Two additions to the Yoity Tot CD List

Just in time for Christmas (well, not really), here are two CD's I highly recommend. I love them both so much, I'm going ahead and adding them to the Yoity Tot CD list. Tony Bennett's "Jazz" makes it on the strength of his interpretations of many great jazz standards. I especially love his takes on Ellington's Don't Get Around Much Anymore and Solitude. Also, the recording is chock full of other jazz superstars, like Herbie Hancock, Count Basie, Stan Getz, Art Blakey, and many more.

The latest recording by Gordon Goodwin and his Big Phat Band is the other going on the list and in the top spot. Honestly, I haven't heard the entire recording yet because I can't get past Senor Mouse, but this rousing, full-out, big band stuff just gets in my blood and sends shivers down my spine. My love for jazz just deepens whenever I hear jazz done right, and George and BPB do it right. That's all I can say. It's a freakin' great recording.

Personal note of (some) interest (maybe): It's a little funny that I discovered Gordon Goodwin the day before my birthday and his band's latest recording is titled "Act Your Age". I turned 45 today, so I'm officially "pushing 50". That means if I act my age, realizing my dream of someday conducting in front of a big band will be really, really hard to achieve. So to hell with that. I've decided to pursue that dream nonetheless. I'll save "my dream" entry for another day...

Let there be music

A while back, my computer went on the fritz, and after two days of tinkering, I finally got it back up and running. When I did, however, my speakers were making an awful racket. Thinking something with my sound card got messed up, I just unplugged the speakers and went without sound for about three months. Then I got to thinking that because I could still hear some sound instead of nothing, along with the crackling noise coming from the speakers, maybe the sound card was fine and the speakers needed replacement.

Long story short, this turned out to be the case. I replaced the USB powered speakers with independently controlled speakers with their own power supply, so now, when I work on my computer (or blog, or play poker online, or workout near the computer, or whatever), I can listen to jazz. Just in the last week, I'd say I've listened to three hours of music a day, and now that I'm off for the next two weeks, I expect that to go up even more. Having been able to devote so much time to listening, I'm going to be able to write a lot of the reviews (on Amazon.com) of music I purchased over the last two months. Being able to listen to music actually increased my productivity!

So, my advice is keep those speakers and sound card working, and keep the music spinning. It's worth it.

Top 10 (Plus Bonus) Christmas Songs for a Recession

10) O, Bernanke (O, Bernanke, when will you print more money?)

9) I'm Gettin' Nuttin' For Christmas (not even a 'g' to spell right)

8) Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire (actually, pecans from the neighbor's lawn over a cardboard box fire in a 55-gallon drum in the Wal-Mart parking lot)

7) Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer (what else could go wrong?)

6) Have Yourself a 401(K) Implosion

5) I'll Be Home for Christmas ('cause I can't afford to go anywhere else, or, 'cause mom and dad are there and I can stay as long as I want, rent free)

BONUS) There's No Place Like Home For the Holidays (same reasons as #5)

4) Dodge the Malls (and Eat at Denny's)

3) Good King Wenceslaus (no, I really like that one)

2) All I Want for Christmas is a Bailout Package

1) Do You Fear What I Fear? (fill in with your favorite economic phobia)

Going around in circles (of fifths)

I did not have a piano lesson the week of Thanksgiving, and due to my instructor having a rehearsal, did not have one last week, either. Before the hiatus began, he instructed (what piano instructors do) me to work on three-note chord voicings going around the circle of fifths. This is a practical exercise for any jazz musician, one that can never be done too much. In my zealousness to learn our jazz ensemble's music and perform it adequately, I had not been practicing anything in the circle of fifths. Sad part is, practicing chord voicings based on the CO5 would probably have done me the most good.

So, after asking me to play three-note voicings around the circle, and being essentially unable to do so without a lot of mistakes and stoppages to think, that's what I've been practicing for the last three weeks. I've also worked some on four note chord voicings using the 9th and 6th notes, which in some respects is easier, but is difficult to get sounding right. I even learned to play Miles Davis' "Tune Up" using the four-note voicings.

It hasn't been enough. I need to do more of it. I need to work through the boredom.

If you are a jazz musician and you haven't worked through some skill on your instrument using the CO5, I humbly suggest you do so today, or at least, at your next opportunity. No need to thank me. The continual improvement of jazz music everywhere is enough thanks for me.

Christmas music I recommend

Thanksgiving is gone and Christmas is around the corner. While stringing your lights and decking your halls, here's some suggestions for what to listen to:

The Christmas Songbook by Helen Merrill

Verve Presents: The Very Best of Christmas Jazz

Of course, while checking these out you can use some links to go to my other reviews and find a jazz recording or two you might like, just to spice up the Christmas mood.

And for heaven's sake, don't forget to go shopping. Our economy needs a boost!

Gear up!

It had been quite a while since I bought music equipment. In 1986, while I was living at my parents', I bought about $10K worth of stuff and built a small studio in the basement. I even glued acoustic panels and shag carpet remnants to the walls to help with the sound deadening in the tiny room. (We had formerly used that room to raise Discus fish, so it had plenty of electrical outlets all around the wall - perfect really - for a recording studio.) Back then, I even had travel cases for everything custom made so I could carry everything to Japan when I went back. Out of necessity, when it came to buying music equipment, I was a bit of an expert back then.

So, two week ago, when my ensemble instructor gave us all of six days' notice that we had to have our own equipment at the concert, I was a little pissed. Pissed because I would have to go through a lot of extra work to get my piano removed from its semi-permanent stand, but mostly because I knew that having to buy equipment can be a pain - pain which I was not looking forward to. Back 22 years ago, we didn't have the internet, so gathering information on equipment, researching prices, and all that took a long, long, long time. Using the internet to research what I wanted and how much it would cost me this time around was a breeze. The only catch was the narrow time frame. I would not be able to order off the internet and get everything sent to me in time. (Well, technically, I could have, but the first case I looked at had a retail price of $129 with free shipping, but expedited two-day shipping was $69 more. Who would pay that for what could be a one time gig?)

Long and short of it is, I did my price and product research online, but I was going to have to do my actual buying in the real world. I really only needed to buy a case and an 'X' stand, and it was pretty easy to see there were limited options for the former, but basically unlimited options for the latter. As far as the stand goes, a stand is a stand is a stand, so price was my only real criteria (I didn't want to spend more than $30, as they are usually available online for around $25). As for the case, my piano only cost around $500 in the first place, so I was not going to buy a $300 hard case for it. That just didn't make sense. Nope, a $99 soft gig bag was going to be the way to go. I called around to the three or four major music shops in the area, only to find nobody had what I wanted. This was on the Thursday after the announcement that we had to supply our own equipment. One shop told me they had a used gig bag, but when he went to make sure they still had it, he discovered it had been sold.

In the end, I was able to find one store that had 'X' stands reasonably priced (around $35) and another store that had a custom Yamaha case not unreasonably priced (around $165). So, I figured I was going to be in for $200, and I let it go at that. On Saturday, I decided to physically make the rounds of the stores, just to see what I could see. Since I had already called around, I knew where I could go to get what I wanted, although not necessarily at a price I wanted to pay, but I thought there was at least a chance I might see something that would work or that I would talk to somebody who could steer me in a different but acceptable direction. I set up my itinerary, and decided to make a stop at a place that over the phone told me they didn't have what I wanted, and from there, I would go in order to two other stores where I knew I could purchase what I wanted.

Well, there's something to be said for doing legwork. The first place I stopped at, although they had said they didn't have stands, happened to have one really nice one, still in the box, that met my needs perfectly. It was more than I wanted to pay ($65), but the salesman said he could knock it down a little. I asked about a case, and he said he didn't have any, but he might have a gig bag that would work for an 88-key instrument. I told him, that's what I'm looking for, even though I said "case". (This is probably where some confusion hindered my search: these guys differentiate between bags and cases. I just consider a gig bag as a "soft case". Oh well.) Again, he had one that was still in its wrap, and again, it was more than I wanted to pay, so I asked him to do a package deal. I ended up getting the case and stand for around $175, tax included, out the door. List for both would have been between $200-225. Online would have been around $130, or $200 with fast shipping, so all in all, I got what I needed when I needed it, pretty much within budget. I didn't even bother to visit the other two music stores.

I guess I still know how to do procurement of music equipment after all.

A new practice routine

Pretty soon, I'm going to write about my experience in buying music equipment. It will, I believe, be very practical and useful for readers of this blog, especially those who are truly new to jazz and the world of music, maybe need to shop around for and buy equipment, but haven't done so in a while. But first, I'm going to put down my practice plan.

This plan is to get me playing better, not to learn tunes (so much), as to just get better. My piano instructor says I need to know more chords and I need to know them more fluently and naturally to play jazz, and he's right. Plus with jazz ensemble being over (for now), I don't have to jam certain tunes into my brain. I can just do what my nerves, muscles, tendons, and will tell me. So, here it is:

-Play three note chord voicings through the cycle of fifths until I've got them down.
-Go through the Real Book and play every song I could play before the concert but haven't played in the last three months (there are a lot of them).
-Work completely through the jazz styles book that I bought and haven't even cracked yet.
-At least once during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays (each), go through Hanon in one sitting, front to back.
-Listen to (carefully) and review all the new music that I picked up over the last few months that I haven't reviewed on Amazon yet.
-Go through the piano chords newsletters I've received over the last two months and pay attention to them and work on them
-Work on Christmas songs
-Play four note chord voicings including the 9th and 13th through the cycle of fifths until I've got them down.

I should be playing pretty good by the beginning of next year if I stick to this plan. I'll let you know how it works out.

Now, to work!

Debut as jazz musician complete

Debut as jazz musician complete - recording contract still on hold, pending actual reception of an offer...

