A book review

In case you haven't read my review on Amazon.com, here's what I wrote about Terry Teachout's new book, Pops, which is about Louis Armstrong. Teachout is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal who doesn't write specifically about jazz, but often touches on the world of jazz in his cultural musings column, Sightings. This book was really interesting, had a lot of previously unpublished photos, and was a really keen look at the inside of the jazz world in its formative years. The sections about Louis and Miles Davis are strangely compelling and scary (they didn't get along), but cast in the light of one generation leading to another, jazz fans will see they should be thankful for both of these trumpet greats in the context in which they played and developed their own music. Anyway, it's a very good book and I highly recommend it to any jazz aficionados looking for a good way to kill a few hours of free time over the coming holidays.



"Among regular contributors to the Wall Street Journal, there are a number of jazz writers who are almost legendary in the jazz world. That makes this book by Wall Street Journal columnist Terry Teachout all the more extraordinary, as Mr. Teachout is not specifically a jazz critic. Although his "Sightings" column has been known to cover many jazz subjects, one wouldn't necessarily expect the level of scholarship and depth that Mr. Teachout achieves with "Pops". But for me, what makes this book so good is that he is able to relate the life of Louis Armstrong through the music that Louis made. Not only the when and where, but the who and the why are covered in no small detail. (If you are a fan of Armstrong or jazz and don't have his recordings, you can pick up something like The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings to listen to the songs that Mr. Teachout documents so well.) It makes for fascinating reading (and listening), and yet, the information is contains is enough to qualify it as a textbook on jazz history. Anyone who reads this book will definitely come away with a great respect and awe for Mr. Armstrong, but that reader will no doubt also have a better light shining into the dark closet of jazz that allows him to see the evolution of the music as well as the development of some of the legendary jazz performers (and producers, and wanna-be's) of Armstrong's time. Being "late to jazz" as I am, I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do to learn more about jazz music and history, but after reading this book, I feel like I not only caught up, but I might be ahead of quite a few individuals as well. Anybody who is looking for an interesting biography, or a window onto the world of music entertainment in the 20th century, or of course, jazz, would do good to buy and read this book. Mr. Teachout has written a great book that I'm sure will be enjoyed by many."

Next project

The critical listening project has not been going well. That is to say, it hasn't been going at all. I've been forced to reconsider how to approach listening to my collection of music, a problem compounded by the fact that it is constantly growing, and will continue to grow over the holiday period, since I will have more time to listen to music. So, I've decided to abandon the CLP. My new project, which will get me to sit at the piano longer, is considerably less time intensive (I think), and far more practical and achievable.

I'm going to start transcribing songs from recordings.

This is something I know I'm not very good at, having never been able to do it back when I was in rock bands in my teens and twenties. With jazz, I haven't actually attempted transcribing yet, despite reading in multiple places that this is a great way to learn jazz, improve hearing ability, improve compositional ability, improve understanding of chords and voicings, in short, improve everything and anything having to do with jazz music. The main reason I'm going to attempt this is that there are several songs I want to be able to play but I can't find the sheet music for. (At least, it's not in any of my three real books.) I doubt I will be able to reconstruct the chords and voicings just by listening to the recordings, but I did get some hints from my jazz theory class, so I might be able to come up with some. I think by putting forth some effort, I ought to be able to come up with something. Hopefully.

Anyway, that is my next project, which I will begin to tackle, probably starting this weekend but definitely in earnest over the holidays. I'll let you know how it works out for me.

Freedom from the tyranny of jazz theory

Yesterday was the final exam in my jazz theory class. I feel like I did solid 'B' work and I feel like a B is what I will get in the class, but I have to say, I worked harder in that class - far harder - than in any class I took to earn my BSBA (which was a finance minor for a while). Part of that has to do with the fact that I have a solid financial background just from having read the Wall Street Journal basically everyday for the last 23 years, but certainly a large part of that has to do with the work ethic I was able to apply to my music. I like music more than I like, say, economics or accounting, so naturally, I was willing to expend more effort in its pursuit. The other drawback though was that I don't have a very solid theoretical background in music. Sure, I've been playing for thirty some odd years, and sure, I've studied with private teachers and read books and looked at websites and whatnot, but formal training is a whole other kettle of fish.

If I had to do it all over again, I probably wouldn't. I'd probably find some way to take a regular music theory class first, then tackle the jazz after I got those real pre-requisites out. That would have made the going much easier and would have reduced the time factor involved. So, my advice to this blog's readers is simply, get the basic music theory out of the way before trying to study jazz. (Go ahead and play as much jazz as you want, just don't study until you've done the foundation work.)

With the end of that class, I am now completely free. No songs to learn, no parts to practice, no rehearsals to rush through, no homework to polish. I can just play tunes that move me, or that don't, and listen for pure enjoyment. It's bliss.

Next semester is jazz arranging, if we manage to get some more students signed up. That was actually my forte in the jazz theory class, and even knowing how hard I'll have to work, that I really am looking forward to.

But for at least one month, FREEDOM!

Another concert down

Our semester ending concert was last night on the UAH campus. It was a lightly attended affair, but the crowd was enthusiastic and very much into it by the end of the evening. Our band played the most songs and so we were able to show off our chops a little bit more than the other bands, as we also had a broader selection of songs. Our tempo was off on one or two of the songs, and we got desperately lost twice but made good recoveries both times. I acted as emcee for our band and I think if nothing else, I was the best emcee on the evening. It was fun.

Now, with that out of the way, I've got to concentrate on my jazz theory class and start studying up in that, making sure I understand every Aoelian, flat 2, sharp 5, pentatonic, harmonic, 13th, etc. I've already decided to take the test day off, and that should allow me to cram everything I'll need to get a decent grade on the test and hopefully pull myself up to a secure B, if not an A. I'm also going to jump start my critical listening project, which has been languishing these last few months. I picked up some new CD's which will have to be added to my database, so while I'm listening to them, I can also be advancing my CLP.

It's a delightful kind of euphoria when the concert is past, the obligation to practice is gone, and all that's left is the music and the memory of its performance. As tired as I am, I feel good about the whole thing. An hour before the concert, if you had asked me, I'd've told you that I'm not so sure this playing and performing jazz is a good thing. During and after the concert, I'd've told you there's no greater feeling in the world.

I still feel that way.

Busy, busy, busy

I've been so busy at work and getting ready for the jazz combos concert, my blog has fallen into cobwebs. Sorry about that. The good news is, after tomorrow, I won't have any music that I'm rigorously practicing or working on, so I'll be freed up to do some listening of new music I bought, and some reviews of jazz books I've got on hand. I plan to use the four day holiday weekend to accomplish that and hanging the Christmas lights, since Mrs. S will be away visiting her family.

It's a good feeling the day before the concert, because there's no going back.

By the way, saw "Mamma Mia" live last night. It was fun, but I felt the music was dragging the whole time. I guess having grown up listening to ABBA sort of jades me when it comes to remade versions. Plus, since it is a traveling Broadway show, they have to have some recorded stuff instead of live. Still, I recommend that show (the movie not so much) if you haven't seen it yet.

Something always worth reading...

