Not sure how that happened

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

My piano, uncovered and ready for use

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

What the …?

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

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

What the …?

Open and ready for some music

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

The inside, obviously

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

Elton John-esque

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

My piano, being used (which is occasionally)

Speaking of Grammy winners

I actually had some more dealings with another Grammy winner prior to my visit to New Orleans (where I met Grammy winner, Irvin Mayfield). The pianist Laura Sullivan released her latest album a little while ago, a lush recording of moving, delicate, and inspiring pieces, more in the line of easy listening or New Age than the traditional jazz that Mr. Mayfield is all about. Here’s a light reworking of my review of Ms. Sullivan’s latest work:

This is my second CD by Laura Sullivan, and although I am a jazz musician and blogger, I enjoy listening to different types of music, including Ms. Sullivan’s work. It brings back memories of years ago when I was enamored of Enya, Dream Academy, and Clannad and was making my own soothing sounds and songs in my small but versatile studio.

Cover and CD, both signed.

It is a joy to listen to this recording. Laura has broken some new ground and is moving in a subtly different direction by focusing on her piano composing and playing. The backing to her piano work is lush and complex, soothing at times, and pushing the music forward at others. Personally, I would have preferred if there was actually a bit less instrumentation, simply because I was getting a little frustrated with having to pick out the piano lines from all the other stuff that was going on with some of the tracks. I feel that her piano playing is one of her strong points, and I wanted to hear it a little more. As a jazz musician, I just found some of the effects and accompaniment distracting from the heart of the music. Fortunately, the production (by Laura’s husband, Eric Sullivan) is clean, crisp, and technically efficient. The songs are pretty and well-conceived and even when it is slightly overdone, the instrumentation still breathes some spirit and energy into the thematic elements of the songs. As the music flows, the distractions fade and the melody surfaces, calm and reassuring.

I guess my musical sensibilities just aren’t what they used to be, but I still know good music when I hear it. Laura Sullivan is one artist who is truly making good music, whether I get a signed free copy of her CD or not.

One of my latest, greatest helpers

As a jazz musician whose talents only take him so far, and as readers of this blog will know, I’m constantly reading and thinking about jazz to help my musicianship along. Last year I read Ted GIoia’s The History of Jazz and while I was more than impressed by his look into the history of America’s music, I was particularly taken by the extensive discography to which he made continual reference. After all, if you are going to understand music, even if it is only from a historical perspective, sooner or later you are going to have to listen to it for yourself.

 

Read for yourself, then listen (or play) for yourself.

That’s what makes this book, Mr. Gioia’s latest work (I think), one of his best to date: it’s extensive discography. And because this is all about a solid core of jazz standards, the information is something that any jazz musician will be able to use at some point. Every song has between five and ten recordings listed for listening and research into the nuances and hidden meanings of the songs, not to mention alternative interpretations and styles. It not only reads like a jazz musician’s hall of fame, it reads like a biological listing of family, genus, and species of the recordings for understanding the very evolution of the song. Even better, the book is indexed by song, composer and performer, so however you decide to come at a song, the author has provided you the resources you need to choose your own angle of approach.

After finishing this book, something that occurred to me is that I should have been taking some notes. At some point, I sort of noticed that the index would help me cross reference recordings and performers, but I really should have been making a list of stuff to look for and recordings to Google or buy. Now, if I’m going to get serious about a song or recording, I’m going to have to go back and research it. There are worse things, I suppose, but I could have used my time more efficiently.

I guess I’ll just have to read this book again, and I guess that will happen sooner, rather than making me even later to jazz.

Because you can’t play jazz all the time

Not long ago, I happened across the works of Frederic Burgmuller. I was looking for some piano pieces that would provide me with some direction as far as improving my chops, but I didn’t want anything that would be too much work because I didn't want to spend a lot of time playing something that wasn't jazz. I’m not sure how I “discovered” Burgmuller, but it was exactly what I looking for. Here’s what I said for the benefit of people shopping on Amazon:

Deceptively easy and enjoyable way to improve piano skills

I don’t remember what it was that first led me to discover these pieces. All I remember is, I had downloaded the sheet music to “L’Arabesque” and after about thirty minutes, I was playing it start to finish, not at tempo, but with very few mistakes and a reasonable amount of musicality. (So you know where I’m coming from, I've been playing organ and electronic keyboards since I was twelve (I’m 50 now), but have only been studying piano seriously for seven years, playing mostly jazz.) I took the sheet music to my regular lesson and played it, and my instructor said, that’s excellent, here’s all the stuff you’re doing wrong, and he proceeded to set me straight on playing these classical period etudes. We decided these could be beneficial to my playing, so I bought this book and then began in earnest to learn the pieces. Since then, I've learned about one piece a week. I’m finding them incredibly valuable in filling in a number of gaps in my piano technique that were created in my rush to abandon the organ, flee from church music and dive headlong into piano and jazz.