Well, last night The Flying Monkey played host to three bands from UAH, one of them the Wednesday night ensemble that I play in. At our designated start time of 7:00, only two of our band members were there, but nobody else was ready to play, so when we had everyone but our singer present (some time long about 7:20), we went onstage and began. We opened with Have You Met Miss Jones, which went servably well, with no major goofs and no outstanding lines or anything. My Funny Valentine was next, even though it wasn't on our playlist, and it too was adequate without being professional. Our third song was Wave, which was very sharp, fun, driving, and right on. That was the definite highlight of our set. Then our singer showed up, so we went to Lady Sings the Blues, which again, was clean and crisp without being impressive. We closed our set with Michelle, and unfortunately, that was our mistake. The bass and guitar got out of sync, and the sound set-up wasn't good enough for me to be able to pick up what was being played and choose an instrument to play along with. I played a few notes in spots just to "fill", but finally had to sit out as the wanderings got more and more convoluted and distorted. We managed to get back to the head and plow through the song one more time, before we more or less just stopped, and what the applause lacked in enthusiasm was made up by politeness.

It went about as expected.

I guess that looking at the positive, there's a lot to be said. First, it was my first concert in jazz, so I've got that under my belt. Second, everybody made positive remarks. Nobody said anything like, "You guys sounded great except for that last song" or "What happened?" Everybody just said, "You sounded good" or "Good job", and I like that positivity. Third, I learned that if any band is going to sound good, a minimal amount of organization is required, but there has to be some, and that, in the future, if the organization is lacking, someone (maybe me) can just take charge and bring in the necessary level of planning and focus, in order to at least have a complete set of songs, in a specific order, that everyone can play.

If my expectations aren't met and I need to take charge, I'm okay with that. At any rate, I'll definitely be a better musician for last night's experience. It will still be quite a while before I'll be recording anything, though.

How to prepare to give a jazz concert

Here's a list of things a jazz ensemble should do to prepare for a concert:

1) Make sure you have a designated practice space that will not be commandeered by other musicians or groups, forcing you to cut short or cancel your own practice sessions.
2) Decide well in advance where the concert will be held - don't wait until less than one week before to finalize the venue.
3) Decide the date of the concert also well in advance - don't wait until the week before to decide, "Well, Tuesday, not Thursday." (This, together with #2 is also important in being able to tell folks who might attend your concert when and where it will be held - two of the critical factors in getting people to show up for... like... ANYTHING!)
4) Practice together every week for four weeks leading up to the concert. That is to say, one group session a month before is probably not enough preparation.
5) Decide on the songs you will play at least a month in advance so everyone can work out everything to their satisfaction. Whatever you do, do not wait until less than a week before the concert to finalize the repertoire.
6) Make sure everyone knows they are responsible for bringing their own equipment or otherwise making arrangements for having equipment at the gig - again, don't wait until a week before to tell everyone and expect them to be able to comply.

I'm sure there are a number of other things a jazz ensemble needs to do to get properly prepared for a concert. I'm sure our jazz ensemble didn't do any of those things, either. We sure didn't do the six listed above...

Our concert is Tuesday, Nov. 18. Hey, baby, it's jazz. We're going to make it happen, and it will be all right.

Zero to sixty in about eleven months

As attentive (and not-so) readers of this blog well know, since discovering jazz some two years ago, I have primarily relied on the Penguin Jazz Recordings Guide as my key reference to help me select jazz recordings to buy. I have used that book's Core Collection of 185 recordings as the list of what I should buy, basically using it as a checklist and picking up recordings by artists that catch my attention and have a selection (or two, or more) in the core collection. This has been helpful in selecting both dreams (like Helen Merrill with Clifford Brown and Portrait of Sheila by Sheila Jordan) and duds (such as The Magic City by Sun Ra and Sound by Roscoe Mitchell) to add to my collection - of course not knowing they are dreams or duds until after I get them - recordings that I never would have otherwise have thought or known to buy. Well, two days ago, I received After Midnight by Nat "King" Cole and yesterday, "At the Golden Circle" by Ornette Coleman, giving me a total of 60 recordings from the core collection list. (I have many more jazz CD's than that, however.) Pretty soon, I'll be adding a couple more, but the majority of my recent purchases are other things I have wanted that do not appear on the list. Anyway, I always wanted to mark the 60-point in my acquisitions, since it is almost one-third of the list and is quite a milestone in and of itself. I'll have to get on the Macintosh and check our iTunes and music database software to get a count of my entire collection for my next entry.

Nat Cole, by the way, kicks ass. It will definitely end up on the Yoity Tot list before long.

Because Elvis costumes are popular on Halloween

Here's the third and final part of "The Parable of the King":

The Parable of the King: Part III

In those days, the city of light and flying water was content. The world spun on its axis, yet the night and day seemed equally bright and all but indiscernible from each other in that city. The people should have been content, and so they were.

The king, who mainly had the city to be built in a sparkling fashion like his own, had long since passed. His effigies and likenesses, however, could still be seen, sometimes on the coinage of one or another lands, sometimes on the garments of a visitor from afar, sometimes on the back of a caravan. These served to remind the people that although the power of the dam had brought them light, it was the power of the king that had brought them brightness. Yet, even though the king had long gone, still the city prospered and grew.

As the city grew, it expanded not only in size, but in diversity as well. Settlers from the Far East had garnished the right bank of the via, although they were kept in check by a contingent from Norman lands to their south and native settlers to their north. On the opposite bank, the Asians and Egyptians had chosen to settle the southernmost tip of the city, leaving the Europeans to stare across the way to their rivals, prevented from moving farther north by the influx of various buccaneers and vagabonds who camped at the entrance of the bazaar. Most of the citadels preferred mirrors for their surfaces, to reflect not only the vacant stares of the passers-by, but also the insidious glances of rivals from neighboring citadels, far in the distance, yet close in height and high in curiosity. It was no wonder, then, that the mirrors also shunted the stiff intrusion of the sun during the day and the brightness during the night. The city became ever more shiny and sparkling, even as the dirt and decay grew both within and without the citadels.

As people in other lands often visited this city and found there much joy, even if occasionally mingled with expensive and bitter grief, many sought to build cities like the one created by the king. They built strong edifices and towering citadels like those they had seen in the king’s city. They filled their buildings with fields of green and red and black, where all who had means could come and dispense with it, or build it, as fate would allow. Entertainers came and sang and danced, pugilists came and fought and fell, traders came and bought and sold. All these cities who so emulated the king’s city stood tall, and bright, and though these cities might rest on or by the water, unlike the city which the king had summoned from the sand, they felt just as secure and happy, some might even say, happier.

But, it was not meant to last.

Presently, a great wind arose in the ocean to the east. So great was the wind, and such its fury, very islands both big and small were swept away in front of it. The ocean itself surged to heights no man had ever climbed. And as the great wind approached, the people in the imitations of the king’s city came to wish they too had built on something more solid than a pile of water soaked rock and debris. Even as the wind approached, they nonetheless believed their ingenuity was such that even this wind could not destroy what they had built, and so they continued to cast their gold onto the red, black and green fields, and dine on the delicacies of the ocean, an ocean that unbeknownst to them moved ever closer to their own meager dominion.

Eventually, the ultimate depth and fury of the wind was realized, even as it crept over the water and onto the waterside edifices of the now diminishing and scurrying cities. The waves continued to rise, the spirits of the people dampened and fell, but not nearly as hard as the citadels of the cities themselves. For many days, the wind and waves rocked the cities and all they contained, until eventually, they contained nothing. The people who had not been washed away fled. The buildings that had not been demolished were sunk. Only broken caravans and tainted spirits haunted the cities. When finally the wind and waves subsided, when the sun at last shone through the heavy black clouds again, no trace of the cities was to be found. Where once had stood mighty towers and sparkling domes, intricate complexes of lavish entertainment and delicate cuisine, there was nothing, nothing at all. The wind had swept men and their makings before it, and washed it out to the sea from where it came, leaving only a depression that all men shared but none called his own.

People who had flocked to the cities stopped coming, for they know the cities were gone and would take many months, or years, to rebuild. Some who did not know of the fate of the cities came, only to be met by protectors and soldiers, turned away from the aftermath. “Fields of green?” they might exclaim to the uninformed questioner. “All that is green is what is left of the ocean that hath surged upon us. Keep your gold in your pocket, for it will be needed to buy you a meager meal on your trip back to your homeland.” The intrepid would turn around, then, and long for the thrill of the king’s city all the more.

And so, as the imitators rebuilt, the people returned to the one true Mecca, the city of the king. The caravans that flew through the air were still fewer than before, but the number of people seeking the joys of the city did not subside. All were packed closely in their berth until at last they disembarked at the gate of the city’s portal. Upon exiting the gates, all were bathed in the light of city, but whether from the sun, or the glitter, or the mirrors of the citadels, none could tell. They only knew that it was bright, and the fields of green and red and black were still scattered with gold, and where the king had but established a few, now there were many such fields and stages on which men could cavort. More than enough were there to satisfy the endlessly thronging masses, who once again, left with no choice and no other refuge for their furious lusts and cravings, glanced longingly down the via bathed in light, looking around them at their fellow seekers of pleasure. The joy and astonishment that they felt would suddenly well within them, and though they might only be somewhat conscious of their action, their mouth would give forth with an expression of this joy. Some would shout, some would exclaim. Others would gasp, or sigh, or whisper. Yet all voices whether loud or soft, soprano or bass, raspy or clear, all were in unison: “Viva,” they said. “Viva, Las Vegas!”

The Parable of the King - Part II

I am back from Vegas. Finished on the bubble in two poker tournaments two days in a row. Had one winning session. I made more money playing Casino War than every other game. Bought a Cher T-shirt. Yes. It's gay. Even gayer than the Elton John T-shirt I was thinking about (insists my brother). Anybody makes a comment I just say, Yes, my shirt is gay, but I'm not, and I'm secure enough in my sexuality to wear it if I want to.

