Month: January 2009

Livingston Parish speed trap

I have to drive through Livingston Parish, LA on I-12 everyday on my journeys between Mandeville and LSU in Baton Rouge. There is a stretch of I-12 there that is a total speed trap. The speed limit drops from 70 to 60, but you are still several miles out of Baton Rouge. They have one of those camera trucks that takes your picture and mails you speeding tickets for driving 71 on the road that is exactly like the 70 mph speed limit road you were on a mile and a half ago.

To make it feel even better, you have to mail the check for said ticket to CLEVELAND, OH!!!!!!! Why am I making a payment to a local government agency through an Ohio address?

I know that there is not really anything I can do about this, but I am going to use my little internet voice to declare that this is jive. Hopefully the google salad will get my message to someone who cares. I doubt that any of my regular readers are Livingston Parish business owners, but if you are know that I am now consciously avoiding spending any money in that parish. Since your government feels the need to come out to the highway and mechanically generate revenue, I will stop providing any of the sales tax revenue that I have in the past.

Thanks

Last night’s CD release show at Snug Harbor was loads of fun. I’d like to thank Dave, Tommy, Tim and Will for playing so much music last night. It really is an honor, and a humbling experience, to have such great musicians put so much energy into playing my music. It is also a great feeling to have so many friends come out to hear my music, and a delight to see the regular Snug Harbor tourist crowd stumble upon something they weren’t expecting, and dig it. Thank you. Finally, I’d like to thank all the folks at Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro. For years, they have consistently provided a great setting to both hear and play music, and they have always treated the musicians with great respect.

Hopefully there will soon be some youTube evidence of the nights proceedings.

“Similar in the Opposite Way” drops today

I am pleased to announce that my new CD, “Similar in the Opposite Way,” is officially released today. The quartet will perform at Snug Harbor, in New Orleans, on Thursday (1/29) in celebration of this fact. This link: http://jeffalbert.com/?p=177 will take you to the page on my website where you can read about it, and listen to samples, as well as order it. I think my website or the label site (www.forasound.com) probably have the best prices on physical product, and I definitely get the largest cut of it that way. It is also available in physical version from CD Baby or Amazon, and in digital version from iTunes, CD Baby and Amazon. I’ll paste direct links below this.

Thanks for listening, and purchasing (if you do so.)

Peace,
Jeff

http://cdbaby.com/cd/jeffalbert2
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001J8AB38/ref=dm_sp_alb?ie=UTF8&qid=1230331565&sr=8-4
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=292294922&id=292294847&s=143441 (iTunes direct link)

…still digging Matt Wilson

It’s no secret that I have dug Matt Wilson’s music for a while. This Ottawa Citizen blog piece confirms that I like the way he approaches music personally as well.

Matt Wilson interview outtakes – Thriving on a riff:

“My stuff is not too hard… I’m proud of it, actually, they’re easy I like ’em easy so that I can see what people can do with them. I’m big into how people can look at something and go with it. And go from there.

…

As long as the music doesn’t get in the way of the musicians, I think it’s pretty cool. But when the music inspires the musicians and gets stuff out of them, it’s really great. That’s what all the good writers and arrangers, all those conceptualists do. They know how to usher people
into an environment and allow them to play with it and see what can occur. I dig that part of it.”

(Via @accujazzdotcom.)

Change is gonna come

Ok, when I have an emotional reaction to Jon Bon Jovi as part of a duet, there are likely extramusical forces at work.

I grew up in Lafayette , LA in the 70s and 80s. I was in first grade when crosstown bussing started in the public schools. I remember lots of kids leaving to go to private schools, but I didn’t understand why. When I was in 6th grade there was a new kid at school. His name was Ronald, and he played bari sax, and we had a bunch of classes together. He was cool, and we hit it off and became fast friends. When the first teacher conference came around, one teacher mentioned to my mother that it was so nice that I took Ronald under my wing. My Mom told that was a nice thing to do, but I didn’t understand, he didn’t need a wing to be taken under, he was just the cool new kid in my eyes. Ronald is black. To the teacher, and my parents, it was unusual for me to have a black friend. That thought hadn’t entered my mind.

It takes generations for attitudes and ideas to change. My parents aren’t racists, but my attitudes about race are different from theirs, and theirs are very different from their parents’. I am almost overwhelmed at the realization that we are in the middle of history making on the grandest scale. To me it is still a big deal that our nation has become enlightened enough to elect a black man President. Hopefully to my kids, it won’t seem out of the ordinary.

Wynton on categories

Wynton Marsalis, from a CNN commentary:

“On the eve of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, let’s recognize the pernicious effects of separating people by generic categories.”

What is true of people is also often true of music. If we can get past our need to put people (and music) into categories, especially categories that declare it like or unlike us, we will have a better world, both socially and artistically.

(Via The Rest is Noise.)