Summer Wind

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you The CPR Trio:

What can be written about The CPR Trio that hasn’t already been written? Well, anything, I guess.

I have mentioned my good friends and neighbors Chris and Peter who play drums and guitar, respectively. The band name works on several levels. As Peter responded when I first suggested it, “You never know when you’re going to need us.”

The CPR Trio is the natural extension of the backyard concert series Chris and I started during the pandemic summer of 2020 and then put on hiatus when falling outdoor temperatures made social distancing more difficult. In the spring of 2021, the vaccines arrived and so did Peter. During our first alcohol-and-pizza-fueled jam session with Chris on snare and percussion, and Peter and I rockin’ our acoustic guitars, we rifled through so many tunes that by the next morning I could only remember about a third of what we covered.

I did remember “Summer Wind”, however.

A few days later I suggested the three of us record a cover of this tune, and thus The CPR Trio was born.

The most famous version of this song, written by Heinz Meier and Johnny Mercer, is the one Frank Sinatra recorded with Nelson Riddle in 1966. While we wanted to record a version in the style of this classic recording, we knew we would not be able to replicate the lush orchestration of the Riddle arrangement. The idea was to make it swing, but also to put our own stamp on it using the instruments (and skills) we had.

I worked out a rough arrangement that I thought would be suitable: Include some backing vocal harmonies, repeat the third verse as a vehicle for a guitar solo, emphasize Peter’s considerable guitar skills throughout, and layer the drums verse-by-verse to reach a crescendo at the end of the fourth verse that immediately drops to a slow fade out. I spent a few hours working solo in the studio to produce a demo of this concept, shared it with Chris and Peter, and that became our guide.

On this recording you will hear Chris on drums (primarily snare, ride cymbal, and kick), Peter on guitar, and me on keyboards, bass, and lead vocals. All three of us contribute backing vocals. Chris played his Sonor kit with Evans heads and Zildjian cymbals, and Peter played his Gretsch G2420, similar to the one I own, but in silver, and no Bigsby. (Peter bought his a few months before I bought mine.)

As with every project, there were new challenges here. First, despite being highly skilled musicians, neither Chris nor Peter had ever done any multitrack studio recording — at least not the way it needs to be done in my little studio — where the instruments and vocals are all recorded individually. My studio is not equipped to allow even a small 3-piece band to all play and sing together and also achieve the track separation one needs to create a proper mix. To my bandmates’ credit, they worked through it, learned quickly, trusted the process, and the results speak for themselves. They are pros.

Peter worked out some great guitar riffs that maintain the feel of the Riddle orchestration, but fit perfectly into this more intimate arrangement. Chris accommodated the limitations of my studio by first recording just brushes on snare and cymbal, then adding a kick drum track, then adding a rimshot track, each of which recorded several days apart. He also provided a couple of drum mics from his own collection that I used on the snare and kick. I tried to copy the organ and bassline of the Sinatra version, then added little piano fillers throughout to complement Peter’s guitar.

Perhaps the best few hours in the studio were spent recording the vocal harmonies, which we did together, all singing into the same microphone. I hadn’t done anything like that in a long, long time, and it was a blast.

The lead vocal part was the last track to be recorded. To that point, we had been using the vocal track of the demo I recorded as a guide track, and when it came time to record the “real” lead vocals, my first take sounded (not unsurprisingly) very much like my demo track, meaning not that great. I knew I would need at least one or two more takes. That’s when Peter asked for a pen and a notepad. We went late into the night. Many notes, several days, and many, many takes later, I got something we could use, and the tracking for this project was done.

After the mixing and mastering effort, the final step was assembling us for the picture you see above, and there you have it. Just in time for summer.