Why this tune?
I wrote “Hey Iguana” on St. Croix in the afternoon after lunch with Amy K. Bormet and her trio (Angel Bethea and Karine Chapdelaine), who were on island for a residency at the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts in Frederiksted. Amy informally challenged me to write a new song for a student workshop the next day, and the iguana we watched at lunch turned out to be an inspiration.
The story I came up with fit well in a traditional 32-bar song form, which will be familiar to you from the songs of the “Great American Songbook.” I joke that I have excellent songwriting skills…. for 1935.
What inspires you to write? Have you written any songs about your favorite wild creatures?
Oren Levine, jazz pianist and composer 