without my Rather Big Band in mind. I’ve kept my rhythm section, of course. I mean, you would too if yours could play like mine does. But I asked them to tone down their insane virtuosity and to turn their talents to simpler gestures and more direct statements. The results, I think, are amazing. As is often the case, when you put restrictions on talent like that, you discover a world of new ideas that are as compelling as they are surprising.”

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Take, for example, Leaving the Leaving (to You), a ballad about letting one’s partner do the heavy lifting of ending a relationship. “I asked the guys to pretend they were each a different gear in a clock or a music box and see what we could do if we built on simple, repeating musical ideas…interlocking and reversing them. Because they’re each so refined and sophisticated, they were able to short-circuit their usual impulse to add notes, to fill in the blanks (these are professional side men after all!) and instead build an arrangement that tells the story in a more restrained and, I think, more emotional way. The result is definitely more “pop” than “jazz”, frankly. But for me that’s truly an exciting leap to make. It’s certainly harder to do!”

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Finally isn’t without its more traditional moments, however. “For sure, a high-point for me” says Fleisher, “is our version of I Got It Bad (and That Ain’t Good), the classic Ellington tune with an opening verse that’s practically as long as the song itself. Our exploration is as simple and unadorned as possible. But we challenged ourselves to record it at a tempo that might fairly be called “leisurely”. But we all agreed that the song fairly demands it and so we opened up the mics and really took our time. My sister Leah came up from DC to play the harp part which orchestrator/wizard Bruce Coughlin brilliantly rendered in just one afternoon.” As the lyrics suggest, the song begins in Church and opens up from there and the session is “a master class in listening. The band just outdid themselves. Keeping it aloft at that tempo seemed unlikely, but I’m completely convinced. It’s the only tune on the CD which is presented essentially as it was recorded: No editing, minimal mixing, full bleed. All live all the time. I love it.”

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There are many other gems on Finally. Not Again, Again is burlesque-inspired look at the somehow absurd way that lovers can have of orbiting back around. Carly Simon’s deep cut The Girl You Think You See gets a treatment as does When We Grow Up from the classic children’s album of the 70s, Free to Be You and Me — which he sings with Melissa Haizlip, an old chum from college. While the herky-jerky tempo of his own What You Need suggests a skeleton up for the last dance of the night, All They Need to Know is a surprisingly tuneful take on calling someone’s emotional bluff. “A TV writer friend of mine once said that my happy songs sound sad and my sad songs sound happy. I think it was a compliment and I think she was right.”

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“But no song on the recording means more to me than the title song,” says Fleisher. “I think I wrote Finally when a friend was over for lunch when I was sick. While we chatted, I had the guitar under my arm and I was absentmindedly picking away as we talked. I couldn’t begin to tell you what we discussed, but by the time lunch was over, the song was halfway done.” It wasn’t Fleisher’s first original, but it was the song that got people interested in his ability to capture a big emotional moment in just a few words. From that song came the opportunity to compose the music for John Cariani’s play Almost, Maine (which has gone on to become the single-most produced play in America for several years running) and an offer to write a musical which is on its way to its first production this Fall. More music for film, TV and theater has all followed in time, much of it in different styles and idioms, but virtually all stemming from that one tune “which I wrote while flying on Robitussin, espresso, chicken soup and Advil.”

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“My writing partner and I joke that my songs — which are admittedly pretty simple — are “nursery rhymes for adults,” he concludes. “And at first it was a characterization that I wasn’t too happy about. But given the reaction to Finally, and to the other songs that are similarly, shall we say, “uncomplicated”, I have to concede (and lets face it, I’m just not really able to get too complex) that there’s an undeniable value to keeping things simple. My ego wishes I could concoct the sorts of towering tunes that my heroes do, but this is what I can offer and I have to believe that people’s reactions are sincere and the time to present them on a CD has finally arrived. My fingers are crossed.”