Something always worth reading, besides this blog, is any Wall Street Journal article about jazz. Here's a link to the latest:

Terence Blanchard

Thanks for stopping by today.

Rhythmless practice

Just after I got back from Las Vegas a week and a half ago, I sat down to work on our band tunes, and I had a hard time getting my drum machine to work. I fiddled with the power switch and adapter connection and eventually got it to run, after a fashion. A few days later, with only four weeks until our concert, it refused to start up at all. I took it apart and tried to clean the connections and whatnot, but it was done. Since I had bought it used and got basically two years out of it, I decided it was time to buy a new one. Then I found out how expensive these suckers really are. So I went used again on e-bay.

I was really concerned about buying a used machine, because sometimes people are pretty lackadaisical about shipping off their used items. But I found a machine I wanted and was able to get it at a price about one-third of new. Imagine my surprise when I got the machine sent to Alabama (from San Diego) in just three days. I was delighted.

Until I turned the machine on, that is.

It didn't work. The sound was fading in and out, and both channels did not work properly, either in headphones or with jacks. Turning down the volume and messing with the jacks and adapter cord and connection helped (just like with my old machine that gave up the ghost), but I was worried. Since I could make it work, however, I decided to see how it performed over the weekend. Unfortunately, I found some of the buttons and functions inoperable, especially the ones which would allow me to eliminate the bass sounds so I could play just with the drum tracks. So, I am still without a drum machine and practicing with no rhythmic support (not good).

Of course, I will try to get my money back on the defective machine, but with less than three weeks to the concert, I can't wait around and guess at quality anymore, so I ordered a brand new machine from a reputable dealer on Amazon.com. Hopefully they will succeed in getting me the machine this week so I can get back to practicing with precise rhythm and timing.

Solo pianists and band performers can take liberties with time and timing in jazz (sometimes), but in a large combo with lots of solos and parts that bounce back and forth and respond and call, time and timing take on a new importance and "criticality". The level of my performance depends on being able to eliminate this rhythmless practice and get the timing as well as the notes of my parts down as soon as possible.

Come on, Amazon, don't fail me now!

“Men have died for this music.”

It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling. ~Bill Evans

…cartoons [are] America's only native art form. I don't count jazz because it sucks. ~Bart Simpson

No America, no jazz. I've seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn't have a damn thing to do with Africa. ~Art Blakey

One thing I like about jazz, kid, is you don't know what's going to happen next. Do you? ~Bix Beiderbecke

For me, music and life are all about style. ~Miles Davis

If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know. ~Louis Armstrong

If you can't play the blues, you might as well hang it up. ~Dexter Gordon

Jazz is not dead – it just smells funny. ~Frank Zappa

I think I was supposed to play jazz. ~Herbie Hancock

The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. ~Louis Armstrong

Life is a lot like jazz – it's best when you improvise. ~George Gershwin

Those jazz guys are just makin' that stuff up! ~Homer Simpson

Jazz and love are the hardest things to describe from rationale. ~Mel Torme

Jazz is an intensified feeling of nonchalance. ~Francoise Sagan

There is no such thing as a wrong note. ~Art Tatum

If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night. ~Count Basie

Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's what's so simple about it. ~Yogi Berra

Men have died for this music. You can't get more serious than that. ~Dizzy Gillespie

Las Vegas's one connection to the jazz world

Just got back from Las Vegas. I was going to check out the jazz scene, but found that I already had: A cursory search for jazz in Vegas turned up one whole venue: the bar at the Stratosphere. We did that last year. (Restaurant review: Great view, average to poor food, terrible service. Kind of like a cruise ship: there's nowhere else you can go, so we'll treat you how we feel...)

I did find one connection between jazz and Las Vegas, though. Treasure Island has a "head hunter" tournament on Wednesday mornings, where you pay an extra $50 and you get $50 for every person you knock out. And one of Herbie Hancock's most famous albums is called, "Head Hunters". Other than that, Vegas is water and jazz is oil, and they just don't mix.

Too bad Frank Sinatra isn't around still...

Saw on FB

According to one of my Facebook friends, Thelonious Sphere Monk would've been 92 this weekend. With the possible exception of Bill Evans, no other pianist has so defined the modern sound of the jazz piano. Here's a link for your enjoyment.

"Epistrophy"

Two "don't's" for piano players

So, it's Friday night, and I've drunk more than the recommended daily allowance of red wine, and I notice a chip on the fingernail of my right index finger. A smart and unlazy person goes to the bedroom dresser, finds the nail clippers and trims the affected nail. A tired, lazy person with slightly impaired judgment (okay, vastly impaired judgment) just pulls it off... and rips off half his cuticle in the process.

First: DON'T trim your fingernails by pulling off broken pieces of them.

So, it's Saturday night and Mrs. S and I decide to make tacos. You have to slice and dice tomatoes and you know that knives have a bad tendency to slip off of tomato skins, going every which way, usually straight to fingers. You also know that sharp knives are able to cut through the skin with less resistance, greatly reducing the chance of a knife slipping off a tomato skin and into something more tender and personal. So, before attempting to slice the tomatoes, I sharpened - really sharpened - the chef's knife. And I got within a hair's breadth of successfully completing the job when the knife slipped and found the tip of my bird-flipping finger on my left hand. Thank God for fingernails, because mine stopped the knife from slicing off the top of my finger entirely.

Second: DON'T slice anything with a finger close to it.

Five days on, I'm thinking about this because I haven't been able to put in any serious practice time (blood and piano key's do not mix) and because I'm still dealing with the injuries. Five days on, here's what they look like today:





Note: The pictures aren't very good, because it's really hard to take a picture of your hand. Note also that both pictures were taken after several days of healing.

Here's another "don't": DON'T tell me I'm an idiot.

I'm well aware of that fact.

Neither here nor there...

I still suck at ear training. Best I can get is 64% right. Usually, I'm in the 40% area. In fact, I think I'm getting worse. I noticed I can't even detect octaves half the time now. That's really bad.

I watched the Arturo Sandoval story, "For Love or Country", starring Andy Garcia. It was pretty good.

Spent two and a half hours today on my jazz theory class homework. It was all about harmonic minor scales and 13th chords, two more weak areas for me, and man, it was a lot of work. So when I can't play anything in the band tomorrow, I'll tell the director (who also teaches the jazz theory class) that I had too much homework. We'll see how that goes.

I've been listening to a lot of Dizzy Gillespie lately. Sometimes, you just forget how good some of these musicians are when you haven't listened to them for a while, and then when you do, you just can't put them away because they sound so fresh all of a sudden. I can honestly say, only jazz music does that to me. Or so it seems.

And it finally stopped raining in Alabama. I got some sunlight vitamin D today and it felt great!

I put out an ad online looking for a free piano. No surprise that one hasn't shown up yet. I may have to break down and spend some money on one. I should do it soon, too.

Something worth reading

Today is the 54th anniversary of Erroll Garner's wonderful work, "Concert by the Sea". So, rather than write about it, I'll just direct my readers to help themselves to this wonderful Wall Street Journal article about Garner and that recording. I'm also going to pull down my own CD and have a listen later. Y'all might want to do the same.

