In addition to the podcast “VINYL VIBRATIONS with Brian Frederick“, Frederick also produces original instrumental music.

Announcing the latest release of Brian Frederick’s instrumental inventions, “DOWNWIND LEG”, his 13th album. Frederick has been producing and publishing music since year 2000.

DOWNWIND LEG features a variety of genres: rock, folk, jazz, pop, and classical
Original compositions, instrumental.
Frederick plays all parts – keyboards, guitars, percussions
Four NEW songs: G-Minor Blues, Over October, Waves Boarding, and Twilight Shift
Four REMASTERED / NEW VERSIONS of earlier songs: Noyes Street, March Came Walking, Downwind Leg, and Ode to Paul

DOWNWIND LEG TRACK NOTES

DOWNWIND LEG.(2025 remaster) The title track was first published on my BEST OF BRIAN FREDERICK album in 2006. Ironically, the BEST OF album was my first digitally published album and, no surprise, music reviewers ripped me on that novel concept. This release is a re-mastering of the song, as composed in 2004. The album features a photo taken at the mast, looking up at the sailing rig, just after launching the spinnaker, sailing the downwind leg of a race course. Pop / Rock is the genre.
G-MINOR WAY. This is a new song, the key is G-minor, and it has an upbeat tempo. It’s a rocker song featuring vibes, telecaster, fender bass, and drum set. The song also features stops and starts, giving some breathing space.
OVER OCTOBER. I was very excited to make this song. It happened in October, 2025. OCTOBER is when the sailing season is OVER here in the Midwest US. This song features a cool idea. Can you hear it? The song is rules-based. All of the lead line and bass line must follow from exactly 5 keyboard notes. Only the black keys! The song is in the key of B-flat. The song-line is B-flat, A-flat, G-flat, E-flat, D-flat, and back to B-flat. Nothing else is permitted in the song-line. Rich layers of parts for keyboard/synth, Telecaster with Fender Twin Reverb amp sound, Fender bass, and drum kit are overlayed. The most fun part I played is the Hammond B3 organ solo towards the end of song. OVER OCTOBER is a longer piece, at 6:06. The genre is pop / rock. OVER OCTOBER was a challenge to build, and in the end, I love the result. This work consumed all of October and then some.
MARCH CAME WALKING (2025 remaster). This is a remaster of the song as published on the LIFT BRIDGE album in 2014. The song’s time signature is 7/4. It was a challenge to adapt a story line to that rhythm. 7/4 time gives a cool jazz vibe. MARCH features the GIBSON ES-135 large hollow body jazz guitar, the Fender Bass, and Drum-kit. It has 3 parts, so the genre is Jazz, and it is made for trio performance..
ODE TO PAUL (2025 Revision). Here is yet another version of Ode To Paul, a complete re-do of all parts, organ, Gibson flat-top, percussion/drum kit, and Fender bass. This song has been performed in quartet format. Originally published in 2006 on the BEST OF album, composed in 2002, following the untimely death of a dear friend. An earlier version of this song was performed at Ithaca College of Music in New York, in 2003.
NOYES STREET (2025 Remaster). This song was composed in 2003 and was not published until 2024 on my recent HILL CLIMB album. But that was not enough, I think the song needs to be published again in 2025 because I believe in this song a lot. NOYES is a comical street name on the NU college campus in Evanston (pronounced “noise” street, but reads like “no-yes”). On this street, my early sailing aspirations were formed. Here, I did my weekly laundry, ate gyros at the Greek restaurant, and used the NOYES El-train stop to get around, such as the Dempster Street beach, where I would later keep and sail my Hobie Cat 16.
TWILIGHT SHIFT. The back story. I was working on an inventory system project in a medical products warehouse out East in 2004. The warehouse had some systems gremlins that required identifying and debugging. The building had three warehouse temperature zones – ambient, refrigerated, and frozen. This is similar to a COSTCO big box warehouse, but instead of food, it was medical products requiring a specified temperature storage. I had to work nights, the so-called TWILIGHT SHIFT, starting at 8:30PM. That was to stay clear of the workers and forklifts on the two day shifts. I spent more than a month of nights working in the refrigerated and frozen spaces, trying to problem-solve. I think this cold temperature exposure had a strange impact on my brain. Brain-Freeze, I call it. Like that brain-freeze you get from eating ice cream too fast. So I would fly home on weekends and work on this new song idea. I’ve never written in a classical genre before. Someone was moving my fingers on the keyboard, I swear to God. This piece is Barogue in style, like Bach with left and right-hand point and counterpoint. The genre is Classical. A Pipe Organ part paired with Piano part in concerto. All parts played on the Roland XP-80 keyboard synthesizer. Written and recorded in 2004 and the recording was remastered in 2025.
WAVES BOARDING. After Twilight Shift, hat Brain-Freeze from the warehouse job influenced the writing of WAVES BOARDING as well. When at sea, waves boarding is very dramatic, as the ship or vessel is “boarded” by waves. Waves from ahead or waves boarding from behind. And the pipe organ is meant to represent those tense times when the helmsman is almost wiped out of the cockpit by a boarding wave. The droning bass line you hear is the pedal of the pipe organ, a bass note that is nearly sub-sonic. Classical genre for two parts. This piece is also envisioned for Pipe Organ, Strings, and Piano. My inspiration was the “Organ Symphony” composed and performed by Camille Saint-Saëns in 1886. ,Waves Boarding was Written and recorded in 2004 and the recording was remastered in 2025.

8 songs, 37 minutes.

Brian Frederick, December 2025.

ABOUT BRIAN FREDERICK

Brian Frederick is a multi-instrumental musician, composer, arranger and song producer. He is self-taught in all of these areas. He has produced in multiple genres of music, such as pop, alternative rock, blues, world, jazz, and classical. His songs display qualities found in the best of instrumental popular

music: the ability to create atmosphere and poetry without lyrics. His use of instrumental color, creative combination of sounds, conversational guitar style (which can be so close to the human voice it almost wails at times), picturesque melodies, and subtle nuance effectively tell stories without words. Frederick has learned to play guitars, bass guitar, piano and keyboards, drums, harmonica and concertina.

In addition to producing original instrumental music, Frederick produces a music education podcast titled “Vinyl Vibrations with Brian Frederick Podcast”. He has published 30 episodes of the podcast as of 2025.

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GUITAR INFLUENCES

Django Reinhardt * Wes Montgomery * Larry Coryell

Jeff Beck * Julian Lage

MUSIC LINKS

Brian Frederick Music can be found wherever you get your music, including:

PANDORA

DEEZER

MUSIC ALBUMS

1-Cruising Lane II (2001) limited CD release

2-Short Stories (2002) limited CD release

3-Lakeshore Nights (2003) limited CD release

4-Hill Climb (2005) limited CD release

5-Best of Brian Frederick (2006) CD and Digital

6-Trail Run (2008) CD and Digital

7-Old Roads New Ways(2008) CD and Digital

8-Empathy In G (2011) CD and Digital

9-Lift Bridge (2014) CD and Digital

10-Slow Men Working (2024) EP

11-Hill Climb (remaster) (2024) Digital

12-Lakeshore Nights (2025) Digital

13-Downwind Leg (2025) Digital

REVIEWS

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About Brian Frederick