suffered tragic accidents on the local coast. The Center envisions a large oceanside facility to ultimately house these and other marine exhibits, including sounds of the ocean and its inhabitants.

This track © 2017 John Gilmore, all rights reserved.

Recording of humpbacks in Pacific Ocean at Isla Socorro in 2002 by Jeff K. Jacobsen, used with permission.

Field recordings on land and sea, Noyo Harbor, Fort Bragg, CA, by John Gilmore.

Photograph in Monterey Bay Aquarium by John Gilmore.

The duet with whales beginning around 3:20 was performed with the amazing GeoShred app: http://www.wizdommusic.com/products/geoshred.html

Noyo Center for Marine Science: https://noyocenter.org
Jeff Jacobsen: http://biowaves.net/jeff-jacobsen

All of Us Sharing Dinosaur Water

John Gilmore - All Of Us Sharing Dinosaur Water

Thanks so much to Victor for weaving one of his marvelous tapestries from a couple of my piano licks and then gracing it with one of his beautifully wrought images. I added some field recordings to his stunning work.
Victor's music is here on Soundcloud:
@victoryibril
and here on Bandcamp:
https://victoryibril.bandcamp.com
The piano files in this collaboration plus many more are available to all musicians as a free (name-your -price) download here on Bandcamp:
johngilmore.bandcamp.com/album/sliced…labs-remixes
The original piano improvisation is here:
https://soundcloud.com/johngilmorejazz/prelude-to-the-rain
My ambient remix of it is here:
https://soundcloud.com/johngilmorejazz/prelude-to-the-rain-ambient-mix
Other collaborations based on it are here:
https://soundcloud.com/johngilmorejazz/sets/collaboration

John Gilmore & Victor Yibril - Smooth Riders

John Gilmore & VictorYibril - Smooth Riders

Homage to our magnificent, often fierce, spring winds that sometimes seem determined to sweep all before them — hats, signs, birds, petals, leaves, fences, roofs, trees, and especially electricity.

Field recordings made 2016 and 2017 at three locations on the Pacific Coast of Fort Bragg, CA.

This track © 2017 John Gilmore, all rights reserved.

 Photograph  by Sara Evinger of trees in fog at north end of oceanfront trestle bridge over Pudding Creek just north of Fort Bragg. Used with permission.

John Gilmore - Only The Wind Remained

This piece strictly adheres to the form of classic rags, though interludes of free improvisation arise. Scott Joplin himself, bless his heart, often admonished that ragtime is never to be played too fast. Thanks to the Mendocino Music Festival for letting me perform this piece in its 2011 Village Concert series, as well as in 2009.

© 2011 John Gilmore. All rights reserved.

More piano solos live at:
https://soundcloud.com/johngilmorejazz/sets/solo-piano
and:
https://johngilmore.bandcamp.com/album/au-naturel-solo-piano

John Gilmore - Millennium Rag

Thanks so much from John to Victor for taking a piano improvisation on one of his wondrous journeys into the mysteries and the world of his dreams, as he put it:

"Writing about music is always something very subjective and sometimes absurd because each person will feel something different when listening to the same piece. But I tell my feelings, the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, my place of games, the oasis where I was born and live, the art of ancient cultures, the mysteries, the world of my dreams." 

Thanks also to Victor for creating the rich image that accompanies this music.

Victor's music is here here on Bandcamp: 
victoryibril.bandcamp.com
and here on SoundCloud:
soundcloud.com/victoryibril   

The piano portions of this collaboration are excerpts from "Millennium Rag," composed and performed by John Gilmore.
© 2011 John Gilmore. All rights reserved.
soundcloud.com/johngilmorejazz/john-gilmore-millenium-rag

More of John's piano pieces are here on Bandcamp:
https://johngilmore.bandcamp.com/album/au-naturel-solo-piano
and here on SoundCloud:
soundcloud.com/johngilmorejazz/sets/solo-piano

More many more piano files are available to all musicians for collaboration as a free (name-your -price) download here on Bandcamp:
johngilmore.bandcamp.com/album/sliced…labs-remixes

Other collaborations are here:
soundcloud.com/johngilmorejazz/sets/collaboration

John Gilmore & VictorYibril - Phrygian Gardens

You have to be quick and stealthy to catch  the harbor royalty at this. Though they do make lovable toys, people who swim and fish are often not enchanted with them.