When I got back, my piano playing was obviously, and heavily, rusty. I have a lot of work to do to get my chops back by Wednesday night. And of course, I received no word regarding the songs we are going to play in four weeks, though it is possible no decisions were made. I'm going to focus on drills and our playlist and just do the best I can, as always.

Here's the second part of The Parable of the King.

The Parable of the King - Part II
(Shortcut to Part I)

In those days there was no evil that men knew of. Though there was much evil outside of their city walls, pressing in on them as it grew stronger and more sinister with each day, within the city only goodness shown, like the bright lights brought to life by the water and The King. In their tents, cooled by the living breath of the gods they had built themselves, and even out upon the heat soaked via, people lingered before plates full of the finest delicacies, and marveled at the millions of candles, illuminating the air borne water. For when the water began to fly, the buzzards were banished to the east and west, unable to endure the speed of the mist and frightened by the tumult and ringing that never ended below. At last the people could venture outside of their tents without fear, and they did so with great abandon. Where once only rich men could cast their fortunes upon the fields of green, red and black, now poor men too, and the consorts and wives of each of them, could create a void within their fine leather pouches. And though their children sallied with pirates, threw candies and rocks at animals of the wild, and tumbled with clowns and thieves alike, they neither knew nor cared that the tithes of their teachers and futures were being scattered to the wind by their elders, even more quickly than the water that flew.

Entertainers from lands far and near gathered, for nothing so much entertains an entertainer than entertainment. Already, the mages from the cold lands, and the delirium pronouncers of false witness who traveled from the west, found their audiences in the larger tents, and sacrificed their hours and genius for the few dinars and pesos which had not yet made their way from without their purses. Then, even men with blue heads, a circus of mermaids, a Cherokee singer with hair of gold, silver, pink and green, arrived to enthrall the masses and enrich their private priests of accountancy and law. Large men of brawn and bulk, gathered to battle each other, while little men of speed, fortitude and courage brawled with their like. These men battled so fiercely, that only a torrential flow of blood, the rubber-arm wave of the white and black man with rubber-coated fingers, or the knockout sleep would stop the mayhem. And of the large and small combatants, no man could proclaim which was the stronger, for in this land, David and Goliath were not dictated to ever meet. Women who could not sing and dance, pretended to do so nonetheless, covering their meagerness of talent by exposing the sheen and gloss of their own flesh. Lucky were the men who had not cast all their gold onto the green, red and black fields, for they could then cast their gold at the feet of these women, possibly even to touch their skin, dreadfully cold from the breath of the tent cooling gods.

One day, out of the desert and into this land, there came a wanderer. His black hair hung low in front of his ears, yet sat high upon his head. His eyes were said to sparkle and skip, like the full moon on a windblown lake, but no man had ever seen them, for they lie hidden behind the ray-banning armor of amber. His horse was large and pink, and it did thirst much for the liquid from the ground, but not for water. He was clad in a sparkling suit of white, covered in stones that sparkled as magnificently as his eyes surely did, but which cracked to the touch and wove uneven patterns down his legs and arms. To hide these broken stones, he wore a long red and white gown, which flowed around his ample waist, and several small white kerchiefs, dangled loosely from around his neck. He strode with the confidence of a king, for he did, in all aspects and mannerisms, greatly resemble The King. People from within the land and without stopped to watch as he walked by, and his steed of pink was captured on the digits and paper of many a scribe. Those people of dim eyes and dim minds who did see this wanderer, would later swear to the heights and depths that this was, in fact, The King. And though many suspected this wanderer was not, indeed could not be, The King, doubt was suspended and he was treated as royalty wheresoever within the city he went.

This king stayed many nights in the city, or so the people said, for he was seldom seen in the day and no denizen of that fair town could fathom his whereabouts in the light. But when darkness came, his horse did appear, and this king did grace the people with his presence, feeling rapture in their honoring glances and murmured words of respect. This man would enter a tent, and entertain great crowds and masses, just as the men of blue and the woman of many heads, but the people who saw him were affected in great manners, as they would sit and chant for the repeat appearance of this king. “We want The King!” rose the chant, and although the voice of the hills assured them that this king had left the tent, no one on the outside could admit to having seen either The King or another man leave.

Yet, he vanished.

But before long he would appear again, and again. His appearances made the people perplexed, for though they might see him in the tent of Bavarians and tigers, others swore to have seen him in the tent of the great Sphinx. Still others would bring protest, for they had seen him in the tent of the Normans, or the tent of the Mandalay. But, “No!” would another claim, “He was visiting the lake to the north, or riding the boat to the south. I cannot remember which, but he was not within a tent!” Yet another would see this king within the great castle, or another in the great tower, the tent of the Arabian, the tent on the river, or even on the island of treasure. This king, they said, is everywhere! And so much did it seem so, that they again began calling him, The King.

And so might this parable end, but its teller would be amiss, for the listener or reader of the parable might feel a compelling and strange desire to meet this king who they call, The King. And although the listener knows The King might be found in many tents, where, great parable teller (he or she might ask), where are the tents? Well, fair listener, I can only say that you will find The King where the water flies, where though the land be brown the fields are green, red and black, where the people shout, day and night, “We want The King!” and The King responds with music. And when he sings, all join as one great voice to proclaim the goodness of their land, the land which The King himself created, “Viva,” they scream and shout, “Viva, Las Vegas!”

The Parable of the King - Part I

Back when I first started going to Vegas on a regular basis (I've been probably 12 times in the last 20 years), I used to write a parable of "The King" to put in my 'out of office' assistant to entertain my co-workers. Then Viagra stole the "Viva" song and trivialized my work. Still, as I leave on my five-day odyssey to the city that Elvis (and a bunch of gangsters) built, I feel it is a good time to revisit my parable. So, here, for your delight in my absence, is part one of "The Parable of the King"

The Parable of the King - Part I

For many years, the people in the land of sand and heat lay beaten and discouraged. The sun dried their crops and throats, and no wind cooled their abodes. Then one day, the flow of the mighty river stopped. A great oasis was formed, and their days became filled with abundance. With the oasis came a great king, and with him, many people from many lands. And though the land provided all for these people, still they wondered at their good fortune.

And so they said unto the king, "How is it that you have brought life into this wasteland?" And the king said, "It is not I who have brought life, but the water from the great dam." But the people remained mystified. So the king stepped into the radiant sun and said, "With the water, comes the force. With the force, comes the power. With the power, comes the light. And with the light, so may the people gather. For where the darkness is dispelled, there is joy and great revelry."

"Oh great king, what you say may be true," said the people. Yet still their minds were unsettled, so the people asked, "Is it not you who has brought us the songs of joy and revelry, that our days may be filled with pools of blue? That our bellies may be stuffed at overflowing buffets? That great magicians shall make fierce beasts appear from thin air? That we may loose the shekels and dinars from within the calfskin hides we carry? And so we toss our material wealth onto the fields of green, and red, and black, that the great devils clad in fine raiments of black and white, smiling with no gladness like the jackals of the desert, will snatch up our worth and means? And though we shall never see such wealth again, we smile.

“For there is only joy in the desert of song and flowing beer,
And sun all the days, and neon all the nights.

“Is it not true that you, great king, have given this unto us?" And the king said, "Yea! It is so."

And the people rejoiced in song as the king commanded, "The name of this kingdom shall be known through all lands and peoples. And though I should pass away, my kingdom will never die! For I am Elvis, And I am the king!"

And all the people let up a great shout as The King led them in song. “Viva,” they sang, "Viva, Las Vegas!"

A little dangerous knowledge...

Jazz ensemble class was interesting last night. We started narrowing down our selections for our concert and have decided to play four (maybe five) songs. We settled on definitely doing Wave. We do it pretty well. It's an interesting song, and, I've practiced it enough that I sound okay playing it, and since I'm the least capable musician in the group, that's as good a starting point as any in deciding a song to play. Then, before we could practice and decide on another, our singer suggested Michelle.

We'd never played that together as a group, and I hardly ever played it, maybe bashing it out once or twice when I first got The Real Book and looked for songs I knew and could play. While the instructor taught our guitarist the intro, I played through the changes once. So, 1, 2, 3, 4... and away we went!

We sounded good. Not great, but pretty good. Our instructor said we sounded like a small jazz group at a cafe in Paris, and we did. He noted that we hit all the diminished chords right on the money. Obviously, that's because we were familiar with the song. It is basically the first "new" song we've done that I knew, proving once again, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. The Lennon/McCartney hit made it into a repertoire on the first try, after two full months of playing ten or twelve other songs, and never quite getting confident on them.

Amazing.

Piano Instructor Pith

Two weeks ago, my piano instructor had to cancel my lesson. When I called to reschedule, we were not able to work out a time prior to my next jazz ensemble practice, leaving me to have to analyze two songs on my own, devise my own chord changes, adapt my own rhythmic influences, basically do everything a jazz musician has to do to prepare songs, however, with only fourteen months' experience and precious little practice time to back up those decisions/actions.

I didn't point this out to my instructor, but at this point, I'm really paying him for his experience and analysis when it comes to these things. So, when I realized I was going to go to two straight ensemble practices with no support in between, I said, "Well, I guess I'll have to rely on my whims and wiles to get me through."

And although he was apologetic, he said, "Hey, that's what jazz is all about."

As it turned out, I did fine (terrible, but fine), and I continue to work at my music. I think it is no coincidence that an anagram for piano is, "O, pain!"

