Nash + JALCO = really fine jazz

The first time I heard pieces of this jazz suite was at a live performance where the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra traveled to a venue near my home. They devoted the whole last half of the show to playing four pieces from this work, including the rousing “Pollock” and the inimitable “Dali”. Mr. Nash announced each piece beforehand, and in one of the more memorable moments, explained that to evoke the esoteric characteristics of Dali and his fantastical paintings, he wrote the piece in 13/8 time. This elicited an awed reaction from the musically aware crowd. Mr. Nash took the reaction with aplomb, drily noting, “Oh, yeah. As if you know what that is.” But we did, and the crowd loved it. 

I relate this story only to give context to my comments, namely that, this recording is so well written and so well played, it flows naturally from one song to the next, with each one still bringing some new fold to the fabric of the overall piece. The dimension that the orchestra adds is exceptional, from the lucid singing of trombonist Vincent Gardner , to the spirited Spanish trumpet stylings of the ubiquitous Wynton Marsalis, to the steady swing of the steely rhythm section of Dan Nimmer, Ali Jackson, and Carlos Henriquez, there’s just so much to hear and enjoy on this jam-packed CD. As a hard core collector of jazz recordings (I own the entire Penguin Jazz Recordings core collection, plus a lot more), I can always find something to meet a specific mood or occasion, but if I ever have a doubt, I can put on “Portraits”, and it never fails to provide a lift and impress listeners, both among those acquainted with the work and not. This is just a great jazz CD and one of the most artistic (sorry) jazz works of the past decade. Fans of Wynton Marsalis and JALCO will certainly be delighted with this work, but no true jazz fan who bought this could possibly be disappointed. It’s wonderful.

Less than perfect circumstances, nearly perfect results

Anybody well steeped in the history of jazz will be familiar with the story of this recording, which goes something like: strung out, drug-addled saxophonist who is out of work and out of luck is surprised by the announcement of his spouse that he has a recording gig at a local studio with the rhythm section of the then ubiquitous Miles Davis, so he dusts off his horn (literally), gets to the studio, is handed some lead sheets, and in the haze of a fading high, attempts to do a close reading of songs he is largely unfamiliar with, and pulls off one of the classic jazz recordings of the decade, if not of all time. 

He looks okay to me...

Over the years, we can only speculate how much of this story is true and how much is embellishment, but what cannot be argued is that the quality of this recording and its overall musicianship and listen-ability is top notch. It’s recordings like these that make a person disappointed that there aren’t more of them, more opportunities for these parties to have collaborated, maybe even in writing some original tunes together. I mean, Miles Davis’ rhythm section was tighter than a conga drum head, and though at times you get the feeling they are carrying Pepper along with them, there are other times where you can’t help but feel that Pepper has led them down a musical road they weren’t planning to travel. It's a scintillating effect.

The variety of tunes is great, and the remastered recording is without glaring inadequacies. Red Garland’s piano is ethereal at moments, while Philly Joe Jones and Paul Chambers keep the swing steady and strong. Pepper lays back when he wants, pops out when he wants, and generally adds just the slightest amount of risky instability to the steadiest support group from that era of jazz. This is just a great jazz album, a must have for Miles Davis, Art Pepper and honking sax fans, and a definite cornerstone of any serious aficionado’s collection. Add this to you collection, and do so sooner than later. You won’t regret it.

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga - 2014

With a new album pairing Tony Bennett and Diana Krall, along with Bill Charlap and his trio in support, it seems a good time to post this review, of Tony's work with Lady Gaga, which was released four years to the day before the upcoming album. 

Nothing short of thrilling

I’m a big Tony Bennett fan and I’ve really admired the way he’s reinvented himself on an almost continuous basis, starting with the epic MTV Unplugged CD in the early ‘90’s. Of course, the duets albums have also been an incredible sensation, to the point where even other singers will compose laments to not doing a duet with Mr. Bennett (Kevin Mahogany Old New Borrowed and the Blues). My awareness of Lady Gaga and her work was, until this recording, limited to a picture of her in a meat dress and the song “Poker Face”, which I think I heard once. And until the Wall Street Journal wrote about this recording, as much as I like Tony Bennett, I had no intention of purchasing this. But, if the Wall Street Journal tells you a pop star you have no interest in has serious jazz chops when singing with a jazz legend like Tony Bennett, you pay attention and buy the recording.

