The snow started about 3 hours ago. A swirling, horizontal nor'easter a'blowin'. Not sticking too much yet, however. Maybe an inch or two on the cars. Thank God there's no cruise tonight. Nice to stay in and watch it all turn white in the forest again.

Well the sun's back up and I'll probably be a little less existential. My but we get ruminative at 2:00am don't we?

This OSX, .mac, ipod/itunes phenomenon has got me wanting to bring my musical life up to the 21st century as well. I just keep thinking about having a more powerful computer rig at home and what it could do - what I could try and do with it. I've been wanting to get a better integration of my tech and musical lives for some time - at least 5 years. After I came back from Spain in late '99, I took an HTML/Web Design class at the New School and bought what was then pretty much the latest and greatest - a G3. The possibilities then were intriguing. I'm now reading about these G5's and the possibilities seem limitless.

But I have admired the evolution (revolution) of our (collective) technology from a relative distance, while concentrating more on the playing side of things. There's something about playing an actual instrument and not a midi mock-up on a synth (regardless of the latest sampled bit-rate, et al) that really appeals to me.

Think of the difference of a great pianist filling up a hall with the touch and feel and sound of a 9' Steinway (or even my modest Yamaha U-1 with the damper pedal down) vs. someone plunking something out with a stale, thin keyboard sound. Or the ringing of a G 6/9 chord on a nylon string guitar. No simulation can touch that (that said, I will pick this thread up later because I just turned on the Korg 01/W synth for the first time in a LONG time and was pretty impressed with it's sonic capabilities).

For me there needs to be that harmonic spectrum - that basis of acoustic, vibrating, ringing overtones. It is a lush, green field. It is the crunch of golden brown leaves under foot in autumn. It is the sizzling, silver light given off by a lightning strike. It is Wynton Kelly. It just works. And it does have that Jacob's ladder effect. Straight up.

It's all governed by laws, true, but there's a "lock" that occurs in certain harmonic systems. This is not in the realm of the subjective. This is not interpretation. This is audible Truth. Alternately, the choices made with these potentially powerful tools, and how these sounds are used is completely subjective.

I'm also realizing that there are what might be called harmonic worm-holes which will get you to other planes - related and close or remote and far, depending on the guide.

I'll pick this up later...

Nice night last night on the Bateaux. Dempsey and the girls (Kyle Ann/Joey). I, perhaps for the first time since being back from the 6 week haitus, felt mostly like "myself". Last night was our 5th night back. The first one I was just going for it. The second I was paying for the first and needed to warm up 45 minutes just to be able to think about playing tunes. I used the 6 week break for the hands, but I also lost a little ground. The bass is no joke. It's probably the most physically demanding of all the instruments I play.

The first set we played How Deep is the Ocean, My Foolish Heart, My Shining Hour and a fourth one...

I was just playing through My Foolish Heart on piano. I like playing it with a brazilian groove. Maybe its overdone as a ballad. Maybe you could never overdo the tune, just not play it to the standard that is written on the page (I'm hearing echoes of cats who will dismiss a tune because it's "overfamiliar" - or maybe they think they've played it too much. Or maybe they had a "bad" exerience playing it on some shitty gig they're trying to forget. I don't know. I hear all kinds of shit. Or maybe they're great students of the music and want to get to the OTHER gazillion tunes there are to play and discover and exhibit.)

I've got to git' ta Brooklyn and play Zan Getsu with Jim.

I found another folder of about 5 tunes - this time in my backpack. Somehow, from the ocean of tunes and sheet music in the apt, these few stragglers washed up onto the shore of my conscious view. They're all great:

Brazilian:

- Desafinado (from the Joao Gilberto "Legendary" recording, transcribed by moi - key of E)
- Retrato Em Branco E Preto (aka Zingaro - AMAZING tune)
- Flor de Lis (Djavan - also incredible)

Standards:

- Hot House (bebop anthem, built on changes of "What Is This Thing Called Love")
- East of the Sun (a great standard far too ignored by me)

That's alot of great work ahead. Hot House esp., to be able to play that head on multiple instruments is a great challenge.

Desafinado and to a lesser extent Flor de Lis I've worked up on nylon string in the past. Djavan's singing is great and what that tune calls out in you, or "puts out" into the ether is truly remarkable.

.mac

What can I say? It's a new year. It's a new world. My tech life has made great strides forward in the past month or so with the implementation of OSX on my old mac G3, and the belated ipod, of course. And now this .mac service. It dovetails with my need/desire to have more of a web presence, use the bandwidth I've got, etc etc.


Had a couple of great listening days over the weekend.

Nice to have a night off after playing 4 straight to begin the new season on the Bateaux.

Spent part of today signing up for a .mac membership. Check out the results!

Bateaux Photos

I'll check in later...