Catchin' that Wave

For a change, I had a good weekend of practice. I was sort of worried, because my piano lesson was cancelled on Wednesday, so I didn't have a chance to look at the ensemble's new songs through the experienced eyes of my instructor, and on Thursday and Friday, I couldn't do anything with any of the new material. On Saturday, I gave up, and on Sunday, on a whim, I thought I would at least try to play along with the records: Frank Sinatra singing Wave, and Clifford Brown doing Joy Spring.

That proved to tip the scales in my favor. While I'm still unsure of a few of the chords, I got the rhythm and tempo of both songs down, which makes it easier to fake when I don't know the chord or I get lost in my fingerings, or whatever.

Tonight I have nothing to deter me from a full couple of hours' practice, and the same holds true for tomorrow, although I will hopefully be able to schedule a makeup piano lesson in there to get just a little clearer image of what I should be playing as an ensemble player. (Yes, it seems dumb to have to state the obvious, but solo piano is different from ensemble piano, and ensemble piano doesn't sound like anything by itself, which is one of the reasons why it is so hard for me to practice.)

Jumping into the deep end

Over and over again...

Last night at jazz ensemble, we worked on three songs, two of which were completely new to the group and the third having been merely glanced at last week. They were Four (the one we glanced at), Wave, and Joy Spring. For three weeks now, I've had a hard time figuring out why I'm the only one who can't keep up with the chord changes. It sucks because not only am I completely behind the beat (and the rest of the band), I sound terrible. This morning, as I was running over Wave in my head, I started to think of other songs that I play for my own personal enjoyment and I suddenly realized what the difference is between what I play by myself and what we play in band: the songs I play have fewer chord changes, fewer key changes, and what changes the song has are spaced farther apart.

Take a song like Someday My Prince Will Come. It changes every bar, but that's it. And what's more, there are no key changes (at least, no changes that last long enough to be recognized as key changes). But if you take a song like Joy Spring, it goes through a ii-V-I progression in the space of two (quick) bars, then changes key and does it again, then changes key again and does it again, and man, it just keeps going like that. No wonder I can't play it. I go from having to play one set of chords in one key (maybe two), with changes spread over four bars to having to play two sets of chords in three, four, five (or maybe more) keys over two bars or so.

What's happening? Our instructor is throwing us in the deep end of the pool, that's what. No point in standing at the wading end, not even getting your hair wet, is probably what he figures. Hard songs make you play better. So, in you go. Splash!

My dad taught me to swim at the YMCA. I was never a good swimmer, but I could move about in the water, and once I learned to float, I stopped panicking any time I happened to swallow a little water. So, I'm going to do now the same thing I did then: swim as best I can, and keep afloat. Eventually, I'll be able to play these chord changes in a second nature fashion. I may even find a diving board this weekend and jump into the deep end by myself.

A site I wish I'd found earlier

I say I wish I'd found it earlier, but it's likely that had I done so, I wouldn't have known what to do with it. Anyway...

Here's a link to a site that for the most part does nothing but rank jazz albums.

http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/jazz100/

They do it by genre, all time, decade, new, classic, etc., so it is a very useful set of listings. Conspicuous in her absence is Helen Merrill, who didn't even make the top 200. That can only be considered an oversight of some kind. It's funny to me how the top 10, top 25, and to some extent, the top 100, are (relatively speaking) easy to agree on. There is a lot of uniformity with this list, the Penguin jazz recordings guide core collection and crown collection, typical lists of jazz standards, and so on. And I'd have to say that compared to the Penguin core collection, this list is much closer to how I would probably rank many of these recordings (at least, as far as the ones I've heard goes).

I find these types of lists quite helpful, because the depth of jazz recordings continues to overwhelm me. It's been about a month since I've added any significant amount of recordings to my collection, (though there was the Art Tatum and Charlie Parker stuff I picked up cheap) and even though I've plenty of titles I want to add, I've been more reluctant than usual, simply because I don't feel like spending money in this economy and because I could probably afford to spend more time with the recordings I do have. I think whatever happens, I'll try to hold off until I take my annual trip to Las Vegas (October 19-23), then plan on picking up a pile of stuff before the Christmas holidays, giving me something to focus on over the long vacation. Jazz ensemble class will be wrapped up by the end of November or so, giving me some more time to focus on listening as opposed to playing. (Sometimes it's hard to strike a balance between those two - sounds like material for a future entry to me.)

The jigsaw puzzle of jazz

There really is no such thing as a hard jigsaw puzzle. I'm not talking about those novelty puzzles, now, the ones with no edges, or the ones with the repeated, same tiny pattern with all the pieces cut the same, or the puzzles with a picture on both sides, or the puzzles that include eight extra pieces that don't go in the solved puzzle, or the 3-D puzzles, or any of that lot. (Yes, I know a lot about puzzles.) For the sake of this argument, we're talking about your run-of-the-mill, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, whatever-piece, straight-up, no-nonsense jigsaw puzzle.

So, I'll start again.

There really is no such thing as a hard jigsaw puzzle. The pieces that are in the box can be combined to form a picture, a representation of which appears on the box the pieces come in. The pieces go together only one way. As long as you don't lose any of the pieces, no matter what, eventually, the puzzle can be completed. It may take a long time, or it may only take one wintry, rainy afternoon with you and a close friend working on it while sipping brandy tea. She or he will take the blue ones with edges, while you take the brown and red ones with edges, then, you'll have the edges finished and most of the pieces turned over, then, it's just a question of persistence and time.

Just like jazz.

Last night at jazz ensemble, we worked on all of two songs, neither of which I could play, due to the rapid chord changes that I was completely unfamiliar with. The first, "Have You Met Miss Jones", we'd started working on the week before, and I'd just forgotten about it. There are a couple of key changes in it, and they just throw me, especially if I'm trying to think of altered chords with 6th's and 9th's to throw in. It was hopeless. My soloing wasn't terrible, but it was aimless and boring. I was glad when we decided to try something different. Unfortunately, the next song was "All the Things You Are". It is very similar in that the chord changes are pretty straightforward, but there are a couple of key changes that just threw me. Again, I couldn't play much of anything, I didn't embarrass myself too much with the soloing, but it was tiring and I didn't sound very good. By the end of the class, I felt like I'd been through a ringer.

And from there to my weekly piano lesson. I told my instructor what had happened, and he was amazed that I hadn't done much better. "All the Things You Are is my favorite, my absolute favorite," he kept saying. "I can't play it," I said. "Of course you can," said he. So he told me, just play the third and the seventh of each chord. Low and behold, if you do that, you only have to move one note through almost every single chord change, and you progress right down through a series of basic, very pleasant sounding, extremely easy to play, ii-V-I progressions. The lightbulb went on over my head, and my instructor and I put on our sunglasses. "I'll be damned," I muttered, "Another piece of the puzzle and it fits perfectly."

Week by week, piece by piece, I've been putting the puzzle together. All those progressions I practiced blindly all of a sudden reveal their intent, their wisdom to me. All of a sudden, I know why a minor scale works where a major scale doesn't, or I see why repeated moving down a specific number of tones (depending) brings about three key changes in complementary tonalities, or why, if you break down a chord to its two color tones, it becomes easier to play and crisper sounding. And guess what: All that practice of ii-V-I progressions comes right out of your fingers when you start to think through the chord changes. Your brain really does go, "We know how to do that. Here's the muscle and nerve movements you've been looking for all night. They're right here." And, wham! You freaking playing the piano, dude!

I went from tired and depressed to energized and relieved in the space of ten minutes. Just like when you can find that one corner piece that links those two sections of edges you've about finished, so you can fit your blue and brown sections together and have your puzzle about two-thirds done. A couple more nights like last night, and then I'll just have the clouds and blue sky to fill in, and then my puzzle will be finished.

If only...

Reduced booze = increased music

An alternate etymology, according to a jazz history book I'm reading, says that "on the wagon" refers to the jazz musicians in the early part of the last century, who, in order to ply their art had a horse pull a flatbed wagon around town with a band on it, playing tunes as it plied its way through the street. The junior musicians were (apparently) often stuck with this task, so the senior musicians would stay back at the speak-easy and - of course- drink. So, if you were "on the wagon", you couldn't drink, and obviously, for jazz musicians who drank too much but suddenly stopped drinking, it would make sense to say, "I'm on the wagon."

I mention this because I started cutting down on my own booze intake this week, simply so I could get longer, more coherent practice time in. I was therefore struck by the amazing coincidence of Stanley Bing (who's blog I'm a big fan of) making the same resolution - albeit for a different reason - at the same time I did. What are the odds?

Unlike ol' Stan, however, I'm not going completely dry. Something about that whiskey with big ice cubes in a crystal glass on the end of the piano, just keeps me going.

What jazz has done to me

In the last six to eight months or so, I've noticed a pretty profound change in most aspects of my life. I've been making a concerted effort not to worry about things, and I've actually been able to keep from worrying! That doesn't sound like much, but I've never been able to do it before. Now, I recognize the truth in what Montaigne and Mark Twain both said, paraphrased: My life has been filled with troubles, but most of them never happened. I can't remember the specific instance and moment when I realized worrying was a waste of psychic energy, but I remember I made a conscious effort to force myself not to worry about something (having to do with work), and I remember that the very thing I was going to worry about didn't even come close to happening.

I mentioned this to Mrs S the other day. She said she noticed too that I have been more relaxed, less likely to get upset at little things, and not getting as upset as I used to when I did get upset. I told her I was glad she noticed, because I had some notion it was just me. But no, she was in agreement. Then she pinpointed what I had failed to draw a correlation to: You've gotten calmer (she said) as you've gotten deeper into your music.

