Across The Miles - Original by A. Grella, J. Wilkas

“Across the Miles” began as a song idea that Waterbury Connecticut bassist and vocalist Al Grella composed back in 2009, using simply his bass guitar and a Roland JV-30 keyboard for drum effects. Using a Tascam 24-track digital mini-studio, he laid down the basic chord progression track, employing double-stop techniques on his bass, a separate track for the main bass line, another track for synthesized drums, and two other tracks for his vocals. Grella’s idea was to create a love song whose sound would be reminiscent of the 1940’s WWII era. His hope was that the lyrics and the overall sound would create a feeling of love, separation, and loss from the point of view of a young suitor during the heyday of America’s greatest generation. Mixing the tracks to the best of his ability, he emailed his early mix of the tune to his distant cousin, good friend, and fellow musician/composer Jimmy Wilkas. Al explained to Jim that he could hear clarinets throughout the piece. He asked Jim to compose and add some clarinet tracks to the original recording.

After a few days, Jim returned the song in an email with his incredible clarinet parts added and mixed appropriately. When Al opened the email and played the revised version for the first time, he nearly fell off his seat. Jimmy apparently heard exactly what Al was trying to accomplish with the piece and delivered a clarinet arrangement that nailed the desired sound of the period. At that moment, Al envisioned that the song had the potential to one day be pitched to the film industry as background music for a scene set in the 1940s. However, it would require re-recording the entire piece with a professional arrangement played with live instruments, creating an arrangement typical of the era.

It took Jimmy ten years of encouraging Al to finally get back into the studio to complete this project. Jimmy believed strongly in the song’s potential to see it through to its present rendition. He replaced the drum machine with a snare drum and cymbals played with brushes. The bass was replaced by a rhythm section including jazz guitar, piano, and bass. The clarinet arrangement stayed intact, but was enhanced with harmon muted trumpets & trombones (played by Gary Badger), strings (played by Ynping Mak) and Guitar (played by Joe Mendicino).