This recording came as an attempt to fulfill a recital credit for Ajluni when studying Jazz Performance at Towson University in the spring of 2021.

Constrained by the ongoing pandemic and familial turbulence, Ajluni's academic goal was to display a budding knowledge of repertoire found in the jazz idiom while maintaining his personal and artistic goals of creating something which served equally as "a fresh take" and cathartic in nature.

Given the inability to have large gatherings, both a small ensemble and a creative solution were necessary... Through the course of jazz's century long history, there have been many different stylings of small group ensembles, after consideration of many, one emerged as a perfect fit from both a logistic and artistic vantage. Historically, the pairing of the Hammond organ and electric guitar in a trio ensemble served as a popular style of band in the late 1950's and 60's. During this time soul-jazz and bossa styles began to percolate into the genre after the bebop, post-bop, and cool jazz sub stylings began to ween in popularity. At the same time, the Hammond Organ- in particular the B3 model, was fresh and modern sound, giving the organist the ability to not only play chords and melodies with their hands, but also bass lines via foot pedals. The new ambidextrous abilities of organists allowed for smaller groups to cover the sonic territory only larger bands could once span. Although the "new" sound of the time was dominate in the genre for over a decade the unique voice of the hammond organ fell out of vogue as other newer electric key instruments and synthesizers began to become more popular in the 1970's and beyond...

As the decades since have passed, the sound of the organ has gained a nostalgic connotation as they are most often heard in places with rich tradition such as places of worship and baseball stadiums. In an attempt to breath new life into this format of jazz, both Ajluni and Birkholz attempted to put the reverence often associated with tradition on hold and retreated to Ajluni's home recording studio. The result is whimsical, quirky, and genre bending- by merging the organ-jazz stylings of the 60's with a wide variety of influences such as hip-hop rhythms, fuzzed-out broken guitar amplifier tones, 8-bit video game music, Hawaiian steel slide guitar, and of course, America's favorite pastime, baseball, the duo has created something truly unique and indicative of the characters who made the music.

All tracks were recorded live. Tracks 1,2,4,5 have overdubbed or additional material added to the live takes.

1. Blues For Alice (Charlie Parker, 1951)
2. Wave (Antonio Carlos Jobim, 1967)
3. Days Of Wine and Roses (Dedicated To Lore Ann Ajluni) (Henry Mancini, 1962)
4. Nardis (Miles Davis, Bill Evans, 1958)
5. Epistrophy (Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, 1941)