 

Sure you can download the lot for free, somewhere, in a goofy font, without correct fingerings, and you'll have to bind it, somehow, after you research the correct order, then pencil in the correct fingerings, then start learning the pieces. Or, you can buy this for five bucks then start learning the pieces. (It was an easy choice for me.)

What makes these pieces so useful is that they are approachable and relatively easy, but they still require diligence and proper attention to execute well. Most of them are played at tempos which I consider to be borderline preposterous, but even at slower tempos, they are musical enough that they can be enjoyed at a slower pace as well. They are all also different from each other in mood and tonality, so the skill sets required to perform any given song is slightly different from piece to piece. Although they are pretty easy, I think most serious students will want to  work on these under the guidance of a piano instructor, because the tendency will always be that because they sound pretty and pretty “complete”, you will think you have it down, but I've found that my instructor can always find one or two things that can be done better or more easily or efficiently, and often enough, he will also find something I’m playing out-and-out incorrectly. Once I've looked at a piece, had my instructor listen and instruct, then spent another week on it, I pretty much have the piece down. I must say that, especially for me (the king of piano books), actually working through a book page by page and being able to play the pieces has been tremendously satisfying. They also provide a good break from playing jazz all the time, and correspondingly, my usual jazz tunes and exercises are better attenuated to my ears after I've played these classical style pieces for a while.

If you are an advanced pianist, I would venture to guess that you've already been through your share of Burgmuller pieces at some point in your learning. If you are, however, a beginner or intermediate player who hasn't yet set about practicing and playing these pieces, I recommend you give them a try and it’s worth five bucks to pick up this book rather than scrounge for them on the Internet. (Internet downloads often do not include the proper fingering, whereas Schirmer’s nearly always does.) The pieces are fun, highly musical, very instructive, and eminently learn-able, and playing these pieces has been one of my best musical experiences in seven years of learning piano. That’s why I give it five stars.

The best thing about these pieces is that they are all self-contained, but if you work through them, they develop different skills that every pianist needs. The other thing is what I mentioned in my review: they function well as nifty little songs and they dispel boredom, unlike drills and some other etudes. My playing has noticeably improved since I started working with Burgmuller, and I enjoy the twenty or thirty minutes I spend every day playing these song. For five bucks, this book is a bargain at twice the price.

Next: A look at another book on jazz in general, From Birdland to Broadway.

Why I'm not practicing (or blogging) much

Because our house has been turned upside down to install hardwood floors in the last four rooms covered in crappy carpet.

Tyler takes one last look at the carpet.

This is all part of the process to buy a piano, too (believe it or not). After we turned our dining room in a music room, Mrs. S wanted to paint her study. And since we were putting in flooring in the master bedroom, might as well go all the way. Which meant emptying four rooms into two. I could hardly get to my piano, much less play it while all the painting, furniture rearranging, junk dumping, and everything else was going on. (The list of everything we did is too long to even think about, much less write.)

This is about half the wood. And, there wasn't enough to finish the job!

I thought, however, that during the install, I might be able to play the piano a little bit, since I would take off work for two whole days. And, even though I've only ever been around one flooring install (upstairs in our current home), I knew there was no quiet way to install flooring. What I didn't realize is exactly how loud five guys, a power saw, an air compressor, a hammer driven nail gun, a bunch of regular hammers, and nine hundred square feet of hardwood flooring can be. And, how, as the project progresses, the echoes throughout the home build and build as there are less and less soft surfaces to absorb the sound. In short, the installation is downright deafening. Then there are the “contingency” sounds of the install, like the door constantly being opening and closed as they go outside to cut the boards to size. And they had to move that outside, because when they cut a board sideways and caused it to smoke, they set off the smoke alarm. No wonder I can’t practice the piano.

Look, ma! No carpet!

The floors, however, look great. The music room, which looked great for one day after we finished it and moved a bunch of furniture into it, looks like a garage sale gone awry, as it still holds the bulk of three rooms worth of stuff so that the flooring could be installed.

The chaos of the "music room". (The piano bench is just visible at the left.)

This weekend, we have slowly begun to reclaim our house. The guest bedroom has been cleaned and dusted, including the bed linens. Some books have been put back on various shelves. Furniture was rearranged in the living room. Clothes have mostly been put back in the closets.

Mrs. S's study, newly painted, oldly carpeted

I still have a couple of pictures to put up and out of the way, and a deer head as well.We need to buy some more area rugs to absorb some of the sound. And although it isn't much of a space, there is a path leading to my piano, so I might play some today if Mrs. S isn't making too much noise moving stuff around.