My hypothesis about jazz theory

Although my failing and unfortunate efforts to improve my ears have been well documented in this space, I feel it is time to look on the bright side. Namely, my jazz theory course appears that it is going to have a profound effect on my ability to understand jazz. Although we've only had two classes, I have one clear example.

Last week we covered the modes of the scale. Now, I learned about these from my piano instructor in something like my third lesson, but I never much paid attention to them, because I didn't really understand how they were (or could be) applied. It all just seemed a lot of excessive, unapproachable, forced idiom and jargon meant to discourage the uninitiated. Which in fact, it is. I mean, the chances are really good you'll never hear a jazz musician go, "Okay, man, this is A-flat mixolydian, so let that sax solo rip!" Musicians, and especially jazz musicians are supposed to infer what notes will work and what notes won't when they hear the tune. How uncool it would be to have to actually analyze jazz before you could play it, right?

But how much easier it is if you can decipher the tune and know in your own brain that A-flat mixolydian is correct and B-flat Ionian or whatever is not, because then if you know what A-flat mixolydian is, you automatically know what notes to play.

And the 1-3-5-7 notes of the mode define the ii-V-I progression, and so, if you know the mode you know the notes, and if you know the notes you know the chords, and if you know the chords you can play a song, any song, correctly, and guess what? You're suddenly a real jazz musician! So now I'm in the process of forcing myself to learn all the modes more or less by heart, or to at least be able to figure them out in a couple of seconds so I can use them on tunes right away. I completed our class homework assignment, but that wasn't enough practice, so I developed my own chart for going through and learning the modes. I can just pick one, write it out, cross it off, then pick another, and so on, until I've gone through them all, then I can start all over again. It shouldn't take too long to program them in my brain.

Here's the chart I made, with the modes and keys altering in different patterns around the circle of fifths:


So my hypothesis about jazz theory is simply: jazz is a mental music made easier by doing the mental work and understanding the theory behind it. It is possible to be a phenomenal jazz musician without grasping the theory, but I estimate you can take one or two years off the time it takes to become virtuoso, just by taking a jazz theory course. Someday, I may even turn out to be the proof of my hypothesis.

When your ears abandon you

Here are ten things to do when you are practicing your ear training and you become completely unable to identify anything that isn't an octave or a tri-tone. (Believe me, it happens to me, ... a lot!)

1) Have a glass of wine
2) Listen to some music
3) Play a couple of hands of poker online
4) Have another glass of wine
5) Log into Facebook and check up on your Mafia Wars character and see if you have enough energy to do a job in Cuba or not
6) Play with your cat (here's one of the two I'm apt to play with)



7) Have another glass of wine
8) F....o....c....u....s.....
9) Cry, throw a tantrum and bash your keyboard against your computer tower
10) Switch to whiskey

Here are the expected results of each action, based on what happened when I tried each of them during a recent ear training session

1) Feel a little better, still can't hear crap
2) Feel a little better, wish hearing intervals was as easy as listening to Bill Evans
3) Feel better if I win, skip to #9 in above list if I lose
4) Feel even a little better, begin thinking interval training is a waste of time
5) No, it's only been fifteen minutes and you still can't do anything in Mafia Wars yet
6) Causes me to think about ears, but nothing really constructive
7) Alcohol doesn't improve anything, including my hearing, but at least I don't give a damn
8) Continue to be wrong only now with much more intensity
9) Causes some minor excitement in the house, but could be a potentially expensive and seriously regretful activity (I was lucky nothing broke this time)
10) No longer able to see the computer screen, I only hear ocean sound in my ears, and anyway, I can't click a mouse accurately enough to continue (it was bedtime anyway)

For those who missed the comments in my previous entry, I am training my ears using the fine free application available at Good-ear. And for the record, none of the above was good-ear's fault. I just suck at identifying notes with my ears, and that's that. Maybe someday I'll be able to report progress, but I've been down this frustrating road before and I recommend my readers not hold their breath for that (undoubtedly) joyous day.

Blind and dumb in both ears

I always loved that episode of The Little Rascals where Buckwheat, who can't believe what he's seeing, exclaims: "I thought I was deaf and dumb in both eyes!" That's how I felt Monday night in jazz theory class - blind and dumb in both ears - as the three music majors, the music graduate student, and me tried to determine intervals just by listening. It seemed everybody could do it, except me. Same for naming the intervals of chords, types of chords, everything. It is true that I do know and understand my chords, and I actually hear them pretty well too, but when it comes time to actually name the chords in their proper, non-enharmonic form, I struggle a bit.

Then again, that's what I took this course for. That's where I'm weak. That's where I need to improve, where I need to be stronger. Get the technical stuff down, hopefully the music will follow.

Really, I don't see how a jazz theory course would not help me, if for no other reason than I have to write, listen, read, and think about music, purely in an intellectual fashion. It forces me to spend time on music. I have music homework. Application follows but is irrelevant, at least for the time being. It's bound to have a positive effect.

My presence on Facebook will be scarce for the next thirteen weeks. I'm going to be sitting at the piano playing various exercises, sitting at the computer doing ear training, and sitting at the sunroom table writing out chords and intervals.

Providing no links to a bunch of losers

As the title suggests, I will be providing no links in this post, because I'm going to be complaining about a group that would benefit the jazz community, and probably the entire world, by just going away. They deserve no customers, and I shall not provide them any.

Sometime back, I wrote about the inefficiences of the Jazz Heritage Society. Their antiquated ordering scheme, their profligate fee structure, their amateurish letters and forms. At the time I wrote about them, however, I continued to be a member, because I felt they were still a decent option for obtaining good jazz music CD's at a reasonable cost, provided one worked within their limited and restrictive system.

Well, not anymore. You are not going to believe this story, but I assure you, it is true.

I recently went to the JHS web-site to decline the monthly offer (which you have to do if you are a member, unless you want the stuff shipped to you automatically), and I happened across their $3 and $4 CD offer. They had a couple of titles in there that I'd been wanting to buy cheap for some time, and a couple more that I was willing to buy if they were cheap, and still more that, though marginal, would be worth a couple bucks. Now, the thing you have to keep in mind is that they charge a shipping and handling fee PER SHIPMENT, plus handling charge PER CD. If you think of the per CD handling charge being included in the price, then all you have to do is order a decent quantity of CD's to amortize the per shipment fee down to a manageable amount, thereby saving you money on brand new jazz CD's.

So, I ordered 13 CD's, one a three CD set, and I was going to get them all for about $80, or just a little over $5 a CD.

NOT!

One week after placing my order, I received seven individual letters telling me that "Unfortunately, this item is unavailable and we are cancelling your order". That's right. They generated one letter for each CD they couldn't deliver. Well, that's $2.64 wasted right there, mailing seven letters instead of one. No wonder they have to charge so much above the cost of CD's to make ends meet. Dumbasses.

