In a musical career that spans over two decades, keyboard wizard Jordan Rudess has performed and/or recorded with numerous artists including the Dixie Dregs, Paul Winter Consort, and David Bowie. Based upon his impressive body of work (he appears on over 40 recordings), one could reasonably argue that Jordan is the most prolific keyboardist on the rock music scene today.

Jordan first gained widespread exposure when Keyboard Magazine voted him Best New Talent in the Overall Best Keyboardist category after his 1994 solo release Listen. He gained considerably more exposure in 1999 when he joined Dream Theater, the most critically acclaimed progressive hard rock band in the world. Since then, he has maintained his solo career while acting as an integral member and creative force behind Dream Theater. In 2009, Dream Theater released their tenth studio CD, Black Clouds & Silver Linings, and Jordan released his eighth solo CD, Notes on a Dream.

Dream Theater’s music can be described as a seamless blend of complex progressive rock, powerful hard rock, and highly accessible pop rock. Along with Jordan, the band consists of vocalist James Labrie, guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung, and drummer Mike Portnoy. While all five band members are renowned for their individual performance abilities, their considerable songwriting abilities have gone largely under-appreciated. For example, many casual Dream Theater fans are likely unaware of the many beautiful ballads that are sprinkled throughout their catalog. These ballads strongly showcase the band’s songwriting chops while also demonstrating their great versatility.

Jordan’s new solo CD is appropriately titled Notes on a Dream, as it includes his unique and innovative solo piano interpretations of nine of Dream Theater’s favorite ballads. These include tracks that were written before he joined the band, as well as during his time with the band. These songs lend themselves surprisingly well to solo piano, and these new versions will likely provide Dream Theater fans with a greater appreciation of these deep compositions. However, by no means will these performances only appeal to Dream Theater fans (or even rock music fans). Simply put, anyone who appreciates highly accomplished piano playing will enjoy this music. Upon hearing these recordings, a “non rock fan” would probably never believe that a modern hard rock band originally performed these songs.

Notes on a Dream also includes three completely original solo piano instrumentals. These original songs are even more adventurous and impressive than the Dream Theater covers, and they should appeal to fans of the solo piano work of rock gods like Keith Emerson (ELP) and Rick Wakeman (Yes). As of this writing, the new CD is a completely independent release, and it is only available on Jordan’s web site (www.jordanrudess.com). However, it is expected to become available on several of the various other outlets (e.g. itunes) in the near future.

Dream Theater is currently on tour to promote their new CD as part of the “Progressive Nations Tour 2009.” The diverse tour features four bands that are all considered “progressive” but sound absolutely nothing like one another. For lack of a better explanation, progressive rock (or prog rock for short) is highly complex music that typically features long songs with unconventional lyrics and instrumentation. The pioneers of this genre include Yes; Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP); Genesis; King Crimson and Gentle Giant.

The current tour is co-headlined by Dream Theater and Zappa Plays Zappa. For the uninitiated, Zappa Plays Zappa is the band that Dweezil Zappa has assembled to faithfully recreate the music of his late father, the legendary Frank Zappa. The band is loaded with several amazing young musicians, and their performances have successfully brought Zappa’s extremely progressive music into the 21st Century.

I had the pleasure of speaking at length with Jordan Rudess shortly before Dream Theater’s recent performance at the Chevrolet Theater in Wallingford, CT. The following is an excerpt of our conversation:

SW: “How has the tour been going so far?”

JR: “It’s actually been very exciting. We just spent a month in Europe, we played all over Europe and we also went outside of Europe to play Moscow and Israel. Both were very exciting shows, and we had never performed in either country before. There was a very warm reception waiting for us. It seems there are Dream Theater fans all over the world. One of the most fun things to do is go to some of those places that we haven’t played before, and to have a new experience.”

“Now we just started our US tour two weeks ago, and we are heading northeast which is home for me. I live in New York. It has been fun to tour with these other bands. I think it’s a very interesting progressive package. The last time we did a “Progressive Nations” tour, we did it with more of what you could consider more “heavy” bands. This time it’s really mixed up. The whole Zappa meets Dream Theater thing is very interesting for us. We’re both progressive bands, but progressive in very different ways. Dream Theater leans more toward “metal” while Zappa has more quirky stuff going on, not really metal. It’s going really well.”

SW: “Have you spent much time offstage with Dweezil or any of the other musicians on this tour?”

JR: “Not much because the way this works is that there are four bands during the day. There is a lot of setup, and it’s really pretty crazy. The way we’ve been doing it is, we get to the hotel and stay there until 6:30 or so. We then go the venue and we’re really busy. We have “meet and greets” going on, and “signings.” There’s practicing before the show, and there really isn’t a whole lot of time to socialize. This is kind of sad because, the couple of times I did get a chance to socialize with some of the other musicians, it was really fun.”

SW: “Since you’re co-headlining with Zappa Plays Zappa, you’ve probably been playing for a lot of people who normally don’t enjoy the “hard rock” side of your music as much as your typical audience. Have you adjusted your set lists at all to accommodate this new audience?”