Mrs. S's study, flooring and rug in place, desk about to be.

And that's why I'm not practicing (or blogging) much.

Now comes the boring part

This is a brief story of what happens when you skip establishing the proper foundation right at the beginning.

Scales

Having learned to play the organ when I was young, I never had any formal piano instruction until I began taking lessons six years ago. At the time, because I was an adult, and not very savvy about these things, I basically told my instructor, I don’t care how I play, I just want to sound good. Recognizing that he was half my age and he had to do what I said if he wanted me to pay him, he diligently taught me what I thought I wanted to learn. If I asked about technique and skill improvement, he helped me, but he never force fed me what I didn't want to eat. Not so my new instructor.

Scales

He said, before I really said much of anything about why I wanted to take lessons this time around, “Really, in order to play better, you have to improve your technique.” I knew what this meant, but demurely asked a one word question: “Scales?”

Scales

“Scales,” came the one word answer.

Scales

So, I’m playing scales. In the interest of getting the fingering down and not stultifying my brain too much right at the start, I’m doing contrary motion two-handed scales. That way, the same fingers are always doing the same thing at the same time, hopefully programming my muscles to hit the correct keys at the correct time. It’s not refreshing, but it is somewhat invigorating to be tackling these rote sort of tasks at long last. So this week’s project is contrary and parallel scales in C, G, D, A, and E. I’ll probably go ahead and push on to at least B so that by next week, I’ll be halfway finished. Honestly, I don’t know if I can get there by next Tuesday, but we’ll see.

Scales

Kids, learn your scales now and don’t cry. You’ll thank me later.

Sprucing up for a piano purchase

With the imminent purchase of a baby grand piano, we've been trying to figure out where to put all the furniture that is going to be displaced by it. As we've done so, we've made the realization that our house needs major overhauling in the process. The other realization that Mrs. S and I have both made is that our values have changed and as far as furniture and knickknacks go, we have a lot of stuff that we were once attached to which now we don’t care about so much. Along with everything else, we are noticing how neglected our house is and how much stuff needs attention. Rather than torture ourselves, we've decided to spend the money and get fixed what needs fixing. Here’s where we are.

Our big plan is to get rid of all the carpeting in the house. We are going to do that by replacing the worn, torn, cat-puked and pissed on carpeting in the last four carpeted rooms we have with hardwood in all four rooms. We’ll therefore have to buy some rugs to put down on the floors so we don’t end up living in a damn echo chamber and also to give the rooms a little warmer feeling. (We have in fact already purchased one hand-woven wool rug and a pad for under the piano.) The cost for having the flooring done will be substantial, but not unmanageable, and it will leave us with much more livable conditions. It’s a big first step that takes a long time to start, but we have already received two quotes, so we’re getting close.

I replaced two non-working blinds in my study with off-the-shelf faux woods blinds from Lowes. The room looks 100% better. We also ordered custom made blinds for the future music room. That will replace two broken blinds and displace one working blind that we will move to Mrs. S’s study, where we will dispose of the one that is broken in her room. Nice.

Tyler meditating behind the sun room curtains.

We looked around our sun room yesterday and were thinking about the furniture when we suddenly just decided to throw it out. I hauled a glider, three chairs, and all the necessary cushions, plus one for a chaise (long gone) to the curb. Within five minutes, we had somebody packing them into their Pontiac Vibe. After the furniture was gone, Mrs. S took the vacuum to the sun room and we moved our new cat condo into it, and wallowed in the extra space that we got from doing that.

Roosevelt posing on the cat condo.

Our kitchen sink backed up around the disposal and leaked water all over the rugs we had set there, so we took those out to dry them and are looking to replace them.

We gave away our fish tank, along with the fish and everything that goes with it, to a guy where I work. He even agreed to take the extra one we have up in our attic. Less time feeding fish and cleaning the tank, more time playing the piano.

Stuff for donation: two pieces of exercise gear, a printer, a scanner, some T-shirts, my Nintendo Wii, bunch of Mrs. S’s clothes. Like that.

I’m also going to throw out my old computer.

I threw out eight cans of old paint. I have about eight more that I need to get rid of. I need to clean out the garage in general while I’m at it, especially where the mice got into the birdseed. What a mess.

And, I start back to piano lessons on Tuesday with a different instructor. We’ll see how that goes.