That's it! I was always relaxed and ready to deal with the world when I was deeply absorbed in music before, but I attributed that to youth and the fact that the onset of my chronic hereditary hypertension had not begun yet. As I became a responsible, older citizen of the world, and developed hypertension and the effective and ineffective strategies that go with coping with high blood pressure and everyday cares, worries, and tribulations, I chalked it up to adulthood. Now I'm finding, I don't need it. If I've got my music, I can put everything else in perspective. Priorities change, attitudes improve, and all the things that bothered or irritated me before just fade into the distance where I don't even recognize them. I don't miss them, because I don't even know they are there. And I feel good about everything.

This is liberty. It would sound trite to say I owe it all to jazz, but I think the two are in a symbiotic, synergistic relationship. Jazz makes me focus specifically on something that I think is important. That stimulates and excites me, and that allows me to tolerate the world at large when it becomes less than hospitable. People see and feel the change in me, and the mutual good feelings in the world grow, and they grow directly and all around me.

That's maybe why I'm a happier person now than I can ever remember being. Things are in perspective, and it allows me to live a better life.

So, like I said a couple days ago, that's the path I'm on. Where I'm going, I couldn't say. Maybe heaven, maybe nirvana, maybe ignorant bliss, who can say? But, I'm a willing traveler, and if you're reading this, welcome to my journey.

Me in the Wall Street Journal

I made the Wall Street Journal today, kind of, sort of.

Today, a letter in the auto column, tomorrow, a stipple pen-and-ink portrait on page 1!

I'll finish my thoughts on the jazz road (promised in yesterday's entry) in another entry tomorrow.

Where I'm At

My recently purchased 8 CD set of Charlie Parker, plus Volume 8 of the Art Tatum Group Masterpieces arrived just before the holiday weekend. So, that was all I listened to all weekend. I'm pretty sure both can go on the Yoity Tot list, for now, but I don't think Art Tatum will be able to stay there once I get farther along in my jazz music education. The depth of the Charlie Parker set is stunning, and I don't think I've ever had as much fun listening to music as I do listening to that.

I worked on altered chords in a 12-bar blues format. I got a little less than halfway around the circle of fifths in different keys, so I still have a lot of work to do.

I got my drum machine out and played everything with it this weekend, including scales, drills, the blues above, and all the songs that we've played in the ensemble so far. (My Funny Valentine, How High the Moon, Blue Bossa - from my audition, Donna Lee) I also used it to learn I Could Write a Book. I think that helped me more than anything. It will certainly make me a better ensemble player as I am never at liberty with the time and rhythm, and the drum machine helps enforce that in spades. I wonder why I wasn't using it as much before. I'll definitely make good use of it from now on.

And that's where I'm at. Tomorrow: More about the path I'm on and where I'm going.

A new case of the blues

With my piano instructor busy on Wednesdays this month, I had my piano lesson for an hour last night. I told him all about my jazz ensemble experience and that I couldn't even play a blues with altered chords, much to the consternation of the jazz ensemble instructor. So, that was what we worked on last night for the entire time, in the key of F: a standard twelve bar blues progression, where my piano instructor's concept was slightly different from the concept we played at the jazz ensemble class. It wasn't hard except just the first few times through as I had to think about the chords and try and remember them after playing something different. Once I had the hand muscle memory, it was just a question of timing, which wasn't all that good. It's not often that one has an hour long piano lesson, plays almost the entire time, but never once plays a single song.

Productive. Really.

Anyway, now I have a formula, both for the chords and a blues progression to practice on a regular basis. I haven't much time between now and tomorrow's class, so I'll just try two or three likely changes of key and then see how I fare tomorrow. During the next week, I'm going to get out my drum machine, work on all keys in proper rhythm, and then start throwing some of the chords into actual songs. It's just a question of work, and I'm not giving myself any choice or leeway. It makes me a little blue now, but it should payoff with green later (someday, maybe).

Damn you, Charlie Parker!

Damn you, Charlie Parker!

I'm not sure what I ever did to you that would make you want to make my hobby of jazz music so difficult. You've been dead longer than I've been alive, but I feel like everything you ever did in the pantheon of jazz was simply to confound and frustrate me. Can I help it if I became a fan of jazz late in life? Can I help it if kids half my age know more about your contributions to jazz than I'm ever going to know? (Not to mention the "whys" and the "hows", too.) Should I be held responsible for my lack of knowledge about jazz, completely handicapping my understanding of how you advanced our art form? And since none of it is really my fault, why make me despondent with your infernal "Parker heads", your huge number of standards, and a recorded legacy so large, it defies imagination and explanation? Did you sleep and eat in the studio, too, just to cut a few extra tracks, in case somebody would doubt your genius after the immense legacy you built?

Damn you, Charlie Parker!

What do you mean, I shouldn't hate you, Charlie? Of course I should. Case in point: Last week at jazz ensemble practice, our group had gotten done fooling around with a blues in F, and the instructor says, "Turn to Blues for Alice". Great, I think. A Parker head, but at least it's a tune I actually know. I even played a lick or two as we flipped through out notations, and some of the group go, "Yeah, yeah man." Unfortunately, playing it in a half-assed way so that it sounds good to my own ears when playing in my dining room because I only know one inversion of each chord, however, is not the same as playing it with multiple inversions in a band setting. I got tore up in five seconds flat. I couldn't keep up with the melody (which nobody was bothering to play), couldn't follow the chord changes (because nobody was playing the fundamental root-third-fifth chords), and couldn't make the chords I knew fit in even when I could figure out where we were in the song. I've been more musically frustrated, I'm sure, but no, I can't remember when, and even if I could, it wouldn't make me feel any better about you, Bird. Which is why I repeat:

Damn you, Charlie Parker!

You say I should listen to more of your music? You say if I only listen, I will understand? You say I need to embody the spirit of your chord changes, imitate your use of the modes over a given key, discover the vibrancy of an off color chromatic that leads back to the basic ii-V-I progression? Okay, what should I listen to? I haven't got a single one of your recordings, so tell me where to start. The complete Dial recordings? The complete Savoy recordings? The Dial and Savoy? The complete Verve? The complete live recordings? Charlie, those suckers are sixty, seventy, a hundred bucks a pop! My CD habit is already more expensive than your drug habit, you ...

OK, that was out of line. Still, damn you, Charlie Parker!

All right. You win. I'm not giving up jazz, but I don't want you and your music haunting me the rest of my amateur jazz musician days. I've ordered a set of eight CD's of your music, 225 tracks (or something like that) of about 60 songs (or something like that). I'll sit and listen to them, really listen. I'll even follow along with the score for the songs that are in The Real Book. I've already been practicing Blues for Alice with no roots and a 6th and a 9th in every major seventh chord. I'm even trying to play Ornithology and Donna Lee again. So, if my ensemble instructor yells out another one of your tunes on Wednesday night, I won't get mad. But, if after I've played these tunes the way you did, and if after I've listened to the ten hours of music I just bought, if after all that effort I'm still struggling, still bashing my head against a wall of out-of-key, out-of-synch, bone crunching, nerve twisting dissonance, well then, I'll go back to cursing you.

I'm going to give you a chance, Charlie Parker. I'm going to sincerely give you a chance. If it works out, I'll be eternally grateful. If it doesn't, well,

Damn you, Charlie Parker! Damn you to hell.

So much for that

Monday night was my first class in jazz improvisation. As it turned out, it was also my last (at least for this semester), as the course has since been canceled because only two students registered for it. There were a bunch of other students who said they might consider taking it, but apparently, nobody signed up, and I had notice from the teacher today that it is officially canceled.

Which really sucks because I enjoyed the heck out of my jazz ensemble class on Wednesday. There was a guitar player, a bass player, a drummer, a singer and myself. I think I am probably the least skilled in the group (but as the oldest I won't say "least experienced"). I had thought that it would not be worthwhile to me to take just the ensemble class without the improv, as it is only half a credit and we don't study music so much as just get together and work on tunes. But, since I am enrolled and the class more or less fits with my schedule, and because it was so much fun, I'm going to go ahead and stick with it anyway. I think it will make me a much better player and performer, given time to learn the basics of playing in a group.

So now I've got to go and learn how to play every song I've ever learned with chords that eliminate the root and add the 6th and 9th. (Which, if you've ever played that way, you know those chords don't sound all that good all by themselves, making practicing them in such a manner a tough go. The sacrifices made for art... alas...must continue.)

Possibly worth the price of admission

With my car's lease about to expire and recent term leasing agreements about as appealing as a pimple on the tip of your nose, Mrs. S and I decided to go ahead and buy a car. Fortunately, the company my dad retired from (Generous Motors) is basically giving cars away right now (seriously: we didn't pay one dollar for the car, although we'll have to start forking over a couple hundred a month to GMAC next month), so we went ahead and became a two Vibe family, purchasing a very sleek, very sharp, midnight blue 2009 Pontiac Vibe.

("Dammit! I thought 'late to jazz' would be about music!" It is. Just hold on and keep reading.)

As anyone who's purchased a GM vehicle lately knows, they come with free Onstar and free XM satellite radio for a couple of months, to possibly get you hooked and make you want to subscribe. Well, I'm here to tell you after two days of driving with the XM jazz channel tuned in (not to mention my eight day business trip over Christmas when I had an XM-equipped rental), I'm thinking a subscription to XM might just be the way to go. I mean, hell, I just put on the main jazz channel, and that's what I get: jazz! And not that lame-ass Kenny G, Dave Koz, "would've been Ferrante and Teischer if born thirty years earlier" jazz. We're talking Italian saxophonists covering Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Count Basie, some Czech guy live at the Bohemian Caverns... Real "real" jazz.

Now, on a good day, I only spend forty minutes in the car, but with school, if I end up actually going twice a week, that would add another two hours a week to my in-car time. I'm thinking, for the exposure to different music, musicians and songs in the jazz genre that XM will provide over the four and a half hours I'll spend in the car each week, listening to real jazz but not the same old CD's from my collection, $12.99 a month just might - might - be worth it.

