Brazilians

Just playing through on piano, one of my all time favorite tunes: Spring Is Here.

Last night on the Bateaux Kyle and Joey were both away, so I led. Adam Asarnow, Mark McCaron and Linda Sue was singing. It was a nice hit. They all sounded great. First set we played The Song Is You, Speak Low, Sweet and Lovely, and then we did a quick Corcovado - Mark played the head in and I sang it out.

The voice felt good. I don't know, I just felt something there behind it that wasn't there before. It felt kind of effortless. That's my biggest hangup with singing I think - too MUCH effort! You can't "force it" out. It really is analogous to the shakuhachi. I remember addressing this with Jim when I was "trying" to get a bigger sound, and thereby tightening all of the muscles in my mouth area. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was just the OPPOSITE of that! You've got to have support, yes (from the diaphragm with singing, diaphragm/mouth with shakuhachi), but once that is established it is so much more about relaxing and letting the sound vibrate through you. What is tense and taught doesn't vibrate. It is acoustically dead. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.

So anyway, at the end of Corcovado, these two tables in particular started applauding more than the others. Turns out it was some Brazilians visiting from Pfizer. One of the guys came up and we chatted a bit. I need to get back to working on my spoken Portuguese.

Shak

Had my lesson with Jim yesterday. We got thru Tsuru no Sugomori and I will finish it next week. That is a cool piece. Very active and melodic for Honkyoku. So after next week we'll have only 8 pieces left before we go back to the beginning and review the entire repertoire for the teaching level.

Daily's:

Piano:

Sunny Side of the Street
Four
In a Sentimental Mood
In a Mellow Tone
Night and Day

Shakuhachi:

Tsuru no Sugomori

(lesson with Jim)

Tune Daily's:

piano:

How My Heart Sings
Easy To Love
Four

Winter

OK - you got me. That was a pretty good one. The bright sunshine and 50+ degreeness and general mellow feeling falling over the earth only a couple of days ago gave way to a "spring" snow last night. But anyone who has been through these things knows never to declare winter "over" just because we've moved past the vernal equinox. But hey! It was actually very beautiful. And we all know it won't last, precisely because we HAVE moved on in to the Tropic of Cancer.

Quinn called and said only Epstein (piano) could make the rehearsal, as Retzlaff and Marcus were otherwise engaged (not to each other mind you), so I was dismissed as well. She said there was nothing we haven't played so it'll be fine. (I guess Ted Firth is working on some new charts though - for upcoming gigs).

I've got to get on to Brooklyn to see Jim. We are finishing Sokaku Reibo today.

Pod mix:

Doralice: Joao Gilberto live in Tokyo
Softly As In A Morning Sunrise: Paul Chambers
Mohawk: Bird and Diz on Verve

Tune played:

Tangerine

Spring

Ah Yes!

Moving into my favorite time of year (at least that's what I'll say until the same leaves that have yet to make an appearance this year are turning all shades of fire and orange and yellow in the fall, when THAT will be my favorite time of year, until next spring, say March 22nd, when THAT will be...etc...etc)

I don't know, though. There's something about the waking up of the earth (and consequently of our souls!) that far outshines all other times, all other climes. I love the tropics, and have ducked out of a fair number of winters at various longitudes (Hawaii, Far East, Caribbean)/similar latitudes (Tropic of Cancer), but there does feel to be a certain pay off for getting through another winter up here.

New Calendar Posting

Finally got some more "web presence" when I realized yesterday that I could publish my ical calendar on the web through .mac (or my other server I believe). The permanent link is to the left. Check here to see my playing schedule.

Tunes

I've just been playing through the great tune "Some Other Time" on piano. Foremost in my mind is Bill Evans' great reading of it on the record "Waltz for Debby" ('61). But there is also the amazing version of Tony Bennett killing it on a later Bill record - the duo record they recorded "The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album" ('75). And the fly in the ointment is of course the mind/ear bending version of "Peace Piece" from "Everybody Digs Bill Evans" ('58)(all these records I'm mentioning are highly recommended). Not for the faint of heart. That harmonic system of the tune - C major to G7sus - is so locked in, that when he starts "bending the air" at around 3'50", the point is made with an exclamation mark: rules are made to be broken.

Interesting: I've had that record "Everybody Digs" on vinyl and cassette, but never the CD. So I just went to download it at iTunes and lo' and behold, there is an outtake of "Some Other Time" which was unknown to me. Bill did a take of the intro to that tune, which became "Peace Piece", and the take of "Some Other Time" got shelved as a result.

Mojo Grill

Went up to Dutchess County tonight - near Wappinger's Falls, about 50 miles north of NYC - to play a gig with Tony DePaolo at the Mojo Grill. It's his regular Wed. hit. I played 6 string electric bass. Tony played guitar and there was a drummer named Mike. We played standards. Pretty low key gig, but a good vibe and the scattered people that were there seemed to enjoy it. Nice to play the 6 again. It sounded good thru the Hartke amp that was at the club (I'm needing to update my bass amp rig).

It's amazing how far removed from the city it feels up there. Culturally as well as geographically. It's got a small-town feel that exists because there are farms just outside of town and not because trendy commuters want to make it FEEL that way. The sky was an inky black. The stars shone brighter than they do when competing with the light pollution of the City. I like it upstate.

