Jeff Fuller & Friends THE CALL FROM WITHIN Jeff Fuller, bass • Darren Litzie, piano • Ben Bilello, drums This music has been gestating in my heart, soul and mind for a long, long time. It has emerged as the end product of years of performing, arranging and composing jazz in its many styles, languages and forms. It seemed fitting to arrange them for the classic small jazz orchestra - the piano trio. “Orchestra” describes the interplay and unique roles each instrument has to offer - each contributing a unique color, vocabulary and voice. My distinguished colleagues and friends, Darren Litzie on piano and Ben Bilello on drums, were more than up to the task of contributing their own colors, vocabularies and voices. We have worked together many times over the years in clubs and concerts, but I can’t thank them enough for learning, rehearsing, performing and recording this creative project. My longtime friend Norman Johnson, in whose studio we recorded, was an equally skillful and creative partner in capturing the essence of the music. Several of the tunes are so-called contrafacts – new melodies composed over existing harmony from a standard tune. The rest of the tunes were composed from scratch, from influences as wide as Brazilian and Broadway, bebop and blues, Afro-Cuban music, and even Indian raga. The title tune, The Call From Within, was composed at the piano, so I played it on Norman Johnson’s beautiful Steinway. The title captures a thought I once had, “Don’t wait for the call… the call comes from within!” It’s an apt description of why I felt compelled to release my first CD of all original music. It’s taken a while to get these tunes recorded, and hopefully this is only a beginning. I have many more waiting to be heard, so… look for Vol. II at some point! Thanks for listening! Jeff Fuller, New Haven, CT – December, 2014