I'm just playing through this Duke Ellington tune "I've Got It Bad..." again. I'm playing some changes my teacher from way back in K.C. John Elliott put on the sheet (Duke changes?). The melody, the harmonic movement (in G: juxtaposing ii and the iii chord from dominant in the A's, to minor in the bridge and back for instance), the lyric, the mood... all just add up... what a fantastic tune! So simple but so beautifully constructed.

Need to pick up and play the flutes as well.

Had my regular Thursday lesson with Jim yesterday. I got the second half of Zan Getsu. Another great piece. This is the last gaikyoku (ornate, trio w/shamisen and koto) piece that we learn in the dojo (optional level notwithstanding). Next week we'll move on to the last of 4 levels of the honkyoku (zen music). At the end of that we'll go all the way back to the beginning ("Kurokami") and turn the music upside down (facing away from me) and I will be the teacher and Jim will be the student and we'll go through all of the pieces again on the review level. That's the thing about shakuhachi - it never gets LESS challenging. The well runs deep. There's always something that will give you all you can handle. But if you make the effort, great things can happen. Its almost imperceptible, the growth. The key seems to be - as with all things musical - to LISTEN! There is a whole, wonderful, highly advanced tradition already established. Somewhere in there is YOUR voice. Somewhere. At the top of a mountain maybe... Wherever that is.

Happy to be going back to the Bateaux tonight for our first gig since New Year's Eve. Not a moment too soon. Although this winter does seem to be flying by like none (in a cold climate) that I can remember. Is this a function of age? Or has it just not been nearly as bad (cold, snowy) as, say, last year? Or am I just settling into nature's seaonal cycles? Or do I just have too much time on my hands to sit around and debate such shit?

* *

Anyway, it'll be nice to play some bass again.

Just picked up the flute for the first time in a few days. What I immediately noticed was that the work playing through tunes on piano the past couple of weeks and also the concentrated work on shakuhachi with Yosio this week have translated into a fatter flute sound as well as clearer thinking when it comes to playing scales and chord changes. All roads do lead to Rome. There is one goal: freedom. Freedom to play what you want to play, say what you want to say. Myriad technical/theoretical challenges in between.

Shakuhachi:

This is Yosio Kurahashi's last day in NY this time (he comes 2 or 3 times every year). I had my private lesson with him yesterday and we played through the great Gaikyoku piece Yae Goromo. This piece is extremely challenging - some say its the most difficult of the repertoire that we study. So far I would agree. It's certainly the longest, clocking in at around 25 minutes - if you have stamina issues, this will certainly address them! Hence the note above about the flute playing. I can lay off a few days and still my sound improves from the shak playing. I wonder if its not also a conception thing (?). (that said, if you really want to achieve something, "laying off" is not the answer - its just nice to know I don't LOSE too much ground in between)

What you really notice sitting across from sensei Kurahashi is his tremendous sound coming at you. Not so much blasting loud as much as very pointed and exhibiting many different colors, depending on the desired effect. Its made me really focus on the actual sound I'm making. The shakuhachi is capable of so many different tonal effects, but at the end of the day, its the ability to just play low Ro with an even, nice, full tone that sets players apart. As easy as that sounds, it takes literally years to have enough in the tank to even begin to think in these terms. Its the old cliche of learning all the rules so that you can forget them. I'm very self conscious about giving shape to the phrases and that is entirely unmusical. To just be able to play and have all these things deeply embedded into your playing seems to be the goal. That's when these pieces come alive. That's the difference betweem someone just reading it down versus someone who literally makes you hear the feeling of Edo period Japan, transports you to an altogether unique and beautiful sonic space.

Tunes:

I've got a little folder on the piano of about 5 tunes that I've been playing the last few days: Sweet and Lovely, I've Never Been In Love Before, I Got It Bad, I Only Have Eyes For You, and In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning. I've been playing them slow and then playing them fast and then breaking them down to the harmonic landscape, trying to find the language implicit in the sounds of the chords. Well, implicit is a very subjective term. Implicit to me because I've been listening to so many of the best improvisors lately. On a daily basis because...


iPOD:

Yes! I FINALLY got one - got it Jan 6th. I had gotten one for Monika for Christmas and we got it set up on her PeeCee. My existing Mac OS was too old to support iTunes - that's a major reason why its taken my this long to get one (not to mention the price! ;-). So once we both saw how amazing it was, and once we had iTunes in the house, I lept.

I soon realized though, that with all the CD's I have, its gonna fill up her hard drive, so I procurred and installed first OS 9 (I was WAY behind the curve!) and then last week OS X. It is awesome. What an improvement! So I've been busy ripping my CD collection ever since. I've spent alot of bread over the years buying CD's - it just hit me today what an investment it really was. To be (an eternal) student of jazz and at the click of a mouse have Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Freddie Hubbard, Dinah Washington, Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Clifford Brown, Wynton Kelly, Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis, etc etc etc, cued up and ready to play any number of tunes is incredible.

Work:

The Bateaux has been in drydock since Jan 1st but we have our first gig back this Friday and it picks up from there. Its been nice to have a little break but I'm looking forward to doing some playing.