My music is nearly always jazz-based, so I certainly don't mind having my string quartet music identified that way. But there is more to them than "just jazz!" String Quartet no. 3 is subtitled In Memory of Don Schott. Don was my lifelong friend and a super-talented drummer who I enjoyed playing with informally for nearly a decade before he died of lung cancer. Don had problems with drugs and alcohol, but his major demon was bipolar disease. After being hospitalized for a manic episode he had to be re-hospitalized to detoxed from alcohol. He woke up in his hospital room one night and realized that he had no interest in getting high ever again. He attended AA meetings regularly and, like most ex-alcoholics, he was a chain-smoker. Several years before he died, he managed with great difficulty to stop smoking. Alas, it was too late. Two years after he stopped smoking, he was diagnoxed with lung cancer. Two years after the diagnosis, Don died at the age of 61. The movements in String Quartet no. 3 consist of music Don and I played together as well as music that Don enjoyed playing on his second instrument, the saxophone. “Death and the Flowers” consists of 3 movements, each named after flowers that are poisonous or, in the case of Columbine, associated with death. As you probably remember, Columbine was the site of one of the first school killings. This music has a tragic side that rarely comes out in my other pieces. Jazz-based? Yes, I suppose so, although there are other influences as well.Violinists Andrea Vercoe, Sally McLain and cellist Jodi Beder have performed in Washington Musica Viva concerts over the last decade as well as in many Washington ensembles, while violist Karl Mitze is a newcomer. I hope you can come and join me for the premiere performances of these works for string quartets. I never thought I'd ever hear them! My son Dr. Adriel Gerard and his wife Caroline Hagood along with Washington Musica Viva are producing the concert.