Then the next day (here it comes), a box arrived containing (guess how many...) a, as in one, CD and an itemized list. Amazingly, all of the CDs I received letters for were listed as "backordered" (not "cancelled"), and the remaining five undelivered CD's were listed as no longer available. Huh! So in the end, I ordered thirteen CDs, received only one, which I paid $4.98 for (because it was the only one that was not part of the $3-4 offer), and guess what? I paid $5.94 for shipping and processing for the $4.98 CD. Damn near $11 for one CD, that you can get for less than a third of that if you shop around on e-bay or Amazon.

I was beside myself with anger. Livid. I started to think of all the names I could call those idiots at JHS. But, I composed myself and wrote a terse, vaguely polite, extremely demanding email - containing no swear words - to the JHS demanding all of my money back and demanding that they pay return shipping. I told them I'm going to report them to the attorney general of the state of Alabama for their borderline fraudulent bait and switch tactic, as well as to the Consumer Protection Agency (which, in fact, I will do). I'm still waiting for a reply to my email as I write this.

Whatever you do, stay the hell away from the Jazz Heritage Society. They are little more than a poorly operated, not so thinly disguised scam operation, and you can do better elsewhere to add to your music collection without also having to deal with their poorman's form of extortion. They are a bunch of simple-minded dumbasses, and you'll be no better a dumbass than I if you do business with them.

Saving jazz

There was an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal yesterday, about how jazz appears to be dying and what might be needed to “save” it. The basic crux of the argument is that the clientele which listens to live jazz is not only shrinking, but also growing older, the presumption being, jazz is now akin to classical music in that it is pursued more as an art form and less as a type of music.

I’m not sure I get the distinction, because when I’m playing the piano, I don’t really feel like I’m “doing” art. Maybe somebody passing by my window might be struck by my “art”, but I doubt it. As for jazz passing into the realm of classical music with an aged, presumably affluent, fan base, well so be it. Hell, this entire blog is about the fact that I got to jazz late and now I’m trying to make up for lost time. I can’t help it if I’m in the “old” demographic. Give me a break!

For what it’s worth, I think it is way too early to push the panic button. If I can “discover” and enjoy an entirely different type of music that I never enjoyed before, it could happen to anybody at any time. Who knows? Maybe when the younger generation reaches my age, they won’t be nostalgic for the rappers and grunge and whatnot that clutters their music sphere now. And even if they are, a person’s passion is their own. I’ll not question that.

Jazz does not need to be saved, because it will never die. Trust me on that.

Practice regimen

I’ve been thinking about my practice regimen lately. (As opposed to actually practicing, which would require that I sit at the piano and work, which I just haven’t been in the mood for lately.) Back in March, I developed a sort of plan, a list made up of things that I thought might be useful to practice on a regular basis. I put it in a spreadsheet so that I could print out a sort of tracking grid to actually be able to see what I was practicing and when and how often and sometimes (if I noted it), for how long. It was an excellent idea and I kept at it for one whole month before it got shunted to the wayside. Since I’ve been working on some new things in my lessons, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit it, add to it, and start using it again.

Here it is:


Obviously, there is far too much here to practice it all every day, unless you maybe do so for just a few minutes on each exercise or practice for at least two hours – which is out of my reach at the moment due to a lack of discipline. I would think that a minimum of ten minutes per area is required to realize any sort of advancement, but I find I have to spend more than that on most things before I feel I’m doing any better on it (like scales and stride work.).

One of the important things missing from the sheet is tunes. I feel that after practicing, one must make time for playing. That can be playing just to play, or playing to implement what was practiced. More often than not, for me, it’s the latter, because I think that’s what makes me sound better, but I also an not entirely against the idea of just playing a few songs to make me feel good in general and forget about the burn in my knuckles.

And so, having written all I can write for the moment about practice, I think I will go and actually do some. School starts pretty soon and if I’m going to take some classes, I’m going to have to audition, so, I’d better practice.

New Orleans Travelogue - Part 5: One place to skip

The original title for this part of my travelogue was going to be: "Mardi gras museum and three-piece jazz band top stuffy servers and mediocre (and expensive) food at tourist trap Arnaud's," but that would have been too long and cumbersome. In a nutshell, however, that is really all you need to know.

Here are some details anyway:

We decided to eat at Arnaud's on our last night for a lot of the usual reasons. It's a famous, reputedly great restaurant. It's part of the New Orleans culinary scene. It was close to our hotel. And we'd never been there before. When I called for reservations, we found out there was the added bonus of sitting in the "less classy" room, where you could order off the same haute menu while listening to live jazz music (for only $4 per person more) and not have to dress to the nines. That was for us, so we signed on.

I won't detail all the things that went wrong at Arnaud's. Suffice to say when the guy gave me a wine list then asked if I was ready to order the wine before he'd so much as showed me a menu, I knew we were in trouble. When I ordered a wine off the "special" prix fixe menu and was told I could only order it if I ordered off that menu, regardless of price and regardless of the fact that our a la carte meal totalled about twice what the prix fixe menu did, I was flabbergasted. "This is, um, some kind of rule," the goofball said. "Just give me the wine I asked for, asshole, I'm the customer!" I wanted to say, but I didn't want to create any enmity right at the start of our last meal in New Orleans, so I ordered something else and bit my tongue.

And it was good I bit my tongue, because the meal was completely unimpressive and not something I wanted to taste too closely anyway. Baked oysters: spongy, lifeless and ordinary. Fish: bland and uninspired. Steak with crabmeat: Salted to death, cooked poorly, unoriginal, and freaking expensive. The wine was good, but that was because I picked it. Then came, "You want us to remove the wine label? We don't know how to do that. Here's a duffel bag to carry it home with."

Truly disappointing. I was glad when it came time to refuse dessert and I felt good giving them a tip that was even more mediocre than their service and food.


What was not disappointing was the live music. The trumpet, banjo, bass trio was nothing all that special, but they were professional and played quite well. They took requests and went table to table, and for lack of a better idea, I requested "C Jam Blues". The bass player was a cut-up. He immediately goes, "Yeah, C Jam Blues. Okay, what key?" But that request tipped them off that they were talking to one of their own, another jazz musician, and the bass player even invited me to sit in on his other band's rehearsal the next morning at 10:30. (I declined, as we would be well on our way home by then.) So, I enjoyed chatting with them, hearing some good music, and forgetting about the awfully average meal.

Mrs. S then informed me that the guide book we had told us not to miss the Mardi Gras exhibit, so that got us ushered through the hoity toity section of the restaurant (where I saw at least one bow tie and two white jackets, so yeah, keep them away from us riff-raff) and upstairs to the display. It was impressive enough to keep Mrs. S's camera continuously firing for the next twenty minutes.And I would say, if you do do Arnaud's, that yeah, don't miss the costume display. It's one of a kind, unlike the food.

I guess we can conclude the restaurant summary by simply saying, two out of three wasn't bad, and we had memorable experiences at all of them, so I would count that as a successful trip. I think Mrs. S agrees.

New Orleans Travelogue - Part 4: Did I mention there's music?

If you've ever wandered down Bourbon Street after dark, or even during the day, you know there is no shortage of music to be heard. You also know there is no shortage of touts trying to push you into their joint, or sometimes half-naked girls trying to pull you into theirs. Curiously, though, I actually found jazz pretty hard to come by.

