Virtuoso? More like "lazy so-and-so"

It is said that in order to be a virtuoso in something, you have to practice whatever it is for 10,000 hours. That would make you “world class” or put you into the top 1% in that field, or something like that. In other words, make you a virtuoso. As of this August, I will have been formally studying jazz piano for two years, and while I have not tried to keep track of every single minute that I play the piano, I have tracked the majority of the time that I spend practicing, playing, taking lessons, rehearsing with bands, etc.

Now understand, I have no delusions here. 10,000 hours is a long, long time. To put it into perspective, if I were practicing piano as a full time job - that is eight hours a day, five days a week - it would still take five years to become a virtuoso. If (for example) I worked at it full time, and worked twenty hours every weekend as well, it would still take three years, four months to reach 10,000 hours.

Folks, I can’t even SIT at a piano that long, much less sit at it and play something. (I’m ashamed to admit it, but since school ended, I’m pretty sure I haven’t played ten hours all together. I just haven’t felt like it.)

Given that, the fact that I’m pretty close to having five hundred hours under my belt is actually pretty amazing. If you throw in my plonking around time, plus some of the time I had as a kid learning to play the organ, I’m probably up around two, maybe three thousand hours total. Still, a long stretch to the 10,000 total.

It is entirely possible that I won’t play ten thousand hours of jazz piano in my life. If I do somehow stick to it and play, say, five hundred hours a year (two hours a day, five days a week for the entire year ... yeah right, not likely), I’ll be 65 when I reach the virtuoso total.

What’s the point? I’m not sure, but I think the point is that I need to set manageable, near-term goals, or the title of “virtuoso jazz pianist” is going to fairly and completely elude me.

Only 9500 more hours to go. Let's shoot for two hours today, anyway.

Critical listening project update

Well, in the face of a two week furlough from my regular job, things are looking up for my various jazz related projects, in more ways than one.

Regular readers of this blog will recall my critical listening project. Knowing that I am going to be off for two weeks, I've spent the better part of the last three weeks acquiring some new recordings, so I was only a little surprised when I revisited my CLP notebook and found I hadn't listened critically to a recording in over two weeks. I was happy that I chose to revisit the CLP with The Amazing Bud Powell Volume Two. It's a wonderful record that suffers a little from technological limitations, but not as many as Volume One, and not enough to detract from the enjoyment of the music. I also think the song selection is better on this recording. Bud seems to have more fun with the songs. Anyway, this was a good one to kick start the project again.

It will be important that I fire on all cylinders in the project during the first week of the furlough, because the second week of the furlough I'm going to be in New Orleans with Mrs. S., soaking up the live jazz scene. I might even do some remote blogging and if I win enough money at the poker tables when I'm not in the jazz clubs or out picking up some fresh gris-gris at the voodoo shop, I might stay even longer. Hell, my company doesn't care if I take time off (saves them money), so maybe I just need to oblige.

Folks, jazz is where it's at, and I'm there!

Halfway There

With the recent acquisition of the recording Air Time by Air, I have officially managed to obtain 93 of the 185 recordings of the "core collection" as set out in the eighth edition of the Penguin guide to jazz recordings. (And yes, I know there is a ninth edition, but I started the eighth edition and that is the list I'm working to.) When I started my jazz recordings collection almost two years ago, it was a relatively easy task to find recordings in the core collection that I didn't have and to learn about the stars and great recordings over the history of jazz. Having progressed this far, however, now I am encountering certain "issues":

1) Most of the low hanging fruit has been picked. Of the 185 albums on the list, some are obvious classics, multi-million sellers, and are sort of like "Witness" T-shirts in Cleveland: they're everywhere. Now that I've got those, I'm left with fruit that is well up in the tree. Hard to find, yes, but in some cases, even impossible.

2) The higher-up hanging fruit is not only harder to find, but more expensive. Remaining single CD's on the list mostly go for $12-17, even used, and sets for anywhere from $20 to $77, and higher. One example: early last week, I found a copy of The Art Ensemble of Chicago 1967-68 on e-bay. The seller wanted $150 for it. It normally sells for between $125 - 180 on various music websites. Since I don't much care for the avant-garde work of Roscoe Mitchell, I certainly wasn't going to shell out that kind of money for a set I wasn't going to get much play out of, so I offered $35. One other buyer offered $78, which is what it eventually sold for. But with $5 CD's pretty easy to find and less than $10 the norm, I find I like my jazz music the same as my wine: Why pay $35 for one you might not like when you can get three for $30 that you will probably like at least as much, if not more?

3) The remainder of the list is pretty esoteric and often, not even enjoyable. Even jazz musicians and fans I talk to don't always know what I'm talking about when I ask them "What does Alexander von Schlippenbach sound like?" and, "Where can I pick up Tomasz Stanko's latest CD?" I mean, I once went to great lengths to track down a boring record by Evan Parker - The Snake Decides - buying it from the UK for about $20. I listened to it once. I even found Stanko's Leosia at a decent price last week. (Haven't got it yet, so don't know if that's going to work out.) Nothing sucks more than spending two months and $25 to get a recording that you just don't like. It's one of the perils of jazz music collecting, however, so I'm putting up with it, but that won't stop me from griping about it here.

So, why do it?

Well, the thrill of the chase, and all that. But really, you only have to look at the Yoity Tot list to find a number of records you may or may not have heard of (at least 95% of them were completely unknown to me two years ago) that really are worth hearing and will more than make up for the money and time spent ending up with duds. It is a collection, after all, and it's mine.