A piano search update

Although I haven’t written about it in while, the piano search has actually been going quite well. I've started to find more pianos that are priced better and that are in decent shape, although I haven’t quite found the exact thing I’m looking for. I looked at a beautiful used C7. It was played by a woman who passed away and her husband is trying to sell it. It is actually only 30 minutes from our house, so we went to see it shortly after I found it. It’s in beautiful shape on the outside, with hardly a scratch or mark on it, with the exception of inside the fall board, which was badly scratched from the woman’s nails. The only other cosmetic defect was the sostenuto pedal was a different shade of brass from the other two pedals. I wasn't sure if that was a question of usage or something else, and I also wasn't sure if it was something that could be corrected. That made it just like the fall board in that respect, as I’m not sure that could be buffed or polished back to normalcy. I checked the tuning on the piano with my Korg electronic tuner and found the piano was perfectly in tune. Perfectly. In fact, it was more in tune than any of the other pianos I have looked at so far. There were two things that were amazing about this. One was that the piano had not been professionally tuned in three years, and the other was that the piano was thirty five years old. 

A 35-year old C7, nice as can be. Could still be mine, as far as I know.

In all honesty, at the price the guy was asking and given the overall condition of the piano, if it had been only 20 years old, I would already own the sucker. So, age is the first problem. The second problem is size. At 7’4”, it will have to be placed in our living room, which means our house will basically be taken over by that piano. Mrs. S says she wouldn't mind, but she hasn't heard me play Piano Exercises for Dummies for an hour and a half on a booming piano in the middle of our living room yet. I think by the second of third week of that, she might change her opinion.

The GC1 in a sea of pianos. 5 year warranty, 100% trade up value, no fussing with piano movers...yep, it's looking quite attractive...

For comparison sake, we looked at some new and near new pianos at the local shop, our second visit there (almost a year to the day after the first, too, I might add). There was a very young, very clean divorce sale C1 for sale, but it was a little pricey and not quite what I was hoping for. If that one had been a C3, I might already own it, but I think it was overpriced and unexciting for a C1. I did like an Indonesian built Yamaha that I looked at, until I found out it was Indonesian. Then I played a Japan built GC1 that I quite liked. We would have the option to trade up at full purchase price if I got that one and at 5’3”, it would be much more easily accommodated in our house and furniture layout plans. We are leaning in the direction of buying that piano, once we get our master bedroom arranged and our dining room painted and arranged for turning into a music room. We also need to buy a rug to put under the piano, which will also affect our painting scheme. Lots of considerations, but good that we are getting some direction if not entirely getting closer to an actual purchase.

I've also been fine tuning (get it?) my practice routine for the arrival of the piano, so that I might actually get good enough to play the damn thing when it gets here. I’ll write about that soon.

Jean-Yves plays jazz, he just “Don’t think much about it!”

So last week, I wrote about Yakov Kasman, a pianist who I heard play for the Huntsville Chamber Music Guild and who, at his educational event, forthrightly told me that he doesn't play jazz. This week Mrs. S and I took a drive through rainy 40-degree weather to visit Nashville, enjoy a scrumptious dinner at Merchants Restaurant and see another classical pianist perform with the symphony orchestra, Jean-Yves Thibaudet. He performed a modern classic called Piano Concerto No. 3 “The Mysteries of Light” by James MacMillan.

This is what Merchants looks like if you eat as early as we do.

Let me be succinct and clear about what I heard. This is supposed to be some kind of theologically inspired piece about “mysteries”, but what I heard was a fantastically abstract and intricate piece that simply blew me away. There was one “movement” where Thibaudet had to play two completely different lines, in what sounded like completely different meter, that overlapped and threaded their way around each other, and I swear to God, my brain was fried trying to make sense of it. I just don’t see how you can get two hands to play such completely different lines using one brain. In fact, I would say those would have been immensely challenging  lines for two pianists to play accurately. I just never heard anything like it.

This is what Merchants looks like if you drink as much as I do.

Thibaudet, was a true master, but the orchestra was also in top form. A lot of the piece revolves around a certain amount of confusion and cacophony in the sound. There are lots of bells and chimes and while they seem to be echoing the lines coming from the piano, they didn't always match, which was obviously part of the design. Thibaudet was playing a Steinway (very cool when it rose out of the stage), and compared to the Yamaha CF6 we heard DaniloPerez play with Wayne Shorter three weeks ago, it had a duller, more uniform high-end, which I felt was exactly suited to this bit of music. In fact, I’ll go so far to say that the resonant low end, the deep, commanding middle register, and the tinkly, baby-spoon clang of the high-end on the Steinway particularly lent itself to the piece. I think the CF6’s clarity and icicle like sharpness would have broken up the MacMillan piece too much.

This is what Merchants looks like if you think too much about photo captions.

At intermission, we got some CD’s signed and spent a few minutes getting photos and chatting up Jean-Yves, who was immensely personable, smiling, and pleasant. After taking pictures with me across the counter, when Mrs. S asked for one more, he brought her around the counter with him. Just a real nice guy, class act, and superb pianist.