©2018 John Gilmore. All rights reserved.

Drum track from Mauro Battisti's amazing Drumgenius app, used with his permission.

Photo and  recordings of California Sea Lions in Noyo Harbor, Fort Bragg, CA, by John Gilmore.

John Gilmore - When The Human's Away, The Harbormasters Will Play

This is the newest and probably most fully collaborative track in what Victor and I plan to offer as an album of our work together, much to my delight and honor.

©2018 John Gilmore and VictorYibril. All rights reserved.

Victor wrote that, "In this piece I recover from my childhood as from a lucid dream." We also agreed: "Our hope is that this music takes us to immerse ourselves in a place that does not belong to everyday reality. Yet we are already and always there, where we have many possibilities to feel what we really want and need, quietly observing without becoming entangled. Of course, it cannot be a  purely idyllic spot, for danger and threat hover as always."

Thanks to Victor for initiating this music and creating the title and rich image that grace it.

Victor's music is here on Bandcamp: 
victoryibril.bandcamp.com
and here on SoundCloud:
@victoryibril

Some of John's acoustic piano files are available to all musicians for collaboration as a free (name-your-price) download here on Bandcamp:
johngilmore.bandcamp.com/album/sliced…labs-remixes

John's collaborations with Victor and other artists are here:
soundcloud.com/johngilmorejazz/sets/collaboration

John Gilmore & VictorYibril - Sanctum

Though Victor and I live thousands of miles apart and worked through a couple of drafts, now it sounds and feels to both of us as though we had made this music together in a single take at the same time and in the same place.

©2018 John Gilmore and VictorYibril. All rights reserved.

Thanks to Victor for initiating this piece and creating the title and rich image that graces it.

Victor's music is here on Bandcamp: 
victoryibril.bandcamp.com
and here on SoundCloud:
@victoryibril

Some of John's acoustic piano files are available to all musicians for collaboration as a free (name-your-price) download here on Bandcamp:
johngilmore.bandcamp.com/album/sliced…labs-remixes

John's collaborations with Victor and other artists are here:
soundcloud.com/johngilmorejazz/sets/collaboration

John Gilmore & VictorYibril - Uninhabited Islands

This piece completes our "Gradient Colors" album of collaborations:
https://soundcloud.com/johngilmorejazz/sets/collaborations-with

Music ©2018 John Gilmore and VictorYibril. Art ©2018 VictorYibril. All rights reserved.

Thanks to Victor for initiating this piece and creating the title and rich image that grace it.

Victor's music is here on Bandcamp: 
victoryibril.bandcamp.com
and here on SoundCloud:
@victoryibril

Some of John's acoustic piano files are available to all musicians for collaboration as a free (name-your-price) download here on Bandcamp:
johngilmore.bandcamp.com/album/sliced…labs-remixes

John's collaborations with Victor and other artists are here:
soundcloud.com/johngilmorejazz/sets/collaboration

Spellbound

John Gilmore & VictorYibril - Spellbound

Photo and field recordings are from the harbor down the hill. Still full of surprises.

Included in "Rusted Tone Recordings: Sampler Vol. 2," available from Download button.

Mastered by James Edward Armstrong
©2018 John Gilmore. All rights reserved.

John Gilmore - Nocturne mécanique et rustique - from Rusted Tones Recordings: Sampler Vol. 2

John passed away on Sunday, April 12, 2020. He was always effusive about his love for this community and all of you who supported him. I will be maintaining his account and any proceeds from his music will be donated to the Jazz Foundation of America. If anyone is interested in learning more about his life, his obituary is posted here: https://legcy.co/3ekapEJ   Thank you all!  — Loren Gilmore

From Chicago, lifetime striving to play jazz piano, involved in electronic music since getting ARP 2600 in 70's. More recently also drawn to ambient music. Lucky to be on the northern California coast playing steady piano gigs and now making soundscapes of this time and place.

Member of the Rumourtone Ambient Collective: @rumourtone

John Gilmore—jazz&ambient

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