And am I ever glad I did. I absolutely love what Tony and Lady have done with this collection of standards. They’ve literally made the songs their own, sung their hearts out, and ended up with what is arguably one of the best vocal jazz albums to come out in years, if not decades. The arrangements are all swinging and most use a commanding big band format that is positively scintillating. On top of that, they’ve chosen a great selection of songs that encompasses all the highlights of the American songbook: Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, a couple by Duke Ellington,  and a healthy sampling of the Gershwins, among others. Tony and Lady each take two solos, allowing them to sort of put their individual stamp on the recording, with Lady’s soulful rendering of Billy Strayhorn’s Lush Life narrowly edging out Tony’s Sophisticated Lady for top solo honors. But honestly, the duets are what this is all about. Tony sings everything pretty straight while solidly swinging, with his usual panache at lyrical timing and thoughtful song rendering, and Lady uses her voice to accent each piece. Whether she needs a thumping vibrato or a soft, still tone, she delivers when and where needed, and the songs’ meaning and feel just jump from the speakers. Even when she’s only speaking a playful line, as in Goody Goody: “I told you, I’m not a goody, I’m a baddy,” you can almost see her smile and wink as Tony proceeds to call her “rascal, you”. I could go on about the other songs that I found impressive, from the understated elegance of “Nature Boy” to the rousing sendoff of “It Don’t Mean a Thing”, but I’ll just go with the old cliché and say: there isn’t a bad track on this recording. The mixing and sound is flawless, and the CD comes with a generous fold out photo montage on one side and song-by-song musicians’ rosters on the other. (Jazz aficionados – like me – will appreciate being able to look up some of the other performers.)

I can’t say enough about this recording. It excites me, inspires me, calms me and soothes me, thrills me, kills me. It makes my love for jazz grow and what do you know? It made me a Lady Gaga fan. According to the Wall Street Journal, Lady is going to release one jazz album a year “forever”. I for one can’t wait, but I hope this isn’t the end of the collaboration between these two superlative artists. I’ll be even happier if Lady shows up as a special unannounced guest performer at the Tony Bennett concert in Nashville in December (that I already have tickets for), but even if she doesn’t, I still have this stunningly excellent CD to keep my heart pounding. It’s just phenomenal and a complete five star no brainer.

The Resurrection of Late to Jazz

Never mind about my composer’s studio (which is coming along but still in the works). It’s time to resurrect the blog itself.

After writing 1700+ product reviews over a little less than eleven years, I had slowly and carefully worked my way up to become Amazon’s 156th ranked reviewer. It was a good run, and I enjoyed it, but then something happened.

They kicked me out.

Amazon's "You suck" email, delicately worded in Indiaglish.

And because they are Amazon, they don’t tell you why they are kicking you out. They simply inform you that you have broken one of their rules or terms of service, you are a terrible human being, and we (Amazon) don’t associate with terrible human beings except for Chinese manufacturers of worthless, dangerous, easily broken, and unnecessary products, and then they “suppress” all your reviews. Then it occurred to me: since they no longer publish my reviews, those reviews revert to being my work, and that means I can publish them.

And so, as a slow and calculated way to resurrect my once bright but now faded  blog, and in anticipation of retirement and more time to devote to stuff I want to do, I decided to resurrect my blog by republishing my jazz recording reviews. Some of them have appeared in this blog before in altered (non-Amazon-rule-breaking) format, so those that are duplicates will be a good lesson in avoiding copyright infringement. The others will show what I really thought about a lot of these recordings.

Anyway, it’s great to be returning to my roots. Writing, opinionating, and learning and teaching about jazz. Today I will finish cleaning up the blog. Tomorrow, I’ll post a review, and we’ll be on our way.

Again.

Another "In and out of jazz" story

I recently had the opportunity to make my second trip ever to lovely Greenville, South Carolina. If you’ve never been there, downtown Greenville is a nice little place, where many years ago, they had the foresight to narrow Main Street from four lanes to two, and widened the sidewalks and installed a bunch of greenery. The result is a quaint little boomtown, where sidewalk cafes, restaurants, bars, and snack shops proliferate. The two jazz clubs that I saw, however, we’re not proliferating. Both were closed.

