Mr. Fiori Releases Debut Jazz Fusion Record

When Belmont Hill faculty members take advantage of the teaching sabbaticals offered after ten years of service, some use the time away from the classroom to travel, work towards advanced degrees, or even enjoy a well earned opportunity to relax. Director of Instrumental Music Dan Fiori took a different approach in 2023 and spent the year immersed in the composing and recording of his debut jazz fusion album Undertow. The record, which was released in May and is available digitally and on vinyl, demonstrates the vast breadth of Mr. Fiori’s musical influences and the level of talent guiding Belmont Hill musicians on their own creative journeys.  

Mr. Fiori first joined Belmont Hill as a visual arts teaching fellow in the 2001-2002 school year. After his year on campus, he enrolled in the prestigious Berklee College of Music for a degree in jazz composition and completed his degree around the same time Belmont Hill was opening the new Prenatt Music Center. Mr. Fiori returned to campus in a new role to build an instrumental music program worthy of the incredible facilities in Prenatt. 

Through all of that time, Mr. Fiori has been writing music. At Belmont Hill, that involves arranging music or writing original works specifically for student groups, but ideas for a larger personal work were always present. "Sometimes I'm arranging from scratch, other times I'm taking a built arrangement but then transposing parts and reassigning who’s going to do what and how to build the sound of the group,” Mr. Fiori said.  “I wanted to make a project that was more about creating a finished piece of work that felt like a full album.”

While the majority of the material on Undertow originated during his sabbatical, many of the songs contain elements or initial ideas that originated years ago. The consistent throughline of the work is his exploration of the jazz fusion genre. 

“When you use the term jazz fusion, usually you’re talking about jazz that has elements that come from anything from rock to R&B to funk, even to electronic music being brought into the mix,” Mr. Fiori said. “The writing process, and even the emphasis on having improvised solos, comes from the world of jazz, but the sound of it might remind you more of Parliament Funkadelic or Jimi Hendrix or Marvin Gaye. It’s drawing in these other kinds of sounds.”
 
That range of influences is evident across Undertow’s nine tracks which Mr. Fiori intentionally composed to stray from a jazz-swing sound. “The feel of the music, the groove elements in the music, are drawn from a more diverse set of styles and in particular styles that tend to have electric pianos, synths, and guitars.”
 
While the album still makes the most of more traditional jazz instruments such as acoustic piano, horns, saxophones, and a live drum set, Mr. Fiori utilizes electric instruments as a way to create a divergent sound. The capabilities of one instrument in particular, a Moog synthesizer, sparked the creative journey that led to Undertow. 
 
“It is true analog circuitry and so it’s almost more like sculpting with clay to create your sound. You’re really building and sculpting the tone of the instrument,” Mr. Fiori said. “It's kind of like an artist making their own paper that they’re then going to draw on or building their own brushes. It feels like that to me, more than just choosing the instrument and playing it.” 
 
Working with the Moog synthesizer and adding it to the other sounds and instruments at his disposal forced Mr. Fiori to write in a different way, which he saw as part of the appeal. “I kind of wanted that to happen to my writing. I wanted my writing to get pulled in a different direction by a different voice.” 

That evolving direction led to nine new compositions, each with its own creative path and process. The fourth track, titled “Arabesque For Nessie,” demonstrates the range of influences inspiring Mr. Fiori’s work, and the creative discoveries that came from experimenting with his instruments. “An arabesque is a classical form of musical, usually piano music with really sweeping arpeggios and very fluid, floral feel to it. So I created textures like that using a synth arpeggiator, so it’s a totally different sounding instrumentation but has the same feel of an arabesque.” 

To accompany this sound, Mr. Fiori created a synth patch that seemed to echo a monster. “It conjured up this feeling, I had this image in my head of night with the moon shining with this call of this creature,” Mr. Fiori noted. “It had a life of its own.”

While the sabbatical time enabled Mr. Fiori to be fully engaged in the process of crafting his own personal work, the experience brought inherent value back to this teaching, and most importantly, to the Belmont Hill musicians.

“When you’re an art teacher of any sort–performing arts, visual arts–your teaching is a creative outlet, but it’s not a very personally focused outlet because you’re really most concerned about the experience, the wellbeing, and the growth of your students,” Mr. Fiori said. “It’s a beautiful thing, that’s why I’m a teacher. I love that process. But I think over time, if you don’t find creative outlets and ways to produce your own work, you can feel a little closed off to your creative process and boxed in.”

The sabbatical created the runway required to make that personal work a priority, and while the album is the culmination of his creative journey as a composer and musician, it also provided Mr. Fiori with opportunities to teach and connect with his students in new ways. Whether it was playing some of the tracks for members of the jazz ensemble, or sharing his writing process with Music Composition students, Mr. Fiori was able to use his experiences and creative process for making the album as a reference point for students to learn and build from.  

“One of the best things I can do for my students is provide an example of someone who is making the thing that I’m teaching them,” Mr. Fiori said, noting how the students appreciate when he shares his work and process with them. “I try to do it in small doses, but I do think it’s nice for them to know that I'm excited to tell them about what I'm doing.”

Undertow is the culmination of that artistic passion, and marks another avenue for Mr. Fiori to cultivate to similar creative curiosity and dedication in the next generation of Belmont Hill musicians. 

After his album release event and performance in May at The Burren in Somerville, Mr. Fiori will head to ShapeShifter Lab in Brooklyn, New York on September 12 at 8:30pm for an album release live show.