His latest album is a complete departure from his previous releases. After four albums featuring him as a jazz guitarist, his new album showcases his abilities as a composer, lyricist, arranger, and guitarist. Love U: The College Musical is an album of songs from a musical for which he wrote the music and lyrics. The show has been performed at the University of Redlands and Riverside City College. It is a musical comedy set in, and satirizing, the academic world. Curtis, who has been a professor of music at Riverside City College, since 2001, says that the academic world is “rife with opportunities for satire”.
The songs bear the influences of classic Tin Pan Alley composers from the great American songbook and styles ranging from klezmer, American folk music, and bossa nova. The lyrics are clever, sophisticated, and frequently very funny.
The artist discussed the album, saying, “I have played in the pit for a lot of musicals and started dreaming about writing one of my own. Because so many of the standards that jazz musicians like me play come from musicals from the Tin Pan Alley era, that style of popular song was a huge influence.” The show’s book was written by Curtis’s late friend and family member, the Montreal author Joel Yanofsky, to whom the album is dedicated.
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