L to R: Gage Banks, Garrett Graettinger, Morgan McGee, Roman Holder, Riley LePere. Damn! Are those great jazz musician names, or what!? 

Then I went to the first night’s reception of the event I was attending, the 40th annual SEUS-Japan Conference, and what do you know? There was a jazz band about to set to swinging. This jazz band was a quintet of young men, with the unusual instrumentation of alto sax, baritone sax and rhythm section. Of course, I had been drinking and I have no reservations about anything when jazz is involved, so I walked right up to them and said, “Play 'Scrapple from the Apple' ”. They looked at me quizzically, as this was not in their main repertoire from what I could gauge from their reaction. In fact, the leader, their pianist Morgan McGee looked at me funny and said, “What?” I repeated my request and they still looked confused. Then I goofed.

“You know, Monk!”

Roman takes a solo, while Riley plans his. (Morgan had already set them up with his bluesy lead.)

At this point, I think they wanted me to go away, but I didn’t. I said, “No, wait. That’s Charlie Parker. Play some Monk.” This they could relate to. They swung through a pretty terrific take of “In Walked Bud”, including piano and both sax solos. I complimented them and their solos, told them to play Miles when they saw me coming out, and left for the dinner. That, was that.

Riley and Roman go to the head ,with Garrett holding them up in back.

Or so I thought.

At the next night’s reception, there they were again, but I was on the other side of the venue windows. I waved, got their attention, made piano motions and mouthed “Monk, Monk!” Once inside, I introduced myself and my blog, and later on they did play “In Walked Bud” again, as I sat there and enjoyed myself and Mrs. S proceeded to ingest oysters that would eventually give her food poisoning.

Your blogger with the young saxophonists. I'm the fat one on the left.

So, I compliment Greenville on at least trying to have a jazz scene, and I compliment the young gentlemen you see pictured here on their pursuit of one of America’s greatest art forms (I would say, “the greatest”). Next time they see me, I’ll probably say, “In walked me, so you know what I want!” I’m sure that "Bud" will be close behind.

Something worth reading

I read about jazz every chance I get, so when I was offered a review copy of pianist Fred Hersch’s memoir, Good Things Happen Slowly, I gladly accepted. What follows is an edited version of a review I posted on Amazon.

Prior to reading this book, I was only vaguely aware of Fred Hersch and his accomplishments, and then, mainly only his work as a record producer. To find out that he is an accomplished pianist, composer, advocate of various causes, coma survivor, and now a writer, was a real revelation. Early in his career, he played with a lot of jazz luminaries who unlike Mr. Hersch, were late in their careers. Those nostalgic kinds of stories about late jazz legends are always enjoyable, especially for the perspective they give about bygone jazz eras. I was also interested to learn that he is a fellow Ohioan who is close to my age. So even though I do not share his sexual orientation, which drives a number of his storylines – and obviously, portions of his life – I found his tales highly relatable and not entirely without correlation in my own life. That sort of thing always makes for good reading.

I will say, however, that Mr. Hersch is not the best writer. What was really surprising is, I thought that the main thing lacking from his prose was rhythm. He just chooses too many goofy, not completely accurate words, so when the narrative starts bouncing around, there was a tendency to get lost and lose the entire track of the narrative. Then I would have to go back and reread passages to piece the story back together. It’s just like playing in a jazz combo, too, in that when the rhythm isn’t there, the musicians tend to make bad decisions. I think that is why his word choice was not always correct, where what he wanted to say was somehow conveyed, but in a convoluted or “out of rhythm” fashion. He also drove me crazy calling a cello a ‘cello. I thought that was just plain obstinate, especially because it wouldn’t have been much of an issue except he has worked with a lot of ‘cellists who play ‘cello.

The book will be on sale September 12, 2017.

For the most part, I enjoyed this book, but it was a bit dark and melancholic at times, maybe even morose. Just the same, Mr. Hersch has certainly led an unusual, and at times charmed, life. If his writing was as good as his music, this book would have been a lot better, but it’s still a good look at an interesting corner of the jazz world.

Composer’s Studio: The Resurrection

A couple years back, I set about buying a piano, which required me to not only think about space, but to actually organize it. At the time, I had a notion to turn our smallest room into a compact and efficient studio. Put my digital piano in next to my computer, have all my musical accoutrements in the near vicinity, install some music software, put all my nice instruments in a separate room with my grand piano, and I’d have anefficient little composer’s space. Its nativity was right on plan.

