Chris Botti sticks it to me…twice

So call this the resurrection of Late to Jazz.

Back in April, we drove up to Nashville to catch our third Chris Botti show. Chris continues to try and build his reputation with an electric show of stunningly talented musicians playing an eclectic mix of jazz standards and less often heard songs, calling upon a diverse group of singers and soloists to add spark and interest and surprise. In Nashville, the biggest surprise was the appearance of young pianist Taylor Eigsti, an up and coming virtuoso who is recognized almost as much for his good looks as for his stunning pianistic skills. Of course, Sy Smith made an appearance, and the ever reliable Richie Goods, who I met a few years back, holds down the rhythm section.

L-R: Taylor Eigsti, Chris Botti, Richie Goods (Nashville)

Speaking of rhythm, Chris seems to have parted ways with his longtime drummer Billy Kilson, a percussionist of limitless talent who many, including myself, would have considered irreplaceable. But the man taking over the stool, Lee Pearson, is a force of musical nature unto himself. Besides incredible technique and force, he brings an originality and unique approach to his playing that adds so much more dimension to the music. His solo, utilizing everything from mallets, sticks, castinets, and even his hands, elbows, and head, leaves anyone who knows anything about music and drums just shaking their heads in amazement.

Sy Smith, Lee Pearson, and drumsticks during pre-flight.

Of course, he plays so fanatically, drumsticks occasionally go flying. And being in the front row, they end up tantalizingly close. Chris even picked one up and handed it to me. Then, with one laying on the stage as they strode off after their encore, I yelled to Lee to toss me the stick that was laying in front of his bass drum, and he did! We hung around just long enough to still be stage side when Lee came out to clean up a bit, and he was kind enough to sign the sticks. We almost got a photo of him doing so, but our goofy Nikon picked the wrong mode to use for the shot. (It does that a lot.)

Provenance: Lee Pearson signing a drumstick. Blurred image and lack of focus courtesy of our point-and-shoot piece-of-shit Nikon.

Then two weeks ago, we traveled to Atlanta to see Chris again, this time with Joshua Bell doing a classical bit up front, followed by a shortened version of Chris’s show with Joshua putting in a couple of appearances. Lee again did his solo, also a little shorter, with two sticks flying at the end. I was in the second row and this time, Chris just kicked the sticks to the front edge of the stage, well removed from me. At the end of the show, I casually wandered over there and asked the guy doing the breakdown if I could have the sticks. He said, “I’m sorry. They aren’t mine to give away.” Then he kind of looked away and said, “But I didn’t see anything.” I said, “I heard that,” and picked up the sticks. Just then, I noticed an usher at the end of the row heading toward me. I thought about hiding the sticks, but there was no sense, since he’d already seen me grab them. He said, “Those will make a really nice souvenir for someone.” I told him that I asked for them and that anyway, it was my second set from Lee. He just said, “Oh really?” and left it at that. I mean, I guess he figured that at that point, I wasn’t going to put the sticks back, they didn’t need to be put back, and somebody had to pick them up.

The mixed pair of drumsticks from the Nashville Chris Botti conccert, signed by Lee Pearson

So I’ve got four of Lee Pearson’s drumsticks.

The Atlanta concert, by the way, was the debut concert of a tour that Chris and Joshua are doing together. The classical bits that Joshua did with the orchestra were sort of in a traditional vein, with a bit of modernity thrown in with some lesser well-known pieces on the theme of the four seasons. (The show started with Vivaldi’s “Spring” and “Summer”.) Joshua kept it light, more or less setting the stage for Chris to rock out the place.

Joshua Bell and Chris Botti (Atlanta)

Chris’s numbers are definitely getting repetitive for me, but he continues to demonstrate incredible mastery of his instrument as his musicians help him and each other to dazzle. Geoffrey Keezer, who I also met acouple of years back, was on piano, and he was sensational and bluesy as always. He actually was another highlight of the jazz set, as he seemed to be crafting some edginess and surprises to throw in at unexpected moments. I think part of it was that he could see the orchestra, so he was helping his bandmates stick with the orchestra with musical signals. I noticed Lee had to keep turning around a lot and motioning with his eyes, head, and occasionally arms and hands. I won’t say the orchestra was missing their cues, but I think the conductor, Maxim Ashkenazy may have been a little out of his element.

L-R: Geoffrey Keezer, Chris Botti, Richie Goods (Atlanta)

Still, it was a great privilege to attend the first ever Chris Botti/Joshua Bell 2016-17 (?) tour concert, and we had a really great time in Atlanta. And I got four bashed up drumsticks for good measure. Not a bad deal all around.

‘Nother Night in Nashville

A week ago Friday, Mrs. S and I made the trip to Nashville for a break from the home renovations (kind of) to see Chris Botti. We changed it up this time and ended up behind the stage, which takes a lot of walking to get to. You definitely get a different perspective up there behind the stage.

I wish I could just eat my dinner instead of photographing every plate that comes to the table. (@Etch Restaurant)

It was great to hear Chris, Billy Kilson, and a great band with a great pianist (more in a minute) and while I do enjoy the tunes, which he’s been playing in more or less this exact format for more or less ten years now, 300 days a year (according to him), I did feel things were getting just a little on the stale side. Then he changed it up.

What I could see from my seat.