When I say jazz, I mean jazz. On my first afternoon in New Orleans, Mrs. S and I went straight to the Music Factory music store. There, they have jazz broken out into several sub-categories such as: blues, traditional, vocal, modern, ... and such. They also have zydeco, New Orleans jazz (?), and a couple of categories that didn't make sense (to me). I relay this as a point of reference in that, in the city that may or may not have invented jazz, you can't really walk up to someone and say, hey, where can I go to hear some good jazz music, one - because there are so many places where one could go, and two - because they won't know what kind of jazz you are talking about (and you might not know, either).

So on our first night in the Big Easy, we cut to the chase and went to Preservation Hall. We weren't too keen on paying $10 to stand in a non air conditioned barn, but we figured we owed ourselves the experience. Plus since the band only does 45-minute sets, we figured that would be good enough.


Well, it was touristy, but I have to say, the band was very good and the experience was worth it. It was a sextet, with alto sax, drums, trombone, tuba, piano and lead trumpet. They sang a few songs, but mostly just played. You couldn't really hear the piano unless she (a Japanese woman no less) was soloing. But the sound was good and very, I'll say "traditional". Of course, they try to make money selling you nondescript CD's and by taking requests. I paid $5 to hear St. Louis Blues, mainly because I think I was the only native English speaker in the audience and it was the only song name I could think of that I thought the band could play. They seemed to appreciate it, though, and I was accommodated also with a piano solo. But it was hot and muggy, so when that set ended, we called it a night.

Here's me in front of the hall the next day.


We stumbled into some more live jazz the third night of our stay, but I'll leave that for my next post.

New Orleans Travelogue - Part 3: The tenuous connection

When we stopped at the Louisiana welcome center on our way to New Orleans, we took a few minutes to browse through the many tour and destination brochures they had displayed there. I came across one that said Cemetery/Voodoo/Jazz across the top.



Cemetery voodoo jazz.

Although I consider myself relatively more knowledgeable about voodoo than the average American (I sleep on two different kinds of gris-gris - how about you?), other than the fact that several noted voodoo practitioners called New Orleans home, I'm not sure what the connection is. And while the above-ground, mausoleum style cemeteries are well known, when you think about it, there is really nothing so different between a New Orleans cemetery and a "regular" cemetery in Anywhere USA. You still are six feet from the bodies, there just isn't all that dirt between you and them. So I consider the connection between cemetery, voodoo and jazz to be tenuous at best, and I don't think the best way to appeal to tourists is to throw everything you've got all at them at once. Besides, I imagine the following conversation.

So, are you a swing era musician, or do you like be-bop?

No, man.

Okay, post-bop then, maybe fusion?

No.

Free jazz?

No, man.

What then?

Cemetery voodoo jazz.

If this is the new standard, other tourism promotional possibilities that come to mind are:
San Francisco: Gay Alcatraz Sea Lions
Los Angeles: Hollywood Tar Pits Jack Nicholson's House
New York: Empire State Building Broadway Mugging
Phildelphia: Liberty Bell Cheesesteak Rocky Balboa
Orlando: Mickey Mickey Mickey
Las Vegas: Magic Gambling Neon
Cleveland: Rock 'n Roll LeBron Rust
Seattle: Rainy Boeing Salmon
Alabama: Cottonfield Plantation Whatchou lookin' at boy?

But I digress.
So, part three of my travelogue is finished and I still haven't written about any music. But it is coming, probably with the next post. Y'all come back now, y'hear?

New Orleans Travelogue – Part 2: The Birthplace of America’s Music....NOT!

So, on the way to New Orleans, driving from Alabama, we obviously go through Mississippi. I was somewhat astonished that when we hit the state line, we were greeted by a sign that said, “Mississippi, Birthplace of America’s Music”. My very first thought was, “Does Louisiana know about this?”



When I hear “America’s music”, I think “jazz”. It is quintessentially American, like baseball, apple pie and all that...hey! All that jazz! So where does Mississippi get off calling themselves the “birthplace” of America’s music? Shouldn’t we define what “America’s music” means first?

Personally, I just don’t like such bold and broad sweeping claims. I think if I was governor of Louisiana or otherwise had some skin in the game, I might say something to somebody in Mississippi. “You’re full of it,” comes to mind.

Anyway.

Was jazz invented in Mississippi? I don’t think so. Was it invented in Louisiana? Probably not. So let’s clear this up: Mississippi may or may not be the birthplace of the blues. Maybe. Jazz and/or blues may or may not be able to lay claim to the title of “America’s Music”. Maybe. And jazz may or may not have been “born” in New Orleans. Maybe. Whatever the case may be, I guarantee you that the German and French tourists at Preservation Hall the other night were not in America to visit Mississippi.

Mississippi needs to come up with a better slogan, and it better not be, “At least we’re not Alabama.”

New Orleans Travelogue – Part 1: Food and Edible Insects

Obviously, this blog is about music, but on my recent trip to New Orleans (July 6-9), I ate REAL good, so I’m going to write about that first.

Here’s a brief rundown:

Dinner first night: The Pelican Club. The place was practically empty, so we got first rate service and attention, which always makes the food taste better. I had steak, Mrs. S had fish. I picked out a nice Marlborough white that went with both. Excellent.



Lunch second day: Po-boys in the Riverwalk food court, shrimp for him, oyster for her. Cheap, fast, and good. I was able to eat everything despite having snacked on crickets (“chocolate chirp cookies”), wax worms (in cinnamon and brown sugar – see photo), and meal worms (in olive oil and hot pepper) at the Audubon Insectarium. (Highly recommend that destination. It’s fascinating.) All the edible insects were very tasty and even though Mrs. S almost threw up just watching me, I’ve seen enough of Andrew Zimmern that it really didn’t bother me. They allowed you to eat as much as you wanted, so I had three or four of everything. No reactions or anything, just good eating. I even bought a scorpion sucker to munch on at a later date.



Dinner second night: Stella. Got the full seven course meal with wine pairings to celebrate Mrs. S’s birthday. Place was packed but service was good and the meal was absolutely unsurpassed. We’ll never miss revisiting here whenever we come back.

Lunch third day: Muriel’s at Jackson Square. I thought it pretty average, but Mrs. S loved it. I had a middling, muddling crawfish etoufee, and Mrs. S had goat cheese crepes. She definitely out-ordered me.

Dinner third day: Arnaud’s. Average-to-below food, terrible service. Menu was funky and they wouldn’t sell you some stuff on it, at ANY price, if you didn’t order it the way they wanted to serve it. (Yeah, stupid.) They had a banjo trio playing jazz music, which was alright, but you really pay for the atmosphere. I would say unless you are dying to feel and be treated like a backwater tourist, this place is a definite pass.

I ordered Samuel Adams at EVERY single restaurant. Not one carried it. I drank Abita as a rule, which is better than your run of the mill Bud’s and Coor’s, but really not all that great. I’m writing a letter to Jim Koch (Chairman of Boston Brewery) to let him know about this wide open market with no penetration yet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Critical listening project update

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

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

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

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

Halfway There

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

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

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

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

So, why do it?

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

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

I'm halfway there.