Who wants to write a song here?

Then I started getting more involved in online reviewing, and products started to roll in. Pretty soon, my composer’s space had deteriorated into a miniature Amazon warehouse. It was good to have the delineated space for tax purposes and for keeping some of the clutter out of the house, but it was bad for composing, of which I did none. Something had to change.

Before the junk

After the junk

The first thing I did was cut back on the reviews and declutter. That at least gave me some ground to recover the space. With the addition of a dedicated music making computer and some MIDI controllers, however, I was soon recompacted into my tiny space. It was then we decided to sell the pool table and use the billiard room as a studio.

View of the future studio from the top of the stairs

Unfortunately, the billiard room was essentially unused for about ten years, other than to store boxes and gizmos Mrs. S and I had lost (or never had) interest in. That meant it needed refurbishing – wall repair, new switch and socket covers, a paint job, a working toilet, usable furniture – before it could be used as a studio.

View of the future studio back toward the stairs

That’s where we are now. The contractors – a plumber, an electrician, a painter – arrive Monday. Also arriving Monday is the nascence of my new composer’s studio.

Goat rodeo and a banjo player

While Mrs. S has had multiple opportunities to see the cellist Yo Yo Ma perform, until recently, I had not. But for our season ending concert at the Nashville Symphony, we were second row front and center for Yo Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer (second time to see him in two months), and Chris Thile, that is, three quarters of the Goat Rodeo, perform some Bach pieces. This was interesting and unusual for a couple of reasons.

Yo Yo Ma always looks like he is having a good time. Probably, because he is.

One was that performing in Nashville, they could have easily found a “fiddler” to fill out the quartet and perform the goat rodeo pieces. Another is, the pieces they performed were mostly not necessarily composed for trios. In fact, most of them that were announced were organ pieces that had been adapted for a trio. This of course glosses over the fact how you make a fugue work for a trio consisting of a cello, double bass, and mandolin. Second of all, I think Edgar Meyer is the only local, so even getting three fourths of the band there was no small feat. But it gets better.

This is about as casual as Edgar Meyer gets.

During the encore, they were actually joined by Stuart Duncan, who was either in the audience or was there to perform the encore. In the end, I felt a little cheated that we could have been listening to classical bluegrass and instead had to listen to Bach trios. Then again, I had a certain familiarity with the Bach pieces, so I appreciated them enough as it was.

The Goat Rodeo Team

But the real highlight might have been something else.

At intermission, we followed our customary “beer first, bathroom later” plan. As often happens, for some reason, the men’s seems to take a little longer, so even though Mrs. S was waiting for me when the five minute bell rang, I didn’t know she was already out. As I’m standing there waiting, Bela Fleck walked right by me and into the men’s room. So I’m waiting for Mrs. S and she finally shouts at me from upstairs, and I say, “It’s Bela Fleck!” and she goes, “That’s what I thought!” Just then Bela comes out, so we started to chat. We were dressed like brothers, and he seemed impressed that I even knew who he was. When I rattled off some concerts of his I’d been to while Mrs. S took pictures, he was kind of like, “Shouldn’t we be getting back to our seats?” and I was like, let’s walk and talk, and we did. Very personable friendly guy.

Brothers from other mothers: Bela Fleck in black T with jacket, me in black tee with jacket.

When we were leaving at the end of the concert, we walked right by him and the people he was there with, as he was waiting by the stage door to (I think) go backstage and hang with his musician friends. He greeted us again, and my brain fleetingly thought about pulling out one of my “Late to Jazz” business cards (which I always have with me for just such these purposes) and asking if he could get me backstage. But, I felt I’d imposed enough on the guy, so I merely bid him good night and we left.

I told the story to quite a few people, but unfortunately, Mr. Fleck is not as well known in my circle of acquaintances to make a decent impression, so I just have to share the story, and pictures, here with my late-to-jazzers.

I don't know, but they seem to be having a good time. I want to be a professional musician 

So there you go. Not a bad conclusion to another eventful concert season.

What a front row stage level seat makes you think about at the symphony

I started to think about this about a month ago, as I watched and listened to the Nashville Symphony Orchestra perform Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”. Then, this past week, when we went to see and hear Ravel’s “Bolero”, I had the point finally driven home and decided to write about it.

