Holiday gigs 

We played a great gig at Snowbasin ski resort, it was a holiday gala party for corporate customers.  It was fun to dust off the Christmas classics and put the guests in the mood for Christmas cheer.  I also played Christmas Eve at Snowbird, and New Year's Eve at Park Meadows Country Club in Park City.  That night rocked!

Dave Brubecks passing 

So sad to see the passing of Dave Brubeck, he and his quartet were such a huge influence on me.  For years I would go to bed with the sounds of "Blue rondo ala Turk" or "Take Five" playing on the record player in the bedroom I shared with two of my brothers, Kelly and Mike.  I had rigged a small speaker up to the top bunk so that I could listen and not disturb their sleep.  This was when I was in my early teens, when I was also listening to Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Cannonball Adderley, as well as my…

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Edmonton Jazz Festival 

I was up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada recently to visit my sister and "just coincidently" the Edmonton Jazz Festival was taking place, so I took advantage of the situation and took her to see Mike Stern's band in a small intimate theater downtown.  It was a great show of mostly new, original, contemporary fusion tunes that featured Stern on guitar and an incredible sax player - Bob Franceschini, who also plays a Conn, pre-10M tenor sax.  He got a huge fat sound, so maybe I'll stop wishing I had a Selmer…

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Bossa Nova is Boss 

Just learned a bossa nova to add to the band reportiore - TRISTE by Jobim.  I realized that I didn't have any bossa novas memorized, so I looked through the Real Book and Realized that there's a bunch of 'em in there and they're all great jazz tunes.  I love Brazilian music so I've got some woodshedding to do to learn them all: Girl From Impanema, Wave, Desafinado, Corcovado, One note Samba, How Insensitive, Meditation,........ ...the list goes on and on...

Peaks Jazz Festival was Fantastic 

I went to the Peaks Jazz Festival down by Lehi, attending some of the clinics put on by the guest artists, and also the Saturday night concert.  The improv clinic by Ed Calle was pretty good, his emphasis was on learning the chord scales inside and out at lightning speeds.  He talked about the importance of the melodic minor scale, and how its modes provide a scale for just about any chord.  For me, learning scales never helped me to improvise - you've got to learn a vocabulary of licks and patterns, which…

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Valentines eve gig 

Played up in Park City at the Park Meadows country club for V.D. evening and had a great time playing mostly jazz with the full band.  During the dinner hour we were asked a couple of times to turn the volume down, so we were playing at a whisper when a third request came in.  Dan the joker, pulled the plug going from his keyboard to his amp, and then kept on playing - at least thats what I thought he was doing because we couldn't hear a thing!  His fingers were moving but no sound.  He gave them the…

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Terence Blanchard concert 

Went to the Terence Blanchard concert last Wed. night at the Capitol theater and he had some incredible musicians with him but every song was of the "free jazz" avant-garde genre that doesn't float my boat at all.  I tried to find a rhythm to tap my foot to, a melody, a harmonic structure for a reference point, but they were all playing "outside".  Like Bill Evans said, without a reference point like a melody or harmonic structure to call home, playing outside the changes doesn't mean much, because if its…

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Making progress 

Had a good practice today, and tested out a new pad design on my soprano sax to achieve portamento (sliding from one note to the other like a trombone or violin can do).  I'm hoping too convert all my pads but the small ones will be a challenge.