Massey Hall and Me: A short travelogue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Long, quiet weekend

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

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

MLK and Jazz

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

In the meantime, here's something interesting:

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

Have a jazzy day, everybody!

Finally: Yoity Tot updates

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

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

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

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

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

The critical listening project

The way I outlined the project was as follows:

"QUOTE"
Critical listening project

Goal: To listen to every CD in my jazz music collection once with minimal distractions and complete attention to the music
Time frame: One year from start date
Start date: May 11, 2009

Methodology: This is a critical listening project. That means I will listen to each CD while doing nothing else, other than making notations in a notebook for my own possible future reference. I'm not sure what my actual CD count is, but at three CD's per week, I should be able to finish within one calendar year. There is no specific order for listening to each CD, however, I will try to listen to sets together with one another. For those CD's that I have not written a review of yet, I will also listen critically with an eye toward writing a review for my Amazon.com profile page. I will also read the complete liner notes for each CD, if I haven't read them already. (For the majority of my collection, I have already read the liner notes.)
"UNQUOTE"

Already this has been altered, in that I don't just sit and listen. (Not to mention the start date; I've already started.) I found that my mind tends to wander too much if I'm just sitting and listening to the music (which is neither here nor there), but I also found I couldn't stand the sense of lost productivity. I have decided, however, that any activity I undertake while listening to music critically will be mundane enough that it doesn't detract from the music. So far, I've done things like clean out my e-mail inbox and organize my sheet music. I think that is fair enough and still in keeping with the spirit of the project. Plus I still keep the notebook handy and make notes as they come to me and as necessary.

This project came about primarily because I have purchased so much music in such a short period of time, that I'm not always completely sure what I have and have not listened to. (I do this at the end of each semester in anticipation of having more time to listen to music because I won't be practicing as much as I am during the semester.) That may be because the music is not that impressive, or it may be that I just haven't learned how to properly listen to jazz yet. Which is at least partly why I decided to undertake this project. That, and, I'm hoping to write a lot more reviews on Amazon.com and makes some additions and changes to the Yoity Tot list. It's a bigger undertaking than it looks on the surface.

That’s that

So, on my way to the concert Friday night, I’m stopped at a yield sign waiting for traffic to let up enough for me to merge. The guy behind me decides it’s let up enough to go ahead and merge. Unfortunately, he completely forgot there was a car in front of him. Mine.

I suppose there are worse things than a traffic accident to take one’s mind off of things and help one lose some of one’s nervousness and settle down before performing in a concert. I calmly got out of the car and honestly, at first I couldn’t see any damage. We looked underneath and around, and all I could see were some vague scrapes where the dirt had some off my car. Me and the perp didn’t even bother to exchange info, as I simply couldn’t see anything wrong and wanted to go back to thinking about the concert.

The concert was standing room only. Literally. The audience was siting on the staircases at the top. I had about ten or twelve supporters of my own there, only one from where I work, the rest colleagues and former colleagues of Mrs. S. Our band played first and we led off with Splanky. I had the first solo and it was really the only time anyone was going to hear me. The rhythm section and I nailed the behind-the-beat opening, played our 24 bars, then I soloed. I dropped in a Pop Goes the Weasel lick halfway through, but otherwise stuck to an unadventurous but nice sounding blues-scale-based line. It received the usual lukewarm opening solo applause. (Later, somebody told me they thought I would be soloing a lot longer, which was why they didn’t clap.)

From that point on, I was home free. The pressure was off. The rest of the concert went well, even if it ended up being a little long.

Fourth ever jazz concert is done and gone. Back to practicing from The Jazz Piano Book and working on technique, plus I’m going to start a new, critical listening project which I will outline in some detail soon. Updates to Yoity Tot are also long overdue.

A bit of a rant

I wrote recently about joining the Jazz Heritage Society in order to plug some holes in my music collection as cheaply as possible. I succeeded nicely in picking up some classics such as Dave Brubeck's Time Out and Miles Davis' Milestones, plus a number of others, generally for around $5 a pop, which I consider reasonable. I have been finding, however, that these pre-internet organizations, especially the ones that have not kept up with the technology and have not established a worthwhile internet presence, really are hard to do business with. Some of them, like the BMG music club, have even had to go out of business. I think the JHS may be close to having to do the same very shortly. Here's why I think that.

First of all, the "printed" materials that came with my introductory shipment were right out of the stone age. You could almost smell the mimeograph solution on the letters. I hadn't seen anything as quaint since seventh grade. The "catalog" they sent was printed on rough, cheap newsprint. It was in color, after a fashion, but looks not unlike those "colorized" black and white movies.

Now, let's be clear: I joined the JHS just to get music cheap. And, I have succeeded in that, so far. But the other shortcomings I'm about to outline are, I think, inexcusable for an organization calling itself a "Heritage Society". First, going back to the internet discussion, I'm inundated, almost daily but easily twice weekly, with "Featured Selections" that I am required to respond to. Some selections that I have declined (in fact, I've declined every one so far), have even returned as featured selections again. Like my mom used to tell us kids when we were growing up, "No means no". I don't understand why the JHS doesn't get something as simple as that and can't make their website operate properly.

Next is the music. Take last week's shipment for example: Miles Davis' Complete In a Silent Way Sessions, and a 10-CD set of Chet Baker. The Miles set was just like the regularly available commercial set, chock full of pictures, information, liner notes, etc. The Chet Baker set, on the other hand, contained NO information about the recordings. None. Zilch. Zippo. Okay, sure, I got ten hours of music for about three bucks a CD, and these were also my first Chet Baker (and Gerry Mulligan) recordings, but, come on! Is it really asking too much to at least have a listing of the musicians playing on each recording? Maybe a blurb about when some of the bigger hits were recorded. I mean, really, isn't this a Jazz Heritage Society recording? What about the "heritage" part. That includes understanding the heritage of the recording, right? Just buying and listening to the music doesn't promote the heritage of jazz, or anything else for that matter.

It is going to be really, really hard to learn anything about the 200+ songs on that 10-CD set. I'm going to have to try, anyway.

My advice to readers is, go ahead and join the JHS for the cheap music, just be prepared to send lots of e-mails and fill in the blanks in your jazz education yourself.

One down, one to go

My third ever jazz concert performance conluded last night. We were jazzing out at The Flying Monkey, in front of fifteen or so paying patrons of the arts. There were only two bands: a piano trio and our quintet with tuba. I won't run it down in detail except to say that we sounded pretty tight, even though we were not exactly clear on where we were taking the songs and how we were going to get there. At least this time, none of us wandered off through the wilderness and got off on our own trail. Everybody stayed on the same path and we more or less reached our destination all together. That will suffice.

Friday is the big big-band concert with Kathy Kosins as guest vocalist. That band has been sounding better and better, and I really like the fact that our performance is well mapped out and discussed beforehand. The only thing we haven't worked out yet is where the solos will be and when the vocalist will be singing, but we are probably going to have some opportunity to do that tomorrow and Thursday. With the big band behind me, I expect nothing but success, because my playing will be basically inaudible for the majority of the concert anyway.

I'm very much looking forward to after the performance, as I need that feeling of release and lack of obligation to learn new parts and songs and get them down. I'm ready to go back to intermediate loafing about the piano.