Possibly the best shoes at the concert

I’m talking about, in general, all the things that have to “go right” for a symphony orchestra to pull off a two hour musical performance. The things that can go wrong are myriad and varied: broken strings, fainting spells, turning the wrong score pages, instruments going out of tune, principal soloists catching cold, and any number of imaginable mishaps, however unlikely. What goes unnoticed in waiting for something to go wrong is how many things have to go right.

A selection of men's and lady's

Shoes, for instance. 79 pairs of shoes have to comfortable, broken in, shined, and functional, enough that 158 feet go completely unnoticed and un-thought-about for the 79 owners. This is important because as anybody who has ever had sore feet or a pair of ill-fitting shoes – which is probably every person who has ever owned shoes – knows, you can’t do a damn thing or concentrate or think of anything other than your feet when they hurt. You wouldn’t think of shoes being important to a concert performance, but I would argue, it could be one of the most critical aspects to a successful performance. Then, of course, you get into the rest of the clothes and personal grooming aspects. Underwear has to be comfortable. Skin has to not be itchy. Underarms have to not be irritated. Horn players’ lips have to be moist, supple and strong. String instrument players’ fingers have to be uncut, firm, and flexible. Percussionists arms have to be loose and responsive.

Those are sharp!

Then the surroundings: The stage has to be supportive but quiet. Music stands have to be upright, straight, and adjustable. Chairs have to be firm, comfortable, secure, and also adjustable. The AC or heat has to come on. The lights need to work. The doors need to be unlocked. 79 cars have to be in good working order and have to find roads that are passable between the performers’ houses and the concert hall. They need to not have accidents on the drive in. They all need to have gas in the tank.

No surprise, these are probably my favorite

Really, given everything that has to happen and not go wrong, it’s amazing there are such things as symphony performances at all.

Visiting my piano’s birthplace

Yamaha's Kakegawa piano factory

Not long before Christmas, Mrs. S and I made our way over to Taiwan and Japan for a bit of vacationing, catching up with family, and eating beef-and-rice bowls (among many other Japanese foods we can’t get in Alabama). I didn’t particularly want to go, but when a dirt-cheap plane ticket came available, I was compelled to make the trip. Mrs. S wanted to know what I wanted to do there, but I had no agenda, so she came up with the idea of visiting the Yamaha piano factory in Kakegawa, near Hamamatsu, as another enticement to keep me on the trip.

In front of the one time home of my piano that now lives in Alabama

The factory is not easy to get to, but like most of Japan, it isn’t particularly hard to get to, either. Getting that far off the beaten track somewhere north of Nagoya was interesting, to say the least. It was actually harder to find a place to eat lunch than it was to visit the factory.

One of the nicer looking pianos in the lobby

Prior to the start of the tour, there is a large reception area with one or two of every musical instrument that Yamaha makes, plus about ten different pianos. There were even two concert grands in an isolation room, one of which was the one-millionth piano ever made by Yamaha. I spent a while playing that, trying to feel like the great pianist, Richter, for whom it was basically custom made. Needless to say, my halting renditions of “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” and “Maple Leaf Rag” did not do much to promote those feelings.

Perspective skewed by the camera makes the piano look about five feet long...

...but it's much, MUCH longer than that (almost ten feet).

I wasn't kidding: their one millionth piano. Numbers guy me loves that.

The tour is a conducted affair that takes about an hour and a half. They do give English tours, but ours was in Japanese. We were one of two couples, joined by a small eight or ten person group of (possibly?) music students. The tour starts with two videos where they show you the “3K” parts of piano production, 3K translating from Japanese into the 3D: dirty, difficult, and dangerous. So, we didn’t actually see any tree cutting, wood fabricating, hardware casting, painting, or frame assembly. After the videos, the guide took her time showing us whippens, hammers, felt, and things like that, which I had seen plenty of when I took my square grand apart. The factory was all about pin and string insertion, action assembly and adjustment, and tuning.

