Listen: Breakfast Wizard
In a land known for many diverse acts such as AC/DC, The Bee Gees, Midnight Oil, Silverchair and The Living End, Australian native and Perth based composer Grayson Skewes aka, Breakfast Wizard, certainly serves up quite an appetite on delicious musical plates. By combining traditional jazz instrumentation with modern day technology, Wizard knows that the sky is the limit when composing music in the 21st century. According to his myspace page, here is what the man regards his muse for music about:
I found it interesting that various sounds can provide different imagery for creative thinking. we listen to drums, didgeridoo, chanting, nature, and composed musical pieces to explore our imagery and feelings . I had known that a picture is worth a thousand words , and a metaphore is worth a thousand pictures….. So in saying this, Can music and sounds trigger a thousand metaphores? This is what my music is about. Grayson Skewes.
Breakfast Wizard’s music can be summed up into pretty much one sentence: If Igor Stravinsky were to convert the entire “Rites Of Spring” into a series of jazz standards, Breakfast Wizard would be born. On songs such as “Thinking Of You,” Wizard’s piano runs reminisce older styles from the 1930’s era. Old dusky alleyways with strutting alley cats flourish to the mind as both the piano and grooves take place. What Wizard utilizes throughout all of his music is soul. The souls of the old and new leap from the instruments and into the speakers which crackle and flow like a freshly tapped pint of Fosters. For the Perth native, he does a great job combining different musical styles as well as different eras in music history. Imagine hearing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and John Coltrane performing together for the very first time. Different eras yes, different styles, you bet…but both sounds shape Breakfast Wizard, and what else is worth waking up early in the morning for?
Currently, Wizard is hosting all of his musical works on Garageband.com.
It’s always interesting to guess what two different styles would sound like if merged. History is filled with composers that have combined previous styles in order to create their own sound. Thanks for the fun article and the link, which I have will recommend to some colleagues.