I can't even make my hands move separately when I'm not playing...

I was going to ask him if he plays jazz, but I’m glad I didn't  Turns out he has two “jazz” recordings out, so we went ahead and Amazoned (online purchased) them. I did ask him how he got his hands to play those two contiguous yet conflicting lines so nicely, concluding with, “I don’t see how anyone can do it.” He said simply, “I don’t think much about it.” There was a definite glimmer in his eye. Probably a tear from thinking about how many hours he sat on a piano bench to learn those lines. I don’t know. It scares me, so I don’t think much about it either.

Jean-Yves Thibaudet and me.

The question I’m asking myself is, if it is possible that I was more impressed by Jean-Yves Thibaudet because he does play jazz, keeping in mind that I didn’t know he played jazz when I first heard him last night? The answer is, I think, almost certainly. Maybe it’s jazz, maybe it’s something else, but there's a different quality and dimension to Thibaudet's playing. Regardless, I promise you: You’ll never hear that MacMillan piece performed any better anywhere else, than it was last night with the Nashville Symphony and Jean-Yves Thibuadet.

Dude sure gets a lot closer to the ladies, no?

Yakov don’t play jazz. Jean-Yves don’t think much about it.

I do (play jazz), and, I do (think much about it), but maybe I will (play jazz) and I won’t (think much about it) from now on. 

My Miles Davis “bucket list” gets Shorter, literally

I've kind of developed this fascination with Miles Davis and a while back, I set my mind to trying to see as many of the living and performing musicians who played with Miles Davis as humanly possible. So many of the greats died so young and so long ago ( I won’t even try to list them). That makes the ones that are still around that much more “valuable” to the current jazz lexicon.

The set up

Certainly, meeting and greeting Herbie Hancock was one of the highlights, and seeing Sonny Rollins fairly limp around on stage while honking his sax brings home the point of how little time is left to see these stars while they are still performing. McCoy Tyner was another one who could barely get on stage, but once he did, performed wonderfully. Chick Corea, on the other hand, still has plenty of energy and musicality left in him, which leads to diverse shows ranging from vibraphone and string accompaniment, to a duet with a banjo. Some other “Miles’ musicians” jazzing around that I have yet to see: Jack DeJohnette, Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland, Ron Carter, Marcus Miller, and John Scofield, among others.

 

Wayne Shorter's axes in front of the CF6. Check out the harp's reflection in the lid. Wow, I'll take it!

The most recent I’m now able to check off the list is Wayne Shorter, who performed some new pieces (I think) from his latest album with a killer quartet consisting of Danilo Perez on piano, Joe Patitucci on bass, and Brian Blade on drums. The quartet was really together but the star of the show, for both Mrs. S and I was Perez, who was playing an awesome Yamaha CF6. I've never heard a brighter, more dynamic piano than that one, and at intermission, I asked the stage manager (or whoever he was, the guy moving Wayne Shorter’s stuff around) what it was, and he kept turning his head so I couldn't hear him, but I did hear him when he said they couldn't get a CFX. That's why I assume the piano was a CF6, the next model down. Whatever. If I ever get a spare $100K, I’ll probably pick one up.

This is the guy who almost told me what kind of piano Danilo was playing

After intermission, the orchestra came on and joined the quartet to play some Shorter arrangements of tunes he wrote for quartet and orchestra, and Esperanza Spalding also came out to sing Gaia and played bass and sang on Midnight in Carlotta’s Hair. I enjoyed the concert fairly well, despite the fact that I would have preferred to hear some of Shorter’s bop and post-bop songs in a more intimate style. I was fairly impressed by Esperanza, too, whose voice has clarity and a soft vibrato that I favor over the more lavish voices of other jazz singers of late. (Carmen McRae comes to mind.)

Ready for the show...

Really the only disappointing thing was the rude Nashville audience. I’ve really been noticing of late that people just don’t appreciate the performing arts the way they should. After about the second song of the second half, there became a steady stream of people leaving the hall. When Esperanza came on, despite her presence making everything a lot more interesting, more and more people got up and walked out. The ones who I wished would walk out, like the couple in front of us (husband drunk and sleepy, wife just sleepy, and the two of them fighting over a bottle of water – don’t ask), kept nodding off and snipping at each other for doing so. They'd've done everyone a favor if they had left.

Still, Wayne Shorter is probably the most prolific living jazz composer, and with the exception of Duke Ellington and Miles Davis (maybe), possibly the foremost jazz composer of all time. The chance to see him live and in concert was truly worth the effort and expense. If I ever get a chance to see him in quartet format again, I will definitely do that.

Didn't even know there was a French single malt, until I drank this one. Sweet! 