Some other pianos that could be tried out

For me, there were two particularly impressive things. First was the sheer number of people they have working on pianos. Of course, anyone who has worked on a piano knows how labor intensive it is, but the point is really driven home when you see how many people are working on the very mundane, but meticulous tasks of piano adjustment. The other thing was, Yamaha doesn’t make all of one piano at a time. If you stand at the top of one of the production lines and look down, you can see that the pianos are (mostly) all different sizes (lengths). It is not uncommon to see a couple G1’s or G2’s, some C1’s, C7’s and C5’s, and never see two in a row the same size. It’s actually kind of disconcerting. Not surprisingly, the parts racks are meticulously labeled and mixed all together. It’s kind of unbelievable.

Some boxes to test different string types

The tour culminates in a listening room where there are three identical pianos that each sound completely different from the other two. The guide played a bit of Fur Elise on them, and the differences were hardly subtle and quite noticeable. Again, for three identical pianos to come off the line within a few days (hours?) of each other and yet sound so different, it really makes a statement about the craftsmanship that goes into each piano. Truly remarkable. We also each received a keychain made from an authentic piano hammer embossed with the Yamaha logo. It was nice that Mrs. S and I both got one, so we can use one and keep the other clean and safe as a trip memento.

"Been there, done that, in their anniversary year" photo

It seems highly likely that I will never buy another acoustic piano, given how well my C1-X holds tune and how I will probably never live in a house larger than the one I’m in now. But I do know that if I do buy one, it will come from this factory. I owe it to myself to get the best possible musical instrument, and that is what the Kakegawa factory makes. I saw that for myself.

Our souvenirs.

Future musical instruments available now

I don’t know how often new musical instruments are being invented. My guess is, not very often. So when I had a chance to review the Roli Seaboard Rise keyboard for Amazon, I was not sure what to expect. I’m always up for a musical adventure, however, so I decided to expand my musical palette and resume and try it out.

A very well packaged, good looking instrument.

You will notice that the instrument is vaguely laid out like a keyboard, with sharps and flats between nominally longer keys, however, each key is actually not a key, but a raised hillock (I don’t know what else to call it – it’s the convex version of a trough) of silicone. You can try to play it like a keyboard, but you will be sorely disappointed and you will notice also that keyboard technique hardly transfers at all to the configuration of the instrument. That’s because the entire black surface is the instrument. You can actually sound each key by hitting, pressing, pushing, sliding, or otherwise coming in contact with it with some kind of finger motion. You can also play above and below the keys, and in between them as well. It’s actually quite unnerving at first. Attempting to play it like a keyboard, you end up with distinct, non-repetitive sounds across a wide spectrum of tonality. Any false move or lazy finger action will affect the sound. It’s actually hard to believe how difficult it is – at first.

The box can even work as a road case. Kind of.

The instrument comes with a program and sound module and while it is meant to be a MIDI controller (kind of), I think it actually works better as a standalone instrument. The best thing about the graphic interface is the sound curve at the bottom of the screen for each sound. It shows where you are playing the sound and approximately, what the range and frequency of the sound is. Since each sound is playable across 10-and-a-half octaves, this turns out to be pretty important, as some sounds turn into complete mush and wobble as they go lower, while other sounds actually become inaudible as they go up. (No sense in hitting the C above C above C above C above C above middle C if nobody can hear it, right?) The program also allows individual tweaking of the sounds by altering attack, fade, and things like that. Each mode has a four panel recall feature, so you can always leave on untouched to keep the original in place while you are working on altering the sound.

Looks kind of like a keyboard, but really, it's not.

The depth of this instrument is really incredible. Of course you can add other sounds to your sound library and tweak them the same as you would the ones it comes with. There’s even a dashboard for working on sounds more easily and quickly prior to putting them back into the library. I’ve had this for about a week and I know I’ve only scratched the surface, as I’m just having too much fun with what I can get my hands on and brain around to want to invest the time to try some different things. I have, however, printed out the manuals and I plan to start mucking around with more features pretty soon. Honestly, I feel this instrument can make a great piece of jazz performance gear, and I like how it will be practically one of a kind if I am the first to get it out there and start soling or comping with it.

Programmable sound. Awesome. 

This thing is simply incredible. I don’t know what else I can say about it. As I learn to use it and start to actually play and record, maybe some more interesting things will come to light. Until then, I will say that, like me, Roli may also be late to jazz, but they have invested an instrument that is here now. I intend to make it work for me.