But let's not forget: I might as well keep going, because...

I'm halfway there.

Massey Hall and Me: A short travelogue

On my recent trip to Canada, I happened to run across the famous jazz (and other music) venue of Massey Hall, on the east side of downtown Toronto. It happened entirely by accident:

On the fourth day of our eight-day trip, my brother-in-law-in-law took ill and was basically laid up, leaving everyone else in our group to our own devices. With all the ladies, including the dear Mrs. S. going to an Il Divo concert that night, I was by myself. I decided to scare up some grub and set out in search of a bottle of good red wine and some schwarma, enough for me and my brother-ilil. (I can't get schwarma around where I live, and I figured it would be a slam dunk in a multi-ethnic big city like Toronto; plus I had seen some earlier in the day.) Due to some bad directions from the front desk personnel of our hotel, probably because they didn't know what schwarma was, I ended up at Eaton Center, which was okay, because I found a Liquor Control Board store and picked up a wonderful Niagara region baco noir. And if you've ever bought liquor in Canada, you'll understand this next part, where due to the store exit being completely different from the entrance (in this case, not even on the same floor), I got turned around inside Eaton Centre and when I finally got outside, I was lost. The good thing about Toronto though, is, you always know what direction to go in. (See? The CN Tower is good for something.) In a brief frenzy of adventurous spirit, I decided to take a different route back to the hotel.

In very quick order, I ended up in an obviously dodgy neighborhood. There was trash in the streets, and occasionally, people picking at it. A guy walking in front of me picked up what looked like a matchbook, told it a short story, then threw it down and jumped on it before walking off. I decided to turn left instead of walk behind that guy. I wanted to drink my wine, not use it as a weapon of self defense.

And, boom, there it was: Massey Hall. Plain as day. Dark, but the signs were lit. It looked small, like it couldn't be "the" Massey Hall, but it was. Well I'll be damned. Truthfully, I didn't even know it was in Toronto. I looked around for the ghosts of Charlie Parker and Bud Powell, and at first I thought I had found them, laying under the upcoming events board, staring off into the distance, waiting for their next solo. Then I realized it was just two bums, hoping for someone to toss them a half-eaten sandwich or a loonie. With no sandwich to offer and wanting to keep my Canadian dollars in case I had to pay off a mugger, I headed around them and down the street that runs alongside the hall. There, I got accosted by a guy who was definitely not a ghost but looked quite spooky nonetheless. He was holding a disgusting brown-stained Styrofoam cup out at me. "Change?" he asked. "Don't change," I said, "I love you just the way you are," and I kept walking.

I made it back to the hotel without further incident, but I never found my schwarma. Got some Mamma's pizza ("Since 1957!") instead.

The picture above was taken the next day, before the bums and real jazz musicians had come out. (Thank you for your compliments on my hat.)

And later (after the photo session), Mrs. S. and I got a beef stuffed pita for lunch at the St. Lawrence Market, which isn't schwarma but was no less satisfying and enjoyable.

Long, quiet weekend

It is hard to get back in the swing of things, practicing, slogging through Hanon, trying to master a stride exercise or two, learning new tunes. It's Memorial Day weekend, a month removed from completion of school, two weeks removed from my vacation to Canada, and completely unmotivated to play the piano. I've been combating the lethargy with listening exercise on my critical listening project, and writing reviews on Amazon.com of some works that I've owned for a while but not reviewed. I'm trying to keep active, since I can only get myself to sit down and play for about an hour a day, but not practice or learn anything new. It's a poor substitute, poorer even than writing about it in my blog. (!)

If you go on Amazon and look at my reviews, PLEASE click on a "yes" or two for whatever you happen to read and enjoy. I would really appreciate the support as it improves my reviewer ranking when you do that. Thanks, readers.

MLK and Jazz

Back from Canada. Interesting place. I'll post a pic of me in front of Massey Hall one of these days.

In the meantime, here's something interesting:

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/626.html

Have a jazzy day, everybody!

Finally: Yoity Tot updates

These have been long overdue, so let’s get right to them.

Although I’ve been listening to a lot of different stuff lately, mainly because of having bought a lot of new stuff, there really aren’t any recordings that have been getting steady, consistent play, but Cross Country Tour by Ahmad Jamal comes closest. I just love what he does with his trademark bright chord voicings. Songs like Poinciana and Surrey with the Fringe on Top stick in your mind for hours after hearing Jamal play them. His Billy Boy is reminiscent of Red Garland’s on Milestones, but again, brighter. He does things with Broadway and My Funny Valentine that are just amazing. A great work that is hard to get away from.

My greatest surprise after Jamal has been the Modern Jazz Quartet’s Complete Last Concert. Like many of my “discoveries”, I just can’t believe how long I went before I found them. The vibes with rhythm section had me seriously out looking to purchase a vibraphone. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (they call it “England’s Carol”) is simply phenomenal.

And finally, Mingus, Ah Um. When I don’t know what I want to listen to, this gets pulled down and put into the CD player more often than anything else I own. Just an amazing work and it runs for more than seventy minutes. Great stuff.

Moving off the Yoity Tot list and onto the B-list are Motion by Lee Konitz, Time for Tyner by McCoy Tyner, and The Sidewinder by Lee Morgan. Of course, it goes without saying, there is nothing wrong with any of those great works. They are all three, tremendous recordings. They just aren’t high on my play list right now. What would be the next three to move to the B-list, I have no idea. It was hard enough relegating these three. I’ll worry about that when I find my next Yoity Tot candidate.