Jonathan Crayford's Lockdown Recordings

Auckland based musician and contemporary composer Jonathan Crayford has been treating folks to exquisite daily piano compositions from his bolthole bubble.

Since the 31st March, he has been posting a performance video on his Facebook Page as well as uploading several pieces to Vimeo, YouTube, Instagram, and Soundcloud.

Of the performances Jonathan says, “These aren't total improvisations but rather compositions that I quickly put together usually based on the first sound that comes out when my hand touches the keys that morning, but once I have that idea seeded I'll go ahead and improvise off it. Every day is different and quite often as my piano is becoming more and more out of tune, I have to find an area of it that sounds ok. Occasionally I'll play a folk song or another composition I like, or some Bach or Shostakovich or whoever. This is really no different than my normal morning work - a tune a day or usually several. The only thing is by putting them up on social media they are slightly public and I've had to agree with myself that even the imperfections are part of it.”

Crayford already locked himself down - pre-lockdown - for 3 months in order to make an album which is very near completion. However, during this time, work on 2 film scores materialised.

“I am still scoring one of them - a documentary about Peter Blake's involvement in the Amazon made by producer Larry Keating, called Garden of Evil. However, its back to work on the album as well now, so I've used this lockdown series to get back to that discipline.”

Jonathan is an award-winning pianist, multi-instrumentalist, and film composer from New Zealand. Immersing himself in the New York scene, Jonathan has worked with notable musicians honing his talent in the genres of jazz, Latin jazz, funk, and classical music. His success has enabled him to work with Kurt Rosenwinkel, David Binney, Mambo Macoco, Groove Collective, Barney McAll, David Murray, Tony Allen, Questlove, Macy Gray, Bobby Carcasses (Cuba) and many others internationally. His last two (trio) albums feature Ben Street and Dan Weiss.

To hear more from Jonathan Crayford head to Rattle Records (www.rattlerecords.net), Spotify or  bandcamp.com

Jonathan Crayford Lockdown on Vimeo:  https://vimeo.com/search?q=Jonathan+crayford+lockdown

Jonathan Crayford Lockdown on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/jocray

Jonathan Crayford Lockdown Playlist on Soundcloud:  https://soundcloud.com/jocray/sets/locking-down-april2020

Jonathan Crayford on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jocrayford/

Jonathan Crayford on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.crayford.9