JR: “Our set list is something that is very well conceived. We don’t take it lightly, and there are a lot of considerations in the set list. Mike Portnoy (our drummer) is totally into the set list, and he does a lot of planning. He’ll literally take out pages of information, considering all sorts of things. For example, he’ll consider what we played last time we were in Connecticut to make sure that we don’t play the same things. There is a certain time constraint on our performance, so we need to make sure that we have a balanced set that goes smoothly. Not only that, we also consider the other bands that we’re playing with. Also, what’s our latest album? So, all told we want to play what we all feel is the best music given the larger situation.”

“When we played with Yes a few years ago, we really did customize our set to emphasize the melodic “art prog” side of Dream Theater. I think most people know that we have a really huge repertoire. We have everything from Iron Maiden style heavy metal to light progressive rock like Yes and Genesis. So we really could play with anyone and do it well. Having said that, this is really our show and we have a new album to promote. There is only so much we can do to tip our hat to the other bands on the bill while still showcasing what we really do.”

“Actually, our new record Black Clouds & Silver Linings is not really our heaviest album. But as on any Dream Theater recording, there are a lot of sections that go pretty deep into the darker side of the band. But the songs are long. For example, the song that opens the album, “A Nightmare to Remember” is a long song that has melodic parts, heavy parts, and spacey parts. So on this tour, we’re just doing our thing.”

SW: “Going back to the beginning, how did you get into playing piano?”

JR: “When I was in second grade, there was a piano in my classroom. My teacher called my mother to tell her that I was accompanying the children in their school songs really beautifully. My mother was very surprised because as far as she knew I had never touched a piano, since I don’t come from a musical family and there were no instruments in our house.”

“My mother enjoys the arts, and she was excited to support my interest in music. So my parents bought a small white baby grand piano and found a local piano teacher for me. My first teacher decided to pay little attention to the basics of reading, and instead taught me how to play chords and read guitar style charts. That did not last long! When my mother realized that I had a real talent, she quickly found me a very serious Hungarian teacher. This teacher had a strong temper, and she would gently kick me if I played the wrong note.”

“At age nine, I was accepted into the pre-college program at the Juilliard School of Music. I stayed at Juilliard until I was close to nineteen. At that time, I was enrolled in the college program, but I eventually decided that classical music was not for me.”

SW: “How did you get interested in playing rock music?”

JR: “When I was 17 and still at the Juilliard pre-college division, high school friends began to turn me on to progressive rock like Yes and Gentle Giant. Specifically, when I heard “Tarkus” by ELP, it confirmed to me the power that a rock keyboardist could present. Also Patrick Moraz was part of a group called Refugee, and they had a song called “Someday” in which Patrick played a Moog synthesizer solo that blew my mind.”

“I realized that the style of music that I had been composing since elementary school had elements of progressive rock. I knew then that rock and synthesizers were a natural direction for my musical future.”

SW: “What was your first “big break” that got you established as a professional musician?”

JR: “When I worked for Korg as a product specialist, I used to do clinics around the country. One time when I was at a trade show in California, I was performing a product demonstration. I was with my wife, and she went over to Jan Hammer while I was getting set up to play. She led him into the Korg booth, he watched the demonstration, and then I met him.”

“Fast forward a bit, I later received a phone call from Jan Hammer while I was at work for Korg. He wanted to talk to me because he was going on tour with drummer Tony Williams, and he wanted me to help him out and be in the band. So I ended up going on tour, and that was my first big break.”

SW: “How did you hook up with Dream Theater?”

JR: “When their original keyboardist quit the band, they asked me to join but I declined because I had just begun playing with the Dixie Dregs. A few years later, guitarist John Petrucci and drummer Mike Portnoy put together an all-instrumental Dream Theater side project with me called Liquid Tension Experiment. I played on two albums for this side project, and they were both very successful. As a result, they asked me once again to join Dream Theater. This time I accepted!”

SW: “What inspired you to create solo piano interpretations of Dream Theater songs?”

JR: “My wife was really on my case to do it. She really thought that it would be a great idea musically as well as marketing-wise. I put it off for a long time, but when I finally sat down to do it, I got through it much quicker than I thought I would. Making Notes on a Dream turned out to be a very enjoyable experience.”

“I took nine Dream Theater songs that I thought had very pretty melodies that lend themselves well to being reinterpreted on the piano. I just did my thing, and I think they ended up sounding very different from the originals. I tried to be very true to the melodies, but I would also wander a bit and go into passages that were completely new. That is essentially the balance that I tried to maintain. I also did three original songs, and these original songs are truly my own stuff. Some of it is very progressive, like a “Keith Emerson meets Bartók meets Khachaturian” kind of vibe.”

SW: “My last question is for all the hardcore Dream Theater fans out there that know everything about the band. Please tell me something they don’t know!”

JR: “They probably don’t know that John Myung, our bass player, really does speak. He’s actually quite verbal at times, given the right setting.”