Metheny

Finally went to iTunes store today and bought/downloaded the new Pat Metheny record "The Way Up". Listened to the "first part" (this record has no "songs" but rather 3 extended sections of contiguous musical ideas) on the ipod on the way up to Mojo tonight - 31 minutes long! Didn't feel ungainly. The sections flow into each other naturally enough. I do have to say that Metheny writes great road trip cruising music. Preferably countryside.

I wanted to go ahead and hear it/get to know it because I'm going to see the Group live April 2 at the Beacon theater. From what I've heard so far, I like it. Certainly not the departure from Pat's earlier stuff that has been made of it. If you listen to many of his records, you've heard similar stuff (although not all on one record), but there are some interesting ideas and it is all well executed.

Man, think of Jaco dying at 35, and all the potential music he had inside dying with him. And contrast that with Pat who has lived on the road and in the studio his whole adult life! 30 years now! Good for Pat for giving himself another reason to get out on the road and spread the word.

Essex House

So I did that solo gig Thursday at the Essex House. No big deal. It was a pre-dinner reception for some Asian Lawyers Association. Noone was really paying that much attention and they were loud to boot, but that took the pressure off and allowed me to just play and not worry too much about anything.

I didn't bring the flute, but I did bring the shakuhachi, the nylon string guitar, and the Boomerang Phrase Sampler which is basically a long loop machine. It allows me to record the guitar part on the fly (up to 4 minutes), as I'm playing and singing through the tune the first time, and when I get to the end of the (song) form, I hit a button and the guitar part will play back, allowing me to then solo over it (on guitar, or flute), or play a shaker/sing without having to play the accompaniment. Its a pretty neat trick.

And I learned a new use for it as well:

I parked in the Hotel Loading Zone at 6:00 on the 58th St side to load in. I had to play continuous from 6:30-7:45pm. The street parking restrictions weren't lifted until 7:00 and I didn't really want to pay $15 to park so I asked Quinn whether I could take a break and move it at 7:00. But she didn't seem to think the client wanted ANY breaks since the gig was only a little more than an hour.

So at 6:55, I played and sang "Sweet Lorraine", using the Boomerang. It played back the guitar part and I took a solo, looking around to see if anyone was paying much attention. They all (some 200) knew I was there (i.e. listening casually) but everyone was so involved in schmoozing that I took the oppertunity to put down the guitar (the Sweet Lorraine comping still playing through the amp), casually walk through the crowd, out the door, out to 58th St, moved the car, came back, and sure enough from the back of the crowded room, it sounded like someone playing a solo gig (this didn't take that long - maybe three minutes. Even I would have balked at leaving the thing going for 15 minutes of solo-less comping).

I casually came back, put on the guitar, found my place at the bridge of the tune, and took it out. Noone even batted an eye! ;-)

Now we all knew that the Boomerang could create the "one man band" effect, that it can stack unlimited parts, play them backwards, etc etc. But we didn't know that it could help outwit the parking demons (to say that the traffic cop/NYC motorist relationship is an adversarial one would be an understatement) and allow us the critical time to park for free!

Taiko

Just got back from going to see sensei Jim's Taiko Group. Had a great time. The group was great, Jim was great and watching the reaction of the homeboys/homegirls from the Bronx who were on a field trip to Lincoln Center to see it was hilarious. They were about 15 and 16 yrs old. Bursting with energy (of course). They were old enough that I could scarcely tell the difference between they and their rather "young looking" teachers. About 100 of them all told.

Some of the grunting from the Taiko leader brought out their sarcastic, goofing off side, but when the overwhelming groove of the drums kicked in it proved once again my (oft postulated, nay original) theory that once you get down to the thread-bare essence of what people are really about, topical cultural differences melt away. (And yes, I would count as essence the effect that a deep, hypnotic, well constructed groove has on the human animal.)

The Japanese formality, costumes, above mentioned grunting, and dance-like drumming seemed funny to them. But when the leader, after about 3 minutes of steady, ostinato drumming, laid out a John Bonham-esque fill (essentially a reverse clave) it just destroyed the whole back row and part of the first, and they erupted into unscripted, uninterrupted seat-dancing. And it does. It just gets you.

(check out: West African ceremonial drumming, Brazilian samba, Japanese Taiko etc)

Crazy weather here the last couple of days. Monday's cruise was the first time all year that it has reached 50 degrees and it is amazing how warm 51 degrees feels in early March. It was the first truly spring-feeling night and I appreciated it out on deck a couple of times.

Then it all changed! It wasn't just the 30 degree temp drop, nor the 5" of snow, but that howling, gusty wind! I could literally feel the apt building shaking last night. It has finally died down and the sky is still portending spring, if you asked me... I'm ready.

Got a call from Quinn (who is producing the event, not performing) Monday to play a solo gig on Thursday at the Essex House on Central Park South. That should be fun. I subbed out the boat. I'll bring the nylon string guitar and play/sing bossa nova, some standards and also bring the shakuhachi to play a couple of honkyoku pieces. The gig is only 1 and 1/4 hours.

Haven't played a solo gig since December. I've been playing more piano at home than guitar, so I'm happy to dust off some of these tunes.

I was just playing Samba da Minha Terra, Aquarela do Brasil, A Felicidade, Voce e Eu... I love those tunes.