Notes that sound like New Orleans
Original piano compositions ranging from blues and boogie-woogie to Creole elegance – for pianists who want more than études.
Music that I want to play myself
At some point, I stopped looking for sheet music that sounded exactly like what I had in my head. It didn't exist. So I started writing it myself.
The Piano Works Series is the result of thirty years spent between New Orleans and Europe – between the clubs on Frenchmen Street and the practice room in Bad Hersfeld. No arrangements of well-known songs. No simplified jazz standards. But original pieces that have grown out of this music: from the groove, the melancholy, the lightness, and the power that make New Orleans so unique.
Each issue has its own character. And yet they belong together – like districts of a city that one wants to know all of.
Vol. 3 • Louisiana Café
Creole compositions for piano
Louisiana Café is the latest issue in the series – and perhaps the most Creole. Eight tracks influenced by the rhythms of the Caribbean as much as by the blues of the Mississippi Delta. Habanera figures meet syncopated bass lines, elegant waltz melodies meet earthy groove patterns.
Difficulty:
Intermediate to upper-intermediate level (levels 3-5 of 6)
8 pieces, including audio examples and notes on interpretation
Vol. 2 • Crossroads
Blues, Boogie Woogie & New Orleans Groove
Crossroads leads directly into the blues – but not the simplified, tame kind. These tracks have bite. Walking bass, shuffle rhythms, boogie-woogie patterns, and melodic lines rooted in tradition yet sounding fresh. A book for everyone who wants to not just hear the blues, but feel it.
Difficulty:
Intermediate to upper-intermediate level (levels 3-5 of 6)
12 pieces, including audio examples and notes on interpretation
Vol. 1 • Mama Madeleine
Creole-Caribbean piano pieces
Mama Madeleine was the beginning. Pieces that tell of New Orleans Creole cuisine, of Caribbean rhythms that creep from the Gulf of Mexico to Louisiana, of melodies that get stuck in your head. The first issue of the series – and for many, still the favorite.
Difficulty:
Intermediate level (levels 3-4 of 6)
10 pieces, including audio examples and a short introduction to the Creole style
What all three issues have in common
All pieces are original compositions. This means: no familiar melodies you've heard a million times before – but music you'll discover. Created between Arnhem/NL and New Orleans, between jazz conservatoires and Frenchmen Street, between Europe and the Gulf of Mexico.
This series is aimed at pianists of an upper-intermediate level who are looking for music that truly evokes something – a place, a mood, a story. Anyone who plays these pieces will quickly realize: this isn't practice music. This is music to be played.
Prefer to take a look first?
Individual pieces from the series are also available as PDF downloads – ideal for trying out a style before buying a whole book.