Just four more days.

Ten things piano players say that most other people do not:

Ten things piano players say more often than non-piano players:

10) Where are my gloves?
9) Are there instructions on how to close this waffle iron?
8) Not "shopping list", Chopin and Liszt.
7) Would you unjam my paper shredder for me?
6) Why don't you cut the vegetables and I'll go tidy up the den instead?
5) No, really, where are my gloves?
4) I don't smell hand lotion...
3) I prefer my pecans shelled.
2) I'd shake your hand, but I don't want to give you this nasty cold...
1) No, I said, "I'm a pianist".

Ups and Downs

As we kick off Jazz Appreciation Month...

The past week has been filled with a series of ups and downs. Monday night was big band rehearsal, and our drummer was absent. This allowed us to hear the band in a completely different light, and the fact that I wasn't playing very well at all really came out. On one of the songs, I was even play a completely wrong chord, pretty much altering the whole progression of the song. Although I arrived at rehearsal full of confidence after a productive weekend of practicing, by the end of rehearsal, I was starting to feel like an accident that put my hand into some kind of cast for the next three weeks would not be completely unwelcome.

Due to the emotional strain of putting down our eighteen year old cat on Tuesday (a story that I won't go into other than to say that after spending 18 years together with any sort of living thing, it has to be the hardest decision in the world to decide to end that being's life), I didn't practice very much on Tuesday, so I showed up for band practice on Wednesday, pretty much looking forward to the drummer being back and covering up my mediocre, uninspiring sound.

Unfortunately, the drummer wasn't there yesterday either.

So I did what any other jazz pianist with my lack of skills would do: I created space. I played sparser chords more sparingly, played fewer notes, played less on the beat, and even got a section taken away from me where we changed how we play the solos. I was fine with all those decisions, and I think they were made for the betterment of the music. Plus my overall sound was more interesting because I stopped doubling the left hand with the right.

Jazz ensemble actually went pretty well from start to finish. I picked up some good pointers on soloing and was able to implement them right away. At my piano lesson, we worked on some chord voicings for one of the songs I've been having trouble with in big band. The end result was, my confidence is back, my willingness and desire to practice is back, and my sound is better.

That's what I'm going to school to learn, anyway, so it's good to know we are at least accomplishing that.

There was a quote in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, that John Coltrane once said, "This (jazz) music is a serious as life itself." I'm not sure I buy that on its face, but I will say, if you had to pick something to take seriously while pursuing it, jazz would be a good selection.

Time to Practice

In a first for our jazz combo, we came up with a play list well in advance of our concert, which is going to be April 13. Since we are technically students, our recital has to take a specific format, namely, we have to cover what are considered the four "main" areas of jazz performance, namely, swing, blues, ballad, and Latin. Our play list, in alphabetical order, therefore, looks like this:

Cherokee
D Natural Blues
Desafinado
Ruby, My Dear

Ruby is a carryover from our Valentine's songfest song, which we didn't get to perform as the program designer "picked" a different song for us. Cherokee was insisted upon by our director, despite at least two of us having a certain disinclination to perform it (including me). D Natural Blues and Desafinado we came up with on the fly, ran through them once or twice, and they sounded good enough, so we decided to stick with them.

And that was that.

I'm glad the selection process is out of the way, because now I can practice those songs diligently and confidently, knowing that every minute I put into improving them will not go to waste. Still, coupled with the four (maybe five) songs that the big band will be performing on April 17, that's eight songs I've got to get down pat and really be able to play. I should be able to master them, though, because I don't have much of anything going on between now and the concerts. There can be no excuses for not accomplishing some serious polishing of my chops on these tunes.

I'm almost as excited about learning these songs as I am about how I will feel when this semester is over and I can play whatever I want once again. The home stretch is the best part of studying jazz in school.

Break time

It’s spring break, so that means my Monday and Wednesday for this week are free from band practice and free from pressure to demonstrate a little progress and improved capability in playing the five pieces we are learning.

Yeah, right.

All it means is I’ve got to continue to practice and improve and demonstrate twice as much improvement once we get back in the rehearsal room. The way I figure it, the director is probably going to expect these pieces to be ready to go and sounding pretty much like they are going to sound on the night of the concert, a little more than one month hence.

Just the same, if I want to take it easy and then hunker down later, this is the last week I can do so until after April 17. Good thing that my new jazz blues lesson book arrived. It gives me something to look at and makes me want to sit at the piano and learn some new stuff, and after I get tired of that, I work on tunes. Plus, my piano instructor gave me a new practice method/exercise to develop my left hand stride ability, and it allows me to play a bunch of tunes that I like, albeit in a truncated, staccato fashion built solely on quarter notes.

Long story short: spring break is no time for rest.

A slow beginning to Finale

In my continuing effort to spur the economy on and to keep my interest in music piqued, I recently purchased a software package I had been relishing for the longest time: Finale 2009.

I cut my teeth on the free version of Finale Notepad, and I found it adequate for my purposes. But once I started trying to arrange stuff for quartet and big band, Notepad didn't cut it anymore. I asked around and did lots of research online, and the consensus was that Finale was the package to get. There are lots - really, really lots - of notation programs out there, and they mostly have similar features. I really just went with the one I was most familiar with that also happens to have the largest installed user base (as near as I can determine). With my academic discount, it was reasonably priced, and it arrived very quickly. I loaded it into my computer with no problem, started it up, and

Did practically nothing.

My ability to notate music for piano is now basically unlimited, but I pretty much had that before with Finale Notepad. When faced with a big band quantity of staves, I was stopped in my tracks. The saxes all had three sharps and the trumpets two sharps on my key-of-C song.

Uh-oh.

Now, I can make a few logical guesses as to how to go about notating a song, and certainly, I know enough about how to transpose to be able to move the notes up to the keys of D and A, but I have nothing but questions even after I make those assumptions. Like, do I write for the instrument or write for the piece? Namely, do I put the notes in the instrument's key, or in my key? What's the range of the instruments? Is there some way to transpose that automatically so I can write in a more familiar key and print in the key the musicians need to see the notes in? And what other restrictions are there on the individual parts? (Like, how many quarter notes can a trombone player play legato at 112 before he turns blue and passes out?)

I could go on.

Anyway, I've got probably the single most powerful tool for writing and composing music, but now I'm not only facing the daunting learning curve of the comprehensive application, I've got to actually know about composing music in order to get it down properly. I'll probably buy myself a composition book (of which I found several on Amazon) and try to learn composing and the software simultaneously. Maybe by summer I'll be ready to go.

In the meantime, that's $200+ injected into the economy by yours truly. Don't say I'm not doing my part.

Milestones

Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of this blog, but with work and school, I decided to go ahead and commemorate the event a day early with this entry.

All I can say is, the blog has made me zero dollars, but I am still having fun doing it and I've had a lot of comments, both on and off the blog, from friends, family and new acquaintances who enjoy it. I truly think it has helped my music because I get the chance to sit and think about what I've been listening to, or what I've been playing, or what I've been learning, so it serves as reinforcement of what is going on in my head and heart musically. It's all good.