Worth the struggle

The musical heroes of our story, L-R: Eric Marienthal, Chick Corea, John Pattitucci

Last week, Mrs. S and I closed out our week and kicked off our symphony season with a jazz fusion concert, checking out the Chick Corea Elektric Band at the Schermerhorn Concert Hall. Despite leaving our house for the 100-mile trip two hours and fifteen minutes before our dinner reservation, we fell victim to the Predators’ opening night hockey crowd, plus, construction, plus more construction, plus the regular Friday-night-in-Nashville hullaballoo and nearly didn’t get seated at The Farm House for dinner. (Mrs. S ran two blocks to hold the table while I drove the last two blocks in fifteen minutes.) We forced ourselves on this battle because we had front row seats, right in the center, for Chick Corea's Elektric Band, making it hard not to go.

Chick Corea about to break his 0-for-4 autographs streak

To be honest, I’m only vaguely familiar with Chick’s electric stuff, and Mrs. S not at all. I remember a few issues of Keyboard magazine from the 1970’s that I may have skimmed the articles about Chick’s gear and music, but I just don’t know their songs, which are jazz to be sure, but lean heavily toward the rock side of the spectrum. After a rousing and rowdy start, where the crowd just screamed for the first thirty seconds of the show, the set sort of lulled in the middle of the show. After working fourteen hours the day before and spending an extra half hour on the road for the local high school’s homecoming parade to go past our subdivision, I too was starting to get lulled into a stupor of sorts, but the crowd continued to encourage the band, and they played some of their biggest songs to close out the set, which brought the whole crowd back to life, including me. One of the closing pieces included an audience participation call-and-response segment that The Music City crowd, along with me, pretty much nailed, no matter how challenging Chick tried to make. They even did an encore, which was exciting if only because it was so unusual for that type of concert.

Eric Marienthal gushes on, and autographs, a CD he didn't even perform on

As always, we came prepared to seek and receive autographs, but Chick has not done much in the way of autographs at other of his concerts we’ve been to, so I just had the “Now He Sings, Now he Sobs” CD at hand. This turned out to be quite lucky, because after the show, Chick lingered on stage and did in fact start signing autographs, and I was successful at getting him to sign the booklet right on the front. By the time he was finished, bassist John Pattitucci, who plays with Wayne Shorter and Danilo Perez, and the exemplary saxophonist Eric Marienthal, lead alto of the Gordon Goodwin Big Phat Band, had come out on the other side of the stage and were signing autographs. Even though neither of them played on the CD that I brought, both were kind enough to sign it and have a picture with me. Eric even said it was one of his favorite albums.

John Pattitucci and fan

Had I known that Eric and John would sign autographs, I would have brought some Gordon Goodwin and Wayne Shorter Quartet CD booklets with me. As it is, I still ended up with a Chick Corea signed CD booklet – which is a good get – along with some extra names you wouldn’t expect to find signed on that. It’s pretty cool.

The autographs, L-R: Eric Marienthal, Chick Corea, John Pattitucci

Next trip to Nashville, we are giving ourselves three hours to make the trip. If we get there early, we can always kill time in a bar, and that extra cushion should make it much less nerve racking getting to dinner and the concert on time. When Nashville gets some hotels built and gets all the construction scaffolding out of the streets and when they do something about that ridiculous roundabout that leads into and out of the city, it will really be a destination city. For now, it is a congested hellhole to get to, but truly a magical musical city once you are in.

Five happy musicians at the end of a fantastic show. Yep. That was our view from front row center.

My new bass guitar

One big advantage of not taking piano lessons is I don’t have to practice if I don’t feel like it. One big disadvantage of not taking piano lessons is I don’t have to practice if I don’t feel like it. This is coming into play this week, because I just obtained a brand new electric bass guitar, and now, I have to start being serious about learning some stringed instruments other than the ukulele. All this came about because of my considerable skill at writing reviews in general, but also because I am a musician who can apply those review writing skills to things musical. Add to that I am a beginner guitar player, and I was ideally suited and positioned to be one of the first people to test and evaluate the new beginner’s bass by Mitchell.

