Last year the trio released a recording called No Goodbyes. When I gave copies to my daughters and their families, one of my daughters said, “Nice Dad . . . but when are you gonna write some music for your grandkids?” So, that instantly obligated me to do another recording. Here it is, Next Gen, with a song dedicated to each of my grandchildren. The five original tunes on this record are each named for one of them. Usually when I compose music I think about musical issues of melody, harmony, rhythm, groove, tempo, etc. Once a new tune is completed, I then search for something to title it, which is really separate from the compositional process. In this case, however, I had the titles ahead of time, my grandkids’ names. And something more that I considered — their personalities. There is something of each child in the song structure itself, and also in the way I am inspired to play on each of these tunes.

John Stein, guitar; Ed Lucie, bass guitar; Mike Connors, drums