Speaking of Milestones, I just picked up that wonderful CD from the Jazz Heritage Society. The recording is really good and if you are into jazz piano, it is worth it just for Red Garland playing on Billy Boy. Gosh, that song is great and Garland's block chords are the bees knees, man, I'm telling ya!

So, congratulations to me for one year of Late to Jazz. Toast me when y'all think about it.

Coming soon:
-Yoity Tot List updates and changes
-My preliminary experience with Finale notation software and learning to arrange music
-Practicing hard during spring break

Stop back soon!

I'm helping the economy, a little. You?

Back in August, I bought a new car that included an XM Radio introductory package. After the free 90 days was up, I had the opportunity to sign up for another three months for $6.99 per month, which I did, and after that, the price was to go up to $12.99 per month. Right before the price was due to go up, I decided I would cancel the membership anyway. My logic was simple: I'm only in my car for 40 minutes a day five days a week, mostly, and it isn't worth $13 a month to listen to a handful of songs a day, especially with my burgeoning jazz music collection to keep me company on drive time. Naturally, I used this fact as a catalyst to start buying some more CD's for my collection. Then I called XM to cancel.

As soon as I told them it wasn't worth the high price to renew, they offered me five more months for $3.99 a month. Now, I sort of figured they would offer me something, and I thought that they would likely give me another three months for $7 a month. With this much improved offer, I was hard pressed to say no, and in fact, said "OK".

But I didn't stop my CD buying.

In addition to discovering the Jazz Heritage Society, I also started scouring e-bay for things on my music want list. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because my first search of e-bay for "jazz cd" turned up 140,000 matches! Still I was able to pare it down, and between my five introductory CD's from JHS and my purchases on e-bay, which average around $4 each, including shipping (!), I picked up the following:

Cross Country Tour by Ahmad Jamal
The New Crystal Silence by Chick Corea and Gary Burton (signed)
Milestones by Miles Davis
Focus by Stan Getz
The Complete Last Concert by the Modern Jazz Quartet
Head Hunters by Herbie Hancock
Concert by the Sea by Erroll Garner
some Stan Kenton
some Kathy Kosins
Bingo by Rova
Blue Train by John Coltrane

Ahmad Jamal and MJQ both will be on the Yoity Tot list, just as soon as I figure out who to shunt out of the list in their favor. (Don't worry. I plan to start a "Formerly on the Yoity Tot List list".) Most of the other stuff I haven't even had a chance to listen to yet, since I'm still listening to XM in the car and practicing playing music almost all the time when I'm at home. Anyway, the point is that e-bay can be a valuable resource for purchasing music on the cheap, as can the JHS (which has the advantage that everything you purchase is new), and that when I find new resources, I like to use them.

As always, I continue to do my meager part to get the economy rolling again. I say, Let's Jazz America!

Back against the wall

A while back, shortly after I joined the big band, I made the comment that I thought playing in the big band would balance well with playing in the jazz combo because I wouldn't have to work as hard in the big band as I do in the combo.

Well, I think I was wrong.

We are preparing for our April 17 concert, and we have a singer who does jazz workshops coming in to sing with us, Kathy Kosins. We will be doing two songs with her, plus an undetermined number of other songs, possibly including two Count Basie songs arranged by Neil Hefti. Long and short: there are critical piano parts in each of the Basie songs, and plenty of solo licks in the two vocalist songs, and it is very hard to practice the songs outside of the band because there is nothing for the piano to do when the singer is singing and the brass is blowing. I've taken to recording bits of our practice sessions to play back and play along with, but that hasn't gone so well (yet). Fortunately, I have the Atomic Basie CD, so I can play along with the two Hefti tunes. I also bought two of Ms. Kosins CD's (which haven't arrived at my house yet), one of which has one of the songs were doing with her on it, so hopefully, I'll be able to learn and swing those four tunes, plus our boogaloo tune which everyone is intent on doing (except me).

As if that weren't enough, our combo director wants us to work on Cherokee, which is a very difficult tune (for me) to play, and one I've given up on several times but now will not be permitted to give up on. Our drummer threw Keith Jarrett's The Magician in You into the mix, and I, unthinkingly, threw Falling Grace in (which I can play serviceably enough). And, last week when we practiced without our director, we came to the conclusion that I would be responsible for leading our group into and out of the endings of all our songs, a responsibility that I will not shirk, because I do believe the piano is "the key" to that part of the song, but it is something I'm not very experienced with and will have to work hard on.

So, even if I only do, say, fifteen minutes a day per tune, that's almost two hours, and that isn't that much practice when learning tunes. That's also more time than I have available to practice. Suffice to say, my back is now against the wall, and the only thing that can save me is focusing on these tunes in my private lessons and practicing my butt off every weekend and during spring break.

I asked for it, I got it.

New Addition to Yoity Tot List

Since becoming interested in jazz music, I've always been a big fan of the big band sound. Something about all those horns and winds and rhythm instruments, coming down different roads headed in different directions all arriving at the same location at the same time. I don't know if it is the virtuosity of the players, the cleverness of the arrangers, or the resulting sound that appeals to me - probably some mixture of all three. Which is why when I was given the chance to play in a big band, I jumped at it: All that is something I wanted to experience firsthand for myself.

Which is a round about introduction to how I arrived at my latest addition to the Yoity Tot list: The Complete Atomic Mr. Basie. Before we started working on our Valentine's concert tunes, we took a look at a tune called, Teddy the Toad, which is a Neil Hefti arrangement done for Count Basie's orchestra. I couldn't play it for crap, but it sounded vaguely familiar and I liked it's swing moves. Yesterday, our first post-concert practice, we got handed a bunch of new music, including another Hefti-for-Basie arrangement of a well-known swing tune called, Splanky. One of the trombone players in our big band had brought it in and mentioned it was on Basie's album "E=mc2". I seemed to remember that album being the backbone of TCAMB. Again, we beat our way around Splanky, but I couldn't do anything with it right out of the box, not knowing the tune very well on top of not being the world's most talented sight-reader. What a relief to find I had those two tunes on the CD, and listening to it at dinner, I sort of wondered to myself, why hadn't I been more intimate with these great tunes and arrangements.

When I looked at my Yoity Tot list, I was actually surprised that TCAMB was not on it. I can only describe that as some kind of oversight on my part. Oh sure, I've got some other big band stuff on there, like Duke Ellington (with what I call his "medium band"), the Grammy nominated Gordon Goodwin, and of course, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis. And though I can't put it ahead of those overall, there is no doubt in my mind that TCAMB needs to be included in the Yoity Tot list, too. And now it is.

If you are a fan of big band and you don't have that CD, or at least an old LP of E=mc2, you need to go ahead and add it to your shopping cart on your favorite music site. It's one of the swingingest CD's around and killer cool!

AND, WHADDAYA KNOW? That's the 25th entry on the list, completely filling it out for the very first time. From here on out, I'll only be editing the list - taking out what I haven't listened to in a while, putting in what I am listening to - at least until I think the list could do with some growth. Which may be sooner than I think (I've bought ten new CD's in the last week. Who knows how I'll feel about the list after I've listened to them all...)