I was recently teaching a private lesson to a student who wants to get a college degree in music. I’ll call him Brad. Brad was working on an etude and has been for the last 6 weeks. When I originally gave it to him I had honestly expected it to take 2 weeks, maybe 3 [...]
I’m on the quest to learn more tunes. (Aren’t all jazz musicians?) Right now I’m working on two of my favorites: Cheesecake by Dexter Gordon and But Beautiful by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke. (If you’re interested in how I go about learning these and other tunes, check out this blog post: How [...]
Nerves. They are the bane of a musician’s existence. But there is a way to deal. Practice!
I grew up a classical player. Although I played paying jazz gigs beginning in 8th grade, I still thought I was going to be a classical musician pretty much until I dropped out of college half way through my third year. I always took jazz band, did big band gigs, took all the improv and [...]
Imagine listening to a group of four musicians who creatively speak to each other, have roots in jazz, world, and classical music, improvise with great imagination and inventiveness, and leave the door open for anything to happen musically. Meet Slumgum – a LA based group of musicians and friends who met while studying at [...]
Welcome to Five Link Friday, where I post 5 of my favorite links from the week. I hope you enjoy them. I’d love to hear what you think! If you have a favorite of your own you’d like to add please feel free to do so in the comments below. Thanks for reading! 1) 5 [...]
Welcome to Five Link Friday, where I post 5 of my favorite links from the week. I hope you enjoy them. I’d love to hear what you think! If you have a favorite of your own you’d like to add please feel free to do so in the comments below. Thanks for reading! 1) Eight [...]
Welcome to Five Link Friday, where I post 5 of my favorite links from the week. I hope you enjoy them. I’d love to hear what you think! If you have a favorite of your own you’d like to add please feel free to do so in the comments below. Thanks for reading! 1) Jazz, [...]
Welcome to Five Link Friday, where I post 5 of my favorite links from the week. I hope you enjoy them. I’d love to hear what you think! If you have a favorite of your own you’d like to add please feel free to do so in the comments below. Thanks for reading! 1) [...]
Welcome to Five Link Friday, where I post 5 of my favorite links from the week. I hope you enjoy them. I’d love to hear what you think! If you have a favorite of your own you’d like to add please feel free to do so in the comments below. Thanks for reading! 1) [...]
There’s been a lot of talk about jam sessions recently on the web (is that due to a lack of paying gigs?). I’ve seen long diatribes on the subject – some sarcastic and mean spirited, some just so overwhelming that reading half of it discourages you from ever wanting to go to a jam session [...]
I first met Alan Baylock through his music. I was playing in the top big band at ASU in 2002-03 and Mike Crotty was the director. I don’t remember how many Baylock charts we played that year, but the one that stuck with me was Cottontail, probably because it had a bari solo which I [...]
Welcome to Five Link Friday, where I post 5 of my favorite links from the week. I hope you enjoy them. If you have a favorite of your own you’d like to add or a comment on one below please feel free to do so in the comments below. 1) Lenox’s Music Inn was jazz’s [...]
Welcome to Five Link Friday, where I post 5 of my favorite links from the week. I hope you enjoy them. If you have a favorite of your own you’d like to add or a comment on one below please feel free to do so in the comments below. 1) Want a new lick to [...]
Earlier this week, while one vacation, I found myself in a local coffee shop (no wifi where we were staying) checking up on the world, when three musicians started setting up. I was actually excited, because I love live music and well, honestly, even poorly executed live music is often less irritating to me than [...]