Dinner by the way was at Etch, right by the symphony hall. Despite a brief allergic reaction to the Japanese short ribs (something in the oil, maybe?), Mrs. S and I still enjoyed a lovely meal, topped by a glass of single malt whiskey from France. Did that beat all? Yes it did. Nashville, we love you. Now please move 50 miles closer so we don’t have to.

And no night would be complete without some eerie coincidence: The same couple that sat one table over from us at the restaurant sat one table over from us at the concert, too. Hundreds of restaurants in the city, dozens of tables at the restaurant, dozens of tables and hundreds of seats at the concert hall, and they we are. Right next to each other at the same time at two completely separate events. I tell you, the Universe aligns for me, sometimes for a reason, sometimes for none, but at times, it's really weird being me.

Stars align, again

 I've come to the conclusion that I just can’t have too much Chick Corea in my life. With Mrs. S and I celebrating our 18^th wedding anniversary last Friday, we made our way through iffy weather and traffic conditions to Nashville, to fight Eric Clapton’s fans for parking spaces, enjoy a good meal, and hear Bela Fleck and Chick Corea play together for the first time in something like four years. Parking ended up being $25, but we were right in front of the concert hall and outside, so we could make a (relatively) quick and clean getaway. Dinner was up the street at Prime 108 inside the Union Station Hotel. We couldn't get the tasting menu because of time constraints, but we had nice seafood (scallops for her, lobster ravioli for me) with a nice Chilean sauvignon blanc. And from there, to the concert.

Well, at least it not crowded.

We saw Bela Fleck last year with the Alabama Symphony and were sort of wondering what he could do together with Chick Corea. Having seen Chick with Gary Burton just two months ago, we were more than excited to see him again. (The Corea/Burton concert was one of my top three all time.) Turns out that Chick is an inspiration and influence on Bela from many years ago, and they actually did a recording together a couple of years back. Since most of the music was off that recording and I don’t own it, I was unfamiliar with most of the songs.

Two man set up. Of course, you can face a lid-less piano in any direction you want, so our strategy to get  left of center seats so we could see Chick's hands did NOT pay off.

Honestly, Bela is really, really good, and it was fascinating to watch him pull off the notes and riffs, and lead the piano riffs in call and answer fashion. Quite impressive and extremely melodic. What I did notice, however, is that Fleck lacks a bit of jazz sensibility about him. He’s not very bluesy sounding, and the parts that I recognized as solos seemed more taken out of bluegrass than blues. There’s nothing wrong with that, mind you, it just wasn't what I was expecting or hoping for. As a composer, however, I was really impressed. Fleck’s “Waltse for Abbey” turned out to be a show stealer, and it was no wonder Corea said “Waltse” was one of his favorites. It showed.

Joban Dna Nopia to you!

Still, Chick’s playing made it for me. I loved what he did with their co-written (I think) tune, “Joban Dna Nopia”, and he really jazzed up Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed”. They did an older Fleck composition that was clever, called “Bicyclops”. (Chick: “What’s that mean?” Bela: “Same as Joban Dna Nopia.”) They closed with “Children’s Song #6” and “Spectacle”. Children’s song was a curious fantasy of a song, woven over a blues riff, with standard jazz progressions interlaying with rivulets of high note arpeggios and streams of cascading bass notes really booming out of the lid-less 9-foot Steinway. Spectacle was just nifty with the banjo sounding like a piano and the piano sounding like a banjo, and back and forth like that. It’s hard to explain.

Although I really feel it for two days afterward, driving to and from Nashville just for concerts does have its upside. Big name players like Bela and Chick don’t come around very often, so when they come around together, it’s worth making a special effort to see them and to secure those front row seats. Doesn’t make for a bad anniversary celebration, either.

Why I still don’t own an acoustic piano, Part five

I have a robot that does the vacuuming for me and Mrs. S. His name is Vinnie. (He does the “dirty work”.) He’s manufactured by iRobot Corporation. He’s programmable. He rarely gets stuck, always covers every nook and cranny, and he works every day, if we want him to, without complaining. We bought Vinnie not because we are lazy. We bought Vinnie because we hate to vacuum.

One of Vinnie's brothers. He comes from a very large family.

Vacuuming is one of the few activities that I hate more than looking for a piano.

Looking for an acoustic piano is hard. You have to wade through the lies and half-truths of the people who are selling used pianos. You have to cast your net very wide just to find a piano you are interested in. You have to deal with Craigslist not forwarding your emails even though there’s no other contact information in the ad. If you do manage to actually talk to a piano owner, they don’t understand what is meant by “buyer’s market”. Sellers also expect you to fix their piano after you buy it. And pianos are expensive.