I don't have to make a decision until my introductory subscription runs out, so I've got a couple of months anyway. If you're a jazz fan and/or XM fan, let me know what you think: to XM, or not to XM?

A small accomplishment

This weekend marked a first for me: I finished playing through one of my drill books. That's right, I've conquered the mountain of Hanon's Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises. Now, let me provide this disclaimer: that means I played through all the exercises in the entire book at least once. It doesn't mean I can do everything the exercises are designed to teach you to do, and it doesn't mean my playing has gotten better, necessarily (although I think it has). What it means is that I promised myself I wouldn't buy any more drill books until I had at least gotten through one that I owned. Truthfully, when the end came in sight about two weeks ago, I went ahead and bought some more books, but fact of the matter is, I reached my goal. Now, when I practice, I go back and work on various parts of the book, in order except for the scales, which I do one of every session.

I said "small accomplishment", but actually, that's a pretty big deal for me.

I start back to school tonight. Jazz improvisation on Mondays, and jazz ensemble on Wednesday or Thursday (or maybe not at all). The thing most likely to improve this semester, especially if I take Wednesday night jazz ensemble: my figure. I'll have to go with only hard boiled eggs, granola bars, and water for dinner on Monday and Wednesdays. Since I'll have to practice what I learned when I get home, and I won't get home until 8:00 or so, I won't be able to drink alcohol or eat a full dinner. I think I'm good for somewhere between five and ten pounds of weight loss, just to make music.

If I stick to that plan, that will be a much bigger accomplishment.

The Audition

Before reading this entry, it would be good if you read the first part. (This entry won’t not make sense, but it will lose some of its impact if the two episodes are read out of order.)

Come Thursday, and my company begins the process of laying people off. Since I work in HR, that fills up my half day so that it just whizzed by and I didn’t have fifteen seconds to think about my audition. But, I did take care of everything I needed to take care of and I did leave on time, stopping to buy some stuff for lunch. After eating lunch, I went straight to the piano and began practicing.

I got out a recording of Thelonious Monk playing Duke Ellington and worked on It Don’t Mean a Thing. I improved it a lot in the thirty minutes I spent on it. I went over and over the back end to get my timing down, and I played the chromatic bass line chords to eradicate some less useful chords that were still in muscle memory that I no longer wanted to use. It tightened up a bit, but I left it a little ragged. I figured I didn’t want to sound above my actual level of skill at the audition, as if that might be an issue. I decided I would not play A Child is Born, because that requires some pedal and light keyboard work, and I wasn’t sure what quality of piano I was going to have to play on. I decided a rough version of Bewitched would do for the ballad, and I just played it through a few times to freshen it up. Then, I worked on Blue Monk. Over and over. Again, I smoothed it a little, but not enough to impress anyone. And again, that would give a better indication of my actual playing level.

So I drive over to the audition, and the jazz ensemble director is there waiting for me. He recognizes me right away (we’d met before), and we chat briefly as we make our way to the practice room. If the following is read at normal speed, it will very closely approximate the beginning of the actual audition:

Him: So, I couldn’t find any jazz music books, other than this mini-book of chord changes, so I’m not sure if you...
Me: Well, I brought my Real Book.
Him: Okay, Real Book. Great. That’s even better. Turn to Blue Bossa. (!) Do you know it?
Me: Actually, my instructor and I looked at it last night, but that was the first time I’d ever tried to play it and I didn’t even glance at it after the ...
Him: That’s good. Here we go, 1, 2, ah 1, 2, 3, 4...

And he started playing it, strumming away on his guitar, just like that. Ten seconds we’d been in the room, and I’m bashing out a semblance of a tune on the piano. I sounded terrible, but for the most part, I kept up. What I played in the right hand was more or less what it needed to be. What I played in the left hand were chords that vaguely followed the printed page. I was still able, however, to assemble everything together at the ending C-minor. He said he liked my chording, but he then proceeded to tell me a bunch of ways to “jazz them up”. He also then had me improvise to the chord without playing them, which I actually did pretty well with. Ten minutes, and the audition was over.

The long and short of it is, because I’m not enrolled as a regular music student, I get last choice of classes. The ensemble director told me that I was not good enough for the advanced ensemble on Thursday, but he might be able to fit me into the Wednesday ensemble, depending on whether there was already a piano player in that group or not.

First jazz piano audition: Part 1

Well, I had my first ever audition as a jazz pianist two days ago. As I mentioned before, I’ve decided to take some music courses at my alma mater, the University of Alabama in Huntsville. I enrolled in jazz improvisation and jazz ensemble. In order to play in the ensemble, a student must audition with the director of the ensembles, to allow him to place the students in groups of a similar level and knowledge. It took me a little while to get in touch with the guy and schedule the audition, but I finally succeeded. As it would happen, my piano instructor, who also graduated from UAH, knows the jazz ensemble director very well, so I asked him to prep me for the audition during my lesson on Wednesday.

He told me that the director would probably have me play a ballad, so we worked on A Child is Born for just a little bit. Then he said, he’ll probably have you play a blues in B-flat, so we worked on Blue Monk for a little while too. Then, he’ll probably have you sight read something. Since we’d never played Tune Up before, we sight read that. Mind you, my instructor was giving pointers all along the way, so many in fact, I was having a little trouble processing them all. Then he says, for another sight reading practice, let’s look at Blue Bossa. Well, there was another I’d never bothered to look at, and even though I like Kenny Dorham, a lot, I’d never even heard the song. So, we tried to play it. I couldn’t do much with it, other than bring everything together at the final C-minor chord. (That made my instructor laugh a little.) It wasn’t long before my thirty minutes was up, and he summed up that I should just remember the key signature and play with confidence.

Due to things being pretty slow at work, we are trying to encourage everyone to use up their vacation and take unpaid leave, including salaried folks like me. So, even though I had planned to go to work early and leave early for the audition, I decided to just take a half day off and practice. I worked hard on Blue Monk and It Don’t Mean a Thing, which was going to be what I played if I had to audition without looking at the music. Both of those turned out to be wasted efforts.

Tomorrow: The Audition

School days

Well, this week in north Alabama, the kiddies go back to school. Add five minutes to my daily drive time, as I go through two school zones and have to stop for at least one school bus a day, but add two hours a week to my sleep time, thanks to no more late night shenanigans by the neighborhood hooligans.

Speaking of going back to school, that's what I decided to do, too. I'm going to take a jazz improvisation course on Monday nights and a jazz ensemble course on Thursday nights. I decided to take them for credit in case I lose my job and end up pursuing a second degree in music, but for right now, I'm just a general student. I'm looking forward to the exposure it will give me to a lot of music and musicians, as well as the more structured environment to learn about music as compared to my weekly piano lesson, where I call most of the shots. It will be interesting and I'm sure it will give me lots to write about. We'll just have to see how much time it takes up though, as I have a feeling I'm going to really have to practice a lot.

Expect short entries in this blog in the future, unless I really don't have to work that hard.

A jazz DVD: In review

A different version of this review is also available on amazon.com. (Check out the link to the right.)

I watched the movie " 'Round Midnight" last night. It's about a fictional jazz saxophonist who goes to Paris to rediscover his music and get his career and life back on track. Dexter Gordon, one of my favorite saxophonists, does an admirable job in the role of the main character, Dale Turner. Herbie Hancock, who plays in the backing band on screen, did the sound track, and it is awesome. Of course, when you're a Grammy winner and have Grammy winning material that you can throw in here and there at will, it is bound to make any sound track jam, and I really liked being able to catch licks of Watermelon Man and Cantaloupe Island here and there in the background. When the band plays, the likes of Freddie Hubbard and Bobby Hutcherson and Pierre Michelot, among others, play the roles of the musicians, so I assume they played on most of the sound track as well. Whatever, because they are real musicians, the band scenes come off real well. I appreciate a movie about music that sees to the details enough to get actual musicians as actors, not only for the extra dimension it gives to the artist, but also for the dose of realism it lends to the setting and action. (I hate when the drummer or pianist isn't playing what you're hearing on screen. It ruins a movie for me when something as minor as that is so sloppy, especially when there are all kinds of devices to make it look realistic, even without hiring musicians as actors.)

Really, the only thing wrong with the movie is that because it is a work of fiction based on some things that happened to a number of different musicians, it failed to engage me and I just didn't care about the tragedy that befell the characters. I mean, about halfway through, when the French guy is trying to appeal to the Dexter Gordon character to straighten up and fly right, he says, "Your music changed my life." What? "His music?" Who is he? He's played nothing but standards, and as good as the playing was and the sound track is, if that was enough to change your life, well buddy, I'd've hate to have met you before you discovered his music. To be fair, I wouldn't have appreciated a biopic of a real jazz musician, and that wasn't what I was expecting, but I think there needed to be some more story development in order to make us care about the people on screen. You know, in the '60's, famous jazz musicians were dropping like flies every other month because of being done in by their vices. (Yes, that's an exaggeration, but you know what I mean.) So what if it happens to some guy in a movie?

Still, the good outweighs the bad. Herbie's sound track is great and Dexter Gordon is the best jazz musician-actor ever to hit the big screen. He's real and intelligent, and that is just enough to make me feel like I didn't waste my time watching this movie.

New Addition to the Yoity Tot List

Well, it's been a while since I added to or edited the Yoity Tot list. One reason is that I haven't been on much of a music buying spree lately (hard times, you know), so I haven't been listening to that much new music. Another reason is that I haven't really found any CD worthy of the list. My addition today, however, while I consider more than worthy, I have a feeling it will eventually drop off the list. But, as I've been trying to play some of the songs on this CD on the piano, it has been getting a lot of play time, so I decided it deserved to be included for now.

