Latch Music "Reflections"

Grandma's Farm  Play Sample

Fond childhood memories of what a great hang it was being with my Grandma at her farm. I like the way the piece has a bit of twang and subtle time changes.

Twisted Simple Blues  Play Sample

This was inspired by a friend who I hadn't played with for years. At the time he was into Thelonious Monk and I in turn was checking out more Monk stuff. Around the same time I realized that some student hadn't returned my Chick Corea book of "Children's Songs" and I never wrote down who borrowed it. I believe both Monk and Corea must have been going on in my head at the same time. (Whoever has my Chick Corea book, please return it!)

Reflections  Play Sample

This is the composition that made me decide to do a solo piano CD. It started out as a piano improvisation. After a few weeks of coming back to the same melody and harmony, I decided to write it out so I could play it with the groups I perform with.

Here and There  Play Sample

I enjoy this tune because of the way the harmony moves between the sections. It has the spontaneous feel of a conversation.

A 3 Thing  Play Sample

This started out as a piano improvisation that I kept coming back to. I wrote it out so that I could play it with the groups that I perform with. I'm still trying to figure out what the influence was that inspired this piece. Till then I'll just call it "A 3 Thing".

In The Heartland  Play Sample

This improvisation reminds me that I can enjoy being in different places in the world and try to be some kind of heavy musician, but I am a guy from Indiana and that is as much a part of me as anything.

Hymn of Hope  Play Sample

I think of it as a peaceful type of composition, effective in helping me decompress at the end of the day. I contemplate the day's activities and how to approach the next day's challenges.

Homeward Bound  Play Sample

This piece evokes memories of the times I have been out of the country for a length of time, and then travel back. It starts out melancholy and then moves into a more uplifting feel, while keeping a bit of twang.

Dissonant Dream  Play Sample

To me this piece has a dream-like quality. The way the melody and harmony work together I would say it might be a bad dream, but not an all-out nightmare!

Fragile Peace  Play Sample

The harmonies moving beneath the melodies create just enough tension that the tranquil nature of the melody seems to be pushing the edge of the Fragile Peace.

Trouble Ahead  Play Sample

This improvisation reminds me of a movie where you know something is about to happen but you're not quite sure what it is. I think the use of space heightens the pensive quality of the piece.

Gentle Moments  Play Sample

I enjoy the quiet nature of this improvisation. It reminds me of the times when everything is going okay and how cool that is. Then you have the sensation that this is probably just passing, which is expressed by the melancholy moments in the piece.

Mood Traveler  Play Sample

The moving between consonant and dissonant harmony and the time signatures made the title of this improvisation seem appropriate.

Good Intentions  Play Sample

This improvisation reminds me of someone who is trying to do a good deed or a selfless act of some sort and the situation blows up in their face. Very confusing for the doer of the good deed. What have they done to have such bad karma?

Simple Pleasures  Play Sample

This improvisation is mainly the use of a single lead voice with counterpoint and the occasional use of chords. For me it captures the pleasure of improvising and using simple ideas to improvise around.

From the E-zine MusikMan - February 2000

Dave Latchaw plays a refurbished 1924 Steinway on his album "Reflections" with a delicate gracefulness that would make the creator of the instrument proud. The songs are a mirror of a soul at peace with himself and his surroundings. Images of beauty are conjured by the soft and alluring sounds of Latchaw's piano reflections. Most of the songs found on this collection are spontaneous improvisations. That factor serves as a tremendously powerful statement and one that is very noteworthy indeed.

Classical and Jazz influences are bountiful. From the inception to the conclusion the session holds true to the reflective tranquility projected consistently on this CD. I found this music to be soothing, relaxing and spiritual. Three very strong elements that make this experience a rewarding one. Simple and uncomplicated as his music, Latchaw's cover art is a black and white shot of him standing alone with the great outdoors. I can see how this image provides a doorway to the music.

Open your mind, body and spirit to the healing sounds of Dave Latchaw. Music to soothe and calm the savage beast within.

- Keith "MuzikMan" Hannaleck

Northeast Indiana's Leisure Time Weekly

Dave Latchaw suggests that you sit back and reflect while you listen to his CD, the aptly named Reflections. That might come off as a pretty weighty suggestion if the album wasn't so adept at inspiring thoughtful meditation. As it is, Latchaw comes up with a collection of pieces that hold up equally well when absorbed on their own or when used as a background for musing.

Latchaw is a pianist who grew up in northeast Indiana (Kendallville to be exact). After some musical wanderings that have seen him play in Scotland and Poland, he's back in Indiana. Reflections is an ambitious collection of 18 pieces (well over an hour of solo piano) recorded live in one day. Four of the pieces were written prior to the session, but the other 14 were improvised as they were recorded. It was a risky way for Latchaw to record a CD, but it seems to have paid off.

The pieces on Reflections offer a range of approaches and influences. "Twisted Simple Blues", one of the pre-composed pieces, is a jaunty exploration that simply runs back and forth for a short time, while "Grandma's Farm" is a rich, evocative piece of atmosphere. "Dissonant Dream" is off-kilter and emotional, and "Psycho Swing" is energetic and irreverant. "Scattered" is one of the album's jazzier pieces; it skips and scampers along and occasionally builds to crashing points of emphasis.

Perhaps the piece that most inspires reflection is one of the simplest. "Hymn of Hope" is a basic progression of chords that moves slowly and purposefully along, never approaching the bright joyousness that you might expect from it's title, but rather presenting a somber, wan-smile kind of hope.

Reflections is a great quiet-afternoon album, well-suited to sitting in the background and doing it's part to encourage whatever mood you might be in.

EG)