Before Vinnie, we used to wait to vacuum until the house was basically covered in cat hair. One more day of not vacuuming meant one more day you didn't have to vacuum before you died. The longer you stretched, the less vacuuming you had to do. But eventually, you couldn't stretch anymore and you got out the Dyson and you cleaned house.

Without an acoustic piano, I play a digital piano, a piano that I bought for $700 five years ago because I wasn't sure I wanted to play the piano and I didn't want to spend a lot of money for something I might be selling on Craigslist in a few months. Now, five years later, I’m stretching. I’m trying not to notice that I can’t play quick repeated notes on tunes like “Moment’s Notice” or “Falling in Love with Love”. I try to ignore the clunkity-clunk-clunk-clatter of the keys underneath the plastic housing drowning out the music when I play Gymnopedie 1ere. Then I realize the house is covered in cat hair, and  I can’t stretch anymore, and I go back to looking for an acoustic piano.

But it’s hard, and that’s why I still don’t own an acoustic piano. (End part five)

Why I Still Don’t Own an Acoustic Piano, Part Four

Or, Wading Through the Piano Ad Jargon, Part Two

See yesterday’s post for a brief explanation of today’s post.

Seller says = Actual meaning

Highly desirable model = it’s not as irritating as measles

Rare = I've been to every storage unit auction in the tri-county area and I've never seen one of these

This piano just needs a good home = it needs to be somewhere other than this house

Very well cared for = we've never set it on fire and we cleaned most of the rat droppings out of it

Reconditioned = it was broke, but we kind of fixed it

Refurbished = it was broke, but we paid some guy to kind of fix it

Restored = it was broke, but we paid some guy to cobble together some piano parts and make it look like it was fixed

All original = we were too lazy to recondition, refurbish, or restore it

Ivory

Real ivory keys = I wouldn't know ivory if I got stabbed by an elephant tusk

Original ivory keys = you can see the wood on some of the keys because the plastic stuff peeled off

Not ivory (although, these have broken off in the fashion of real ivory, so, maybe...)

The piano plays perfect = some of the keys move and when they do, there’s noise

Comes with a bench = we've got to get rid of that hunk a junk, too

Inspected by an expert and appraised for (some ridiculous number) = Uncle Bernie saw something resembling a piano on the Internet once selling for (some ridiculous number)

Sacrifice for (some equally ridiculous number) = I need (some equally ridiculous number) to buy a new ATV and some socks

Serious inquiries only = Okay, I'll take $5000 less than (some equally ridiculous number)

Like I said yesterday, it took me a long time to figure out a lot of this jargon, and that’s why I still don’t own an acoustic piano. (End part four)

Why I Still Don’t Own an Acoustic Piano, Part Three

Or, Wading Through the Piano Ad Jargon, Part One

Piano sellers, God bless them, are a unique lot. There are a handful of realists out there, but for some reason, 95% percent of the people trying to sell a piano on e-bay or Craigslist see a gold mine and not a money pit. They aren't going to admit that there are a plethora of nicer, and correctly priced, pianos out there because for whatever reason, they think their piano is better or “special”. For this reason, it’s safe to say their viewpoint is not going to improve and they will continue to embellish the descriptions of their marginal (or worse) pianos. So, for those who are new to the piano buying game, I thought I would put my three years of experience and acquired knowledge to good use and compose this “Piano Buyer’s Guide to Piano Seller’s Jargon”, just to help out. It’s not all inclusive, but you should get the idea by reading through the short list below:

Seller says = Actual meaning

Brand new = a couple years old

Close to brand new = it’s pretty new, but something on it's broke

Like new = it was new, once, a couple years, okay decades, ago

Vintage = really old, which is why it doesn't work but I’m still trying to sell it

Antique = my grandma got it from her grandma and it’s been in our family ever since and we didn't know what to do with it aside from putting framed pictures and doilies on top of it

Requires TLC = broken

What the seller sees

Just needs tuning = just needs new pins, thirty or forty strings replaced, a dehumidifier or humidifier, and two tunings by a professional, at least two weeks apart

Not all the keys work but can easily be fixed = will only cost a couple thousand to get in working order

Needs minor repair = we couldn't get it to work

A few nicks and scratches = one of the legs still has some paint on it

Great for a beginner = if you've never touched a piano before, you might even believe for a couple of minutes that this is a musical instrument

Nobody in our family plays = See “antique”

Our daughter only played it a few hours a week when she was little = the chocolate milk stain is quite faded and most of the snot has flaked off by now

What the buyer sees

Can’t bear to see this piano not being used = we have enough firewood

Sounds as good as the day we brought it home = I’m still as tone deaf as a rock under water

Seriously, it took me a long time to figure out a lot of this jargon, and that’s why I still don’t own an acoustic piano. (End part three)

Tomorrow: Part Four of Why I Still Don’t Own an Acoustic Piano, which will also be part two of Wading Through the Piano Ad Jargon

If you're going to have a 130-year old piano serve as your bar...