He brought out Sy Smith, who I certainly didn't expect to see but who I was excited to see. She’s a tremendous singer. Just tremendous. The show was enjoyable, make no mistake about it, but I’m hoping Chris puts together a different set soon and brings back Mark Whitfield on guitar. That would be awesome.

A blurry shot of me with bassist Richie Goods

After the show we hung around and got pictures with Chris and some of his band members, plus a bunch of autographs on a bunch of CD’s and DVD’s. I got to talk with Geoffrey Keezer for a little bit. Now, I’d never heard of this guy until that night, but I’ll tell you right now: I’m going to keep my eyes open for this guy. He’s amazing. During his solo on Flamenco Sketches, I managed to catch a little bit of Waltz for Debby, and then, Fascinating Rhythm. Of course, I asked him how he managed to work those two songs, one in a different time signature, into his solo, and he gave a typical genius pianist’s answer: “I don’t know. And, you’ll probably never hear me do that ever again.” Yep, amazing.

Me and Mr. Keezer. Goodness, this guy's a fantastic pianist.

The next day was back to the renovation, picking up some IKEA furniture at an IKEA agent outside of Nashville. We even made time to stop at the Steinway Gallery and see a bunch of pianos I’m not going to buy. (The Yamaha C3 they had was excellent. I’d’ve bought it if it was 25% cheaper than the price quoted me. Sigh.)

The shot before this one included Mrs. S. I made Chris smile when she got confused and I said, "Beat it!"

Back home, it was back to the renovations, listening and thinking about jazz, and getting slowly closer to my own piano. That’s it.

Flippin’ Birds

Lots of “stuff” has been going on lately, so I thought I would just cover as many bases as quickly as possible to get everything up to date.

The cardinals did not make it. Shortly after I posted the picture of their eggs, two of the eggs went missing. For the longest time, there was one egg still in the nest, but before long, it too was abandoned and vanished. The good news is that the cardinals managed to “flip” their one bedroom, no bath nest to a single mother robin, and she’s already plopped down three eggs in it:

Mrs. S's garden, cardinal's nest, robin's eggs.

 We also have a nest of swallows in the loft above our front porch, but you can’t see anything except the mud of the nest and the crap all around it. If I hear the babies hatch, however, I’ll probably get a ladder out and take a picture of them.

At work, I found a nest in back of our plant with four plover eggs in it. A week later, three hatched. The next day, there was no trace of the chicks, eggs or mother. They were either eaten, or they moved on. (I’m believing they survived.)

Those are plovers. They live on the ground. In rock nests. You would hate being a plover.

I got my stamp collection appraised. I was offered a dollar amount that was about one-quarter of the insured value. I knew the stamp market was depressed, but I didn’t know it was depressed enough to make me depressed. So, I won’t be selling my stamps any time soon, which means, I’ve got to find some other way to finance a piano purchase. (Hello, home equity line of credit!)

We went to see Chris Botti in concert in Nashville last Friday. That was a lot of fun. He did most of the tunes from his Live in Boston DVD, which was cool. We got five autographs and a bunch of pictures with him. Here’s one: 

They call Chris Botti a "smooth jazz musician", but no bop fan like me would be smiling like that if he wasn't standing next to a modern day, be-bopping, Miles Davis-inspired  jazz artist. Believe it!

Saturday we went to Birmingham and heard a Mozart concerto with the conductor playing the piano while conducting. That was a first. They took the top off the Steinway so he could do that. I’d never seen that done before, either.

The notes in my piano drill book are too small for my old eyes, and Mrs. S hasn’t had a chance to scan and enlarge them for me, so my piano playing is languishing at the moment. Plus I was counting on a new acoustic piano to revive my passion, but that is not happening soon. I remain stuck in musical mediocrity.

I’m thinking about buying some piano method books, really going back to basics. I don’t know what else can make me want to sit at the piano, other than visible progress in actual capability of piano playing.

My second 10K race is one week from yesterday. That’s the focus right now. In high school, I ran an 11K race in 53 minutes, 5 seconds. I did the math, and that translates to a 48 minute, 20 second 10K. I won’t be running this upcoming race that fast, but someday, I will. That will then become my official PB (personal best). If I can run better than 58 minutes 3 seconds in this upcoming race, that will be my “modern” PB.

Day 81 – Sunday, March 13 – Not sure where to go

Goals: Shim loose pins and continue rough tuning piano

Music: None

Thinking I was going to rough tune the piano down a half tone, I started at middle A and was shooting for G#. The first string I was able to tune down, no problem. The second one was at F# and the pin was too loose to tune it higher than that. I was neither mentally nor physically willing to wrestle with the tuning pins, having worked outside most of the morning including running one mile in my Five Finger shoes, so I decided to just stick to tuning what I could. Rather than go up and find all my hard work undone by loose pins, I decided to work down and just stick with finding what was tunable and what was not and tuning as much as possible. Long story short, almost all the pins on the short side of the piano will have to be redone. Ten minutes and I was done. There was nothing left but hard work. And I left it.

Listening to Chris Botti in Boston while cooking dinner and sipping rum made me feel better. His version of Miles Davis’s Flamenco Sketches is stunning, with the Boston Pops swinging hard and some guy doing a guitar solo that is nothing short of mesmerizing. That’s the kind of music that makes people want to make their own music, not work on pianos.