The CD is Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil. Four songs from it are in The Real Book. It took a while for this one to grow on me, but after I read the liner notes and listened closely, also while looking at the lead sheets, I started to sense something deeper. I couldn't tell you why I like this recording. Something about it, I don't know, "spiritual" almost. It's hard to describe the effect it has on me. But I like it, and I'm going to learn to play some songs from it.

My jazz music textbook arrived. I've started reading it, having just finished reading the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on jazz music. I also rented the movie "Round Midnight". I may report on some of that this coming week.

Speaking of next week, have an evil free one, y'all!

Starting at the beginning

These last two nights, I've found myself in between Netflix selections (last two: Vantage Point - somewhat interesting but lacked impact; The Bank Job - starts slow, but is very well done and interesting because of being based on a true story) and the jazz styles college textbook that I bought last week still hasn't arrived, all of which leaves me in a kind of limbo when I reach the end of the day and I'm worn out from playing the piano. I like to do something with my music, and sitting and listening with the Real Book in hand is usually a good choice, but again, if I've run out of energy playing, I've usually run out of energy for listening-analysis, too. That's really why I bought the textbook. Like I've said before, learning about jazz on all facets, I feel, will really help me "narrow the jazz vacuum" (as I put it), and in my own case, picking up jazz from the ripe young age of 43 or so, I've more or less started "in the middle". It's neither bad nor good, but I feel there is much to be gained by understanding the history and flow of jazz, or at least having some idea of who's music fed who as the medium developed from slaves sing-songing to guys like Evan Parker and Roscoe Mitchell blowing their brains out willy-nilly for twenty five minutes at a time.

Then yesterday, suddenly, I realized that I didn't have to wait for the arrival of the textbook I bought to start studying jazz history. I could just go online. In fact, having already read my share of jazz theory online, history would be a good next step, and it could be very general, since I'm really just beginning. (Strictly speaking, the textbook I bought isn't a jazz history book, either. More on that some other time - after I get the damn thing.) So, I used Encyclopedia Britannica (EB) online and read their entire introduction to jazz. It was just a bit shallow, I thought, and while it did tell me a few things I didn't know, it didn't enlighten me all that much. (Only two years ago, I took a music course through the University of Alabama in order to fulfill my degree requirements at University of Alabama in Huntsville, so my study of music, music theory, music history, styles, etc. is relatively fresh.) Since I own a copy of the print EB - purchased in England when I lived there in 1995 - I decided to have a look at it to see if it covered more ground than the electronic version.

Bingo! Man, the jazz entry is awesome. It is longer, more detailed, and much better written. I've only read the first few paragraphs, but it has been very informative. Two things that struck me so far:
-Thomas Edison was arguably the most influential man in the history of jazz, because jazz songs were never played the same way twice until they began to be recorded. (Some would argue they are still never played the same way twice - and I would tend to agree.)
-White evangelists' attempts to Presbyterianize the freed slaves in the late 1800's resulted in the "Africanization" of the Presbyterians' hymnbooks. (They put it a little more eloquently than that, but you get the drift.)

My Wall Street Journal didn't show up this morning before I had to leave the house for work, so I picked up volume 24 of EB (Metaphysics to Norway) to read at lunch. This is going to be a great way to prep for the arrival of my textbook.

Final note: I'm thinking about taking classes at school to study music. I recall, however, that all the liberal arts courses happen during the daytime, so I'm not sure I'll be able to make that idea work for me. We'll see.

Entranced by Bewitched

Last week, while in the throes of my cold, I had time but not much energy, so I passed some of the day I took off work listening to jazz music with my Real Book close by. Now, while it is true that I listen to jazz everyday, somewhere on the order of two hours a day no matter what, it is rare that I actually sit down and the only activity I'm engaged in is listening to music. So last week, when I did that, I found it much more of a treat than usual. I pulled out Ella Fitzgerald singing Rodgers and Hart, simply because so many of those songs show up in the Real Book. One that stuck in my brain, because I paid attention to the (very risque for the time) lyrics, was Bewitched. When I took a look at the chart, I found it contained a lot of diminished seventh chords. Well I'll be. I'd just spent two or three weeks working on diminshed chords, but never attempted a song that was as rich in them as Bewitched is. So, I started to play it.

It was a lot harder than I thought, but as is generally the case with standards from the Real Book, I pretty much had it down in two or three days. (Mind you, "having it down" means I can play the melody line with a minimum of mistakes while playing simple chords in rhythm underneath - nothing fancy.) I thought it would be a good song to trot out at my lesson this week, so I did. Imagine my surprise when the instructor says it's one of his favorite songs. He knew how to do a lot of different things with it, and showed me most of them, and so, forty minutes of my half hour (heh-heh) music lesson was Bewitched.

Of course, I can't imitate all of my instructor's ideas and can attempt maybe only a few of the licks he showed me, maybe or maybe not being able to incorporate them into the song by next week, but, I'm liking the song more and more as it opens itself up to me, little by little. Yeah, it may be simplistic, but jazz continually surprises and inspires. What else can a pianist, who hasn't even been taking lessons for one year yet, hope for?

The jazz vacuum

I've been thinking lately about my jazz journey to this point, mainly because now that I have some (what I consider to be) preliminary knowledge about the world of jazz, I'm in what I'm calling the "jazz vacuum". It's that certain, dangerous area where you know enough to know that you still don't know very much, but when you talk jazz with non-aficionados, they sometimes get that glossy-eyed look and don't have any idea what you're talking about. Although I've always thought of this blog as a blog for jazz beginners, I've recently had people tell me that it is "too advanced" or that they "don't know any of the songs" I'm talking about. And here, let me interject that I do not consider myself all that knowledgeable about jazz...yet. I know a lot more than I knew a year ago, but even one year of full immersion only scratches the surface of the jazz universe. Maybe I do know more about jazz than your average person (I hope so), but I'd be embarassed to compare my knowledge with, say, a 50 year old musician who's recently converted all his vinyl jazz records to MP3's and has been playing in a jazz band for 15 years.

The other thing I'm finding in the jazz vacuum is the variety of what constitutes jazz, or what people think constitutes jazz. Take my mother, for instance. She told me that she listens to the jazz station in the car "all the time", but she'd never heard of Miles Davis, Bill Evans, or Helen Merrill. She did know Dave Koz and Boney James, though, two names who I could recollect but whose music I've never heard. (And we could argue about the definition of jazz, and what constitutes smooth jazz, contemporary jazz, "classic" jazz, and all that, but we're not going to here. At least, not today.) That's part of the vacuum. Even if you talk about jazz, with a "jazz fan", you might not be talking about the same thing. (And again, you could argue who is in the vacuum and who isn't, but why bother?)

My point is I'm not real sure it is a bad thing to be in the jazz vacuum, or that there is a way out of it. Maybe it just is. Still, I've come up with some ideas for narrowing the width of the vacuum:
-Buy and read some books on jazz, maybe even college textbooks. (I like getting the second latest editions - you can get $125 books for like five bucks.)
-Sort my record collection by issue date instead of artist name. (This would probably be one of the single most productive and visual things I could do, but I haven't quite figured out what to do with boxed sets and compendiums, which I have a pretty good amount of.)
-Start hanging out in jazz clubs. (We don't have many good ones around here, and that takes a lot of time and money. I like a drink if I'm in a bar, you know.)

Or, I could just keep playing, listening and blogging. It's served me pretty well so far.

The G# minor scale - under duress

Okay. G# minor. Okay, that's the melodic minor of B major...five sharps. Only two white keys, B and E. Let's see, though, we have an E#, which is an F. (Cough, cough, cough.) and a...crap. Is that a double sharp F? (Hack, wheeze.) Yeah, it is. So three white keys. (Cough, cough.)

Let's try it.

G sharp - A sharp - (hack) - B natural - (suppressed hack) C sharp - D sharp - E sharp (F) - (hack) - (wheeze) - (invective) - F double-sharp - (invective, hack, invective) - G sharp - A sharp - (cough) - B natural - (suppressed cough, hack) C sharp - D sharp - E sharp (F) - (cough, cough, invective) - F double-sharp - (invective, wheeze) - G sharp.

OK, great, let's try E major then C# minor, and go from there. (Hack, cough, wheeze.)

That's been basically my whole weekend, folks. How's yours going?

Through sickness and in health...

Man, catching a cold in the middle of summer is no fun. I felt this one coming on as early as Sunday, and have been fighting it with Listerine and aspirin. Yesterday (Tuesday), it just started taking over at three in the afternoon, and by the time I took Mrs. S to dinner for her birthday, I was reeling. I used all my energy then, but knowing I have a lesson tonight, I wasn't going to blow off the piano entirely. I sat and played for about a half hour, surprised at my dexterity with the melody line of Ornithology, disappointed with everything on Maiden Voyage. I decided there would be no point in working on any drills in the state I was in, so I just watched the weather before going to bed.

I slept fitfully, if at all, last night, sweating bullets even with the thermostat turned down an extra degree. I used Helen Merrill's CD to lull me to sleep, but that only succeeded in making me have nightmares about trying to find new Helen Merrill CD's and finding there to be so many and most of them priced at $35, that I became despondent. No surprise then this morning when I woke up and felt like a dirty dish rag, if a dirty dish rag can feel like much of anything. I summoned the energy to shower, dress and take various sundry cold medicines in large quantities. I succeeded in driving myself to work, even stopping to get gas on the way. ($55 for a tank full - a new record for my G6).

My goals for tonight's piano lesson are simple:
-Work on and talk about mechanics, especially the scales and drills I've been fussing with.
-At least take a look at Ornithology and Maiden Voyage, even though (I've no doubt) I won't be able to play them
-Keep the lesson short and don't give the instructor my cold.

Modest goals, modest but steady improvement, and damn my virus weakened body.

Drilling, but not for oil

I'm drilling for skill, baby!