...you might as well fill it to the brim with good stuff!

A friend of mine who lives and works (and drinks) in Asia (hey Steve!) recently posted a nice shot of bar that had an impressive array of potions and medicines. As I was looking at it, however, while I wouldn't say I was unimpressed, I got the feeling that my home bar had as much, and possibly more, liquor as the bar my friend was drinking at. Although my bar lacks diversity within ingredient categories (for instance, I normally don’t stock more than one gin, or vodka, or such at one time), it makes up for this in sheer breadth of scope and overall quantity. (After all, this is a bar, at my house, not an establishment open for business.) Anyway, here’s the bar stock just before the holidays, so you can judge for yourself. As much as booze and jazz go together, after this entry, I’ll stick to drinking booze and writing about jazz.

Hard to see everything, because the small bottles disappear under the front rim of the piano, but they'd be obscured by bigger bottles if you put them in the back.

Very back row, left to right: Romariz Colheita Port, Vintage 1963 (in the wood box, same age as me – I was told it would be best after it was 50 years old, so we get to drink it after my birthday next year), Choya plum wine, Crystal Head vodka (in the skull right under the light, personalized and signed by the distillery owner, Dan Ackroyd), Hibiki 17-year single malt whiskey, peach brandy (in Paul Masson re-purposed brandy bottle), Tuaca, Cherry Heering, Grenadine, Benedictine, Bombay Sapphire gin (x 2 - a man needs his gin), Jack Daniels (x 2 - a man needs his JD), Cointreau, Gran Marnier (x 2 - a man needs his...you know), Jack Daniels single barrel whiskey, X.O. brandy (in repurposed bottle, so I forget the brand, but I think it’s nothing too special – which is to say, it’s not the Suntory I bought in Japan over the summer because I drank that already), small bottle of Navan vanilla liqueur (I think) that came with one of the Gran Marniers.

A little better to get the scope of 47 bottles, but still, wide enough that  the camera can't focus in on every single bottle (still can't see the small ones down front, either)

In the three crystal decanters (at right): Sandeman dry sherry, Sandeman ruby port, vodka (no idea what brand, but it’s cheap stuff, probably Smirnov)

Back row of the bottle well (L-R): Bols blue curacao, Bols blackberry brandy, Bols crème de Cacao, cherry brandy, apricot brandy, Kubler white absinthe, Lucid green absinthe (x 2 - a man...never mind), St. Germain elderflower liqueur

Middle row (L-R): Campari, Applejack, Aperol, Calvados (that’s three apple drinks in a row), Kahlua, Old New Orleans spiced rum, Bacardi dark rum (in  re-purposed Old New Orleans bottle), Bacardi white rum (also in Old New Orleans bottle)

Front row (L-R): Angostura bitters, Sauza agave tequila, Pepe Lopez triple sec (thereby closing out the Mexican section of the bar), Laphroig single malt, Alize Coco coconut liqueur, Wild Turkey rye whisley, Bailey’s Irish Cream (x 2 - my woman, Mrs. S, needs her Bailey's), Calvados (extra)

So, that’s 47 bottles of booze by my count. Anybody thirsty besides me?

The Bar is Open

Pretty much all the time, too.

Open day...

Having a bar made out of a 130-year old square grand piano is a great thing. It’s a conversation piece:

Guest: What’s the ginormous piece of furniture?

Me: Open it and see.

G: Oh wow! A piano!

M: Not quite, fold the top up.

G: Oh wow! A piano full of alcohol! Can I have some?

M: Capitalist idea comrade!

It gives you someplace to put your liquor.

It looks good lit up in a dark room.

...and night!

Did I mention it’s full of liquor?

There's still room for more...

Yes, I spent way too much money on it. (Don’t even ask.) Yes, I spent way too much time on it. (Two and a half years.) It’s way too big. (6’ x 3’ x 3’.) It’s heavy as all hell. (About 215 pounds, down from about 560.)

And it’s something that, once its novelty and usefulness has gone, I will part with it either by giving it away or throwing it out. (After all, who’s going to want it, much less part with money to get it?)

I see Kahlua, and absinthe (two kinds), and XO brandy, and...wait...is that...is that SINGLE BARREL JACK DANIELS?!?! (Yes, it is.)

Still, it’s mine. And you can’t have it. But if you’re nice and you ask politely, you can probably have a little bit of what’s inside.

Now, to make some cocktails for me and Mrs S. If anybody needs me, I’ll be over by the piano.