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The Missing Piece (2025)

Liner notes for The Missing Piece: Authored by Jeremy Stajkowski:

The Missing Piece started off as an idea for a single tune, dubbed “Do You Like the Rain?” by composer and guitarist Sam Burns. Over the next few years, this concept would germinate into a four-part suite, a collection of songs which seek to draw parallels between the ebbs and flows of interpersonal communication and the immense variability of nature. With the addition of the final two tracks and the accompaniment of Gustavo Flores on drums and Mario Dueñas on keys, Burns was ready to hit the recording booth. The album was recorded at the Joliet Junior College Studio with the goal of capturing a live feel, a characteristic that comports with the ethos of the project.

“Icebreaker” is a reimagining of the second movement of Beethoven’s seventh symphony and the first piece of the conversation in which the trio invites listeners to engage. The tune starts off in a static place, establishing a comfort zone for the listener. This serenity is challenged in the B section when Dueñas comes in with a walking bassline and a set of chord changes. True to its name, “Icebreaker” seeks to cultivate a sense of both familiarity and intrigue.

If “Icebreaker” is a representation of conversational pleasantries, then “Do You Like the Rain?” marks an end to small talk. In contrast to the spaciousness of the album opener, this song is harmonically dense and dynamically variable. Burns takes the first solo, adjusting the intensity of his attack as the drums and keys swell and recede behind him. The interplay between the performers on this tune feels competitive, as if this is the point in the conversation at which disagreements begin to arise. Dueñas and Flores coordinate for a few stop-times in the back half of the tune to take the trio back to the head. Burns lingers on the final line of the melody to end this song, carrying the trio into the next movement of the suite.

“Thunder” is aptly named, an abstract tune that functions as a deconstruction of the previous two tracks. An improvised bridge between the question asked by the previous song and the consensus reached in the next, “Thunder” is a moment of discord between the performers. However, as the song rolls on, the band starts to fall back into alignment; Dueñas’ harmonic ideas begin to correspond more closely to Burns’ lines, and Flores’ roaring fills subside as the band reconvenes on the same melodic line with which the tune began.

“I Like the Rain” is a conclusion to the conversation which has so far transpired. It is a consensus – the peaks of intensity that came with the asking of the question have given way to. “I Like the Rain” retains something of the complexity of “Do You Like the Rain?” while harkening back to the relaxed, wide-open nature of “Icebreaker.” By this final movement, the discourse between our performers has matured to a more stable place. While a sense of intrigue is still evoked by the song’s haunting harmony, “I Like the Rain” recapitulates the warmth of “Icebreaker,” a full-circle moment which makes more a fitting end to the conversation suite.

The album’s title cut features Rich Moore on alto saxophone – in fact, Burns wrote the song with the express intention of inviting Moore to play on it. Forgoing the extended harmony of the preceding content in favor of a triadic motif with something of a southern rock feel, this tune marks a shift in tone and an increase in tempo for the record. “The Missing Piece” has a bit of the Allman Brothers and a bit of John Scofield — a combination that serves as a fitting backdrop to some of the highest-energy playing on the record. 

“Beauty and the Beast” completes the album’s tonal shift to a funkier, rawer sound. Burns kicks on the distortion for this one, leaning into some rock and blues influence that contrasts nicely with the cleaner character of the first few tracks (he even throws in a mid-solo pickup switch for the keen-eared listener). Flores and Dueñas are on the same page throughout the song as they pick up on each other’s rhythmic ideas and continuously reinvent the groove. This modern take on the Wayne Shorter classic wraps up The Missing Piece on a high note.