I've been a fiend for piano practice over the last four days. It's those lazy days of summer and with nothing much else to do, I spent the mornings over the holidays doing yardwork and the afternoons beating the daylights out of my piano. I've been working from my jazz chord book and from Hanon. In the latter, I made it all the way to the scales, and I have been working pretty hard on them for two days. I'm a little confused about the utilization of the melodic minor and "ancient" (I think that's what it's called) scales, so I sort of let that taper off for now until after Wednesday when I can ask my instructor about them. (I'm also going to ask him about the practicality of my current drill routine - though I don't think he'll say anything one way or the other.) In the jazz chord book, for now, I'm not trying to make any sense out of anything, just playing. And playing. I figure, this stuff has to become second nature to me, somehow, so for now, I don't need to analyze too much, just get the muscle memory going.

Of course, I also play a few tunes, and I can almost make Ornithology go, but I can't play the left hand parts yet. I've also managed to put a skeletal version of Maiden Voyage together, which is something. It's just good to feel my hands bending to the task. Now, if I could just get my back to do the same...

Maybe the secret is DON'T relax...

I'm off work from today. With the customers our company's factory supplies mostly shut down this week and next, the two days I did work this week were slow and uneventful. I guess you could say, I went into shut down mode as of last week.

And I think that's why I haven't been able to wring a single decent tune out of my piano in two days.

I tell you, I have really sucked playing since Sunday afternoon. I can't make anything swing. I can't put Maiden Voyage together, still haven't gotten halfway through the Ornithology licks, just...nothing. I can't play any songs from memory all the way through. Can't even make a simple tune like It Don't Mean a Thing sound straight up. Just...nothing. The only thing I can figure is that, since I play the piano mostly for relaxation, if I'm already mentally and physically relaxed, the playing doesn't go for me. Maybe that's it. I don't know. I know there are waves and that every musician will go through a phase where they can play well and then a phase where not so, and then a phase where they play poorly. I'm just wondering: why now? "Over relaxation", or call it, an altered mental state, is the only reason I can think of.

Anyway, my folks will be arriving in Alabama today to spend the Independence Day holidays with me and Mrs. S, so today I've got to focus on straightening the guest bedroom, vacuuming the house, and sundry details such as those. Maybe I'll play better this evening.

Sticking with the plan

It's been quiet on the "learn jazz music" front. I've been practicing pretty often and usually for at least an hour, and often a lot more. A Child is Born is sounding pretty good. I still can't play Maiden Voyage worth a damn, but I can play the parts separately, so I just need to work on the rhythm a little more and then put everything together. I've also been going hard at the drills and I'm optimistic I'll be able to make my way through at least one drill book completely by the end of July.

This week, I'm taking two days off work, which will give me a five day weekend to work with. No piano lesson this week, since we did an hour last week, so those five days of practice should get me up to speed for next Wednesday's lesson.

Having exhausted all possiblities with Helen Merrill and Gordon Beck's No Tears...No Goodbyes, which is just not all that good, I'm currently listening to Larry Young's Unity. I forgot how good it is. I'm focusing on it because it probably needs to be added to the Yoity Tot CD list. We'll see how I feel in a day or two. When I posted four more reviews on amazon.com over the weekend, I noticed I hadn't done one for Unity yet, so I'm fixing to rectify that situation. There are more than 120 reviews in my profile now, probably about 80 of them being jazz CD's. Here's hoping all readers have a look (here's a link) and click on a few "yes" votes for my reviews being helpful. I'm looking to move up the reviewer rankings.

Progress on Maiden Voyage: A Report

Had another hour-long piano lesson last night. With only one week of practice between two, one-hour lessons, it was rough going, but still quite productive. We spent most of the time on A Child is Born, not only because I can actually play it, but because its intricacies are more varied and subtle. After all, it is a relatively simple ballad with several multi-bar phrases that repeat over and over, so it is challenging for the pianist to come up with something sonically interesting every time a similar bar comes along. We listened to the original and analyzed, played it through, listened, played again, so that almost half the lesson was on that song. Then we moved to MV.

Thankfully, my instructor knows my limits, so I was relieved when he realized I probably wasn't going to be able to play it then and there after just one week, calling it, "Oh yeah, our project." If I get lucky, I can play the intro in correct rhythm, but with my instructor behind me tapping to try and help me, I don't get lucky. I get confused. And of course, with that tricky rhythm, I can't possibly make the melody go, so, while pieces and bits are more or less tangible and useful, it only vaguely resembles the song that Herbie Hancock wrote. The good news, is that I did gain some insight and should be able to spend the next two weeks, which includes (for me) a five-day weekend, practicing enough to actually put everything together. We shall see in our next report.

The rest of the lesson consisted of a quick run-through of Falling in Love With Love, which I play Helen Merrill-ish, which is to say, schmaltzy and in the wrong time signature. (It's a 3/4 that I play in a quick 4/4 or slow 2/4, depending on if you're an optimist or pessimist). And, we did a quick blow-through of Ornithology, which has got to be the trickiest song I've attempted so far, but which, once I can play it, will be one of the gems of my repertoire, I'm sure.

One upshot: All that work on ACIB has made me leave Thad Jones in the CD player all week, further justifying its move into the number one position on the Yoity Tot list.

What I'm listening to lately and some thoughts on the (possibly perceived as neglected) Yoity Tot CD list

Readers may well be forgiven for thinking that I have let the Yoity Tot CD list go to the dogs. Attentive readers will note the addition of Thad Jones' Consummation last weekend was the only addition since the launch of the list back in May, and that there've been no other changes or alterations to the list. "Eric's stopped listening to jazz and the list, once targeted to have 25 titles plus some past title-holder slots is stuck at 15 or 16 now and for ever. Lazy ***!" The fact of the matter is, I've been adding to my jazz music collection like crazy, so much so that Mrs. S sometimes doesn't even find time to upload everything to our iTunes library, or, with so many CD's coming in on a regular basis, isn't sure which ones have been uploaded and which ones haven't. What's more, I've been adding almost exclusively classic jazz recordings recommended as part of the core collection of the Penguin Jazz Recordings Guide, so there haven't been too many duds and slouchers creeping into my listening regimen.

This has created some problems.

First of all, listening time. Right now, I probably own ten CD's that I haven't even listened to yet. The reason is because, after I listen to something once, even if it is a casual listen while cooking and eating dinner or driving to work, before I listen to it a second time, I like to read the original liner notes, compare the musicians playing on it to other recordings, and maybe read up on it in the Penguin. So naturally, this process takes some time. I must admit also that this process sometimes get jumbled up and I forget what I have listened to so far, or I put in Dexter Gordon but think I'm listening to Wayne Shorter, or something like that. This makes for interesting listening and interesting results in formulating my opinion, which is what I'm trying to achieve anyway. But again, this takes time. Secondly, I have to say, despite the overload of what are considered jazz classics, honestly, I haven't found any that are worthy of the Yoity Tot list. One thing I am not interested in is recreating someone else's list. This is my list, so I'm careful about how I listen to and think about a CD and what qualifies if for Yoity Tot. And just to show that I have been doing what I say I am doing, here's a list of what I'm listening to lately and why they haven't made the list:

-Sarah Vaughn with Clifford Brown - Excellent. Really great stuff. But for my money, nowhere near as good as Helen Merrill with CB. Can't put them both on the list. Sorry.
-Love Supreme by John Coltrane - Legendary recording. Legendary work. Unmatched. Historic. But I bought the deluxe edition and the live version from France on disc two is nothing special and overall, I'm not moved by the pieces, original or bootleg. Somebody cries for John Coltrane when they hear this music, but sometimes, I just wish the noise would stop. McCoy Tyner almost saves it, but no, this is not Yoity Tot material.
-Destiny's Dance by Chico Freeman - Probably, this will make the list if nothing else comes along to impress me more. I listened to it once and thought it was crap. Listened to it a second time and "got it", listened to it a third time and was enraptured. The tracks that Wynton Marsalis plays on are especially dynamic. It's not great but it's as deep as the ocean, and that might be enough.
-Maiden Voyage by Herbie Hancock - Another legendary, historic, epic recording. But it only has five songs on it and only two of them are any good and none of them are that entertaining that repeated listenings don't become a bit boring. (I may be biased here.)
-Speak No Evil by Wayne Shorter - A list candidate. Still thinking about it.
-Our Man in Paris by Dexter Gordon - Another viable candidate. But, like John Coltrane, in places, I just wish it would stop.
-Blue Serge by Serge Chaloff - Probably this will go on the list, even if it will eventually be surpassed and have to be removed. This CD is very interesting and baritone sax is an instrument with a sound completely unto itself. A unique recording.
-The Amazing Bud Powell Volumes 1 and 2 - Great music, crappy recordings. I want them to be better, and that means, they're not good enough.
-The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson Volumes 1 and 2 - Great music, great bands, Clifford Brown, sharp recordings, these have a lot going for them. If Jay Jay doesn't make the list through Clifford (Volume 1 is on the Complete CB on Pacific set that I have, which I'm thinking about putting on the list), I may have to throw this one on there. It's probably good enough to be on the list.
-In My Time by Marian McPartland - Decent. Some interesting moments and a high level of skill, but, it doesn't stand out to me.
-Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery - Borderline. This recording really has its moments and despite my admitted bias against jazz guitar, this is very close to edging its way into the list.
-King Oliver's Complete Creole Jazz Band - Good God! I don't care how historic or trendsetting or timeless or anything the music is. If it was recorded on a street corner by a monkey turning a spindle on a prototype Edison recorder, it's crap.
-Complete Atomic Count Basie - Yeah. That's better. Good enough for the Yoity Tot list? Maybe. Just maybe.

I could go on. Suffice to say, I listen to jazz everyday for at least an hour, not counting my own playing time. When I find a recording that you it to yourself to own, it will get listed.