My Mitchell bass guitar, hanging on the wall, photo turned 90 degrees

Coincidentally, I had an opportunity a few weeks back to review an amplifier, but I decided to pass on it because all I could think to my grand piano owning self, was, “When will I ever need an amp?” Turns out the answer was, in a couple of weeks when somebody gives you a guitar. Anyway, I’m a musician and I’m not completely unconnected from the community of my fellow musicians, so I was able to get my hands on an amp and run this bass through its paces. Here’s what I’ve learned about bass guitar in general, and this bass guitar in particular.

Hanging up facing away, turned again

Playing bass is, for the most part, like playing a horn. Many lines are linear, and there is rarely any call for playing chords (although you can do that on any guitar, bass included). Bass is also fairly simple to play. Once you’ve got the strings and the frets down, there’s nothing to it. Playing it well, however, is a different matter, mostly because like any musical instrument, there is a certain feel and a certain intuitiveness that must be built up to. I did not get very far in that department, only because I played enough to experience the bass, not enough to become a bass player.

That looks Corvette red to me...

This one, which was given to me to sample and evaluate by Music 123, a seller on Amazon, among other place, is targeted for beginners. The “transparent red” (see photos) puts me in mind of an exotic sports car, and the angular shape of the one-piece body and the sharp cut of the head are cool and modern looking. Fortunately, it came with strings on, close to being tuned, and even a battery installed, so it was ready to use right out of the box. I even still had my Kliq aircell guitar strap that I was also asked to test (which I did with my acoustic guitar originally), so I put that on and I was ready to rock.

It's got some gizmos...

This bass has a solid, strong sound. My borrowed amp wasn’t the greatest, so I had to keep the volume high, but when I started to play with the tone adjustments, I was quickly able to get a wide variety of different tones, attacks, and finishes. The best thing about the knobs is, they have a “center” where they sit in a noticeable (by feel, invisible to the eye) groove for the most neutral, clear tone. If you play with a knob and don’t like the result, you can just twist it back to the center and get back to where you started. I experimented with the knobs quite a bit, and noticed they sometimes had a very pronounced effect, and sometimes not, and sometimes it made a big different on some strings, but not so much on some others. It’s like having a small effects box with reverb, echo, feedback, and “twang” built right in. If you open them all up, you get a big huge rock guitar sound, but my playing was too feeble to do much with it, so I kept everything more in the middle. I had “Stand by Me” and “Another One Bites the Dust” going pretty good, but I never could catch on to “Billie Jean”. Maybe someday.

The one design "flaw": A jack that keep you from putting the guitar down on the floor. That's a good thing, I guess.

I like that my wide ranging product reviews are starting to help me get some focus in the music area. Hopefully this one will catch on, get some popularity and attention, and make me more of a tester and evaluator of cool musical products. In the meantime, if it helps me to decorate my music room and broaden my musical horizons, so much the better. It may even get me to sit at the piano a little more, who knows?

Not sure how that happened

My piano, when it it not in use (which is most of the time)

My piano, uncovered and ready for use

Somebody sent me an inquiry about my musical background, so I sat down and wrote an email about how I got where I am today musically. I bragged a bit about my Yamaha C-1X grand piano, and while doing that, I thought I could prove my point by providing a link to my blog. Imagine my surprise, then, when the only picture of my piano is the one where it was sitting in themusic professor’s room at UAH, before I actually purchased it and moved it into our house.

What the …?

Open for quiet time, which is pretty much all the time (it's a really good piano, so it is loud)

I have pictures of us putting in hardwood flooring, including multiple shots of the cats out of their element. I have photos of myworking studio, which includes my self-repaired P-70 digital piano and the new paint and CD rack. I even have shots of the dining room being painted andreorganized into a music room. There are shots of the piano bar moved to its new location. All very impressive. And yet, somehow, there is not a single picture of my grand piano. I say again:

What the …?

Open and ready for some music

I even have a couple pictures of my grand piano on Amazon, from when I reviewed some music related goods. Somehow, though, none of those made it to my blog either.

The inside, obviously

 If you had called me up yesterday and made a bet with me for, say, $1000, that I had only one picture of my grand piano on my blog and none showing it in my house, I would have taken that bet and you would be $1000 richer. I just couldn’t believe it.

Elton John-esque

So, anyway, this entry is just a ditty to rectify that situation. This is my piano. This is where it sits in our house. This is what it looks like, closed, partially open, fully open, and even lit by a string of LED lights. I do own a damn fine piano. One day, I may even be able to play it.

My piano, being used (which is occasionally)