Category: Personal

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)

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.

Mahalia Jackson Theatre re-opens

Irma Thomas, Kermit Ruffins and more shined along with the newly reopened Mahalia Jackson Theater – Keith Spera – Times-Picayune – NOLA.com:

“Preservation Hall tuba player and creative director Ben Jaffe stood at the lip of the stage and gazed out into the theater as it emptied. ‘There’s a lot of memories here,’ he said.”

It has been over three years since the great flood of 2005. In the summer of 2005 there were three nice large downtown theater venues in New Orleans: the Mahalia Jackson Theater of the Performing Arts, The Saenger, and The Orpheum. From September 2005 until last weekend there were none. Now there is one.

Ben is right about the memories. The first time I played with Wardell Quezergue’s Big band was at MJTPA. I played there with a reggae band, and I played a Wagner opera (Das Rheingold) there. I’ve been on the receiving end of lots of great music there as well. It’s nice to have her back.

Open Ears gets props from DB

The new (Feb 09) Downbeat arrived in my mailbox today. It contains their annual jazz club listing. It was a pleasant surprise to read that one of the five clubs listed in New Orleans is The Blue Nile, which is home to the Open Ears Music Series that I curate.

The Blue Nile offers a wide variety of jazz, from traditional and New Orleans, to Latin and funky. The atmosphere goes from relaxed to slinky. Best bets are Tuesday nights, where the Open Ears Music series has the more experimental jazz.

It is nice that someone has noticed. We are into our second year of the series, and things are flowing nicely. Artists are wanting to play the series (we’re booked through March, with a list for beyond that), and the audience is developing as well. Lately there have been more people there that I don’t know than people that I do know. It would be nice if we could sort out a way to have the musicians leave with more money every night, but that seems to always be the case. If I judge the series by my original goal of being able to provide a place where music could happen that might not happen otherwise in New Orleans, I feel like we have been wildly successful thus far. So, if you are in NOLA on a Tuesday night, you know where to go.

Minnesota, suits, and steam refresh

A couple of weekends ago, I went to Minneapolis with Luther Kent and Trick Bag. We played at Dakota. It is a nice club, and they treated us very well. Even though the day time high temperatures were single digit numbers when we were there, it was a nice trip.

Somewhat related to that, I have a bad habit of not really unpacking after a trip. I tend to just leave the suitcase out until I have worn everything that didn’t get worn on the trip.

As my professional life has morphed over the last few years, I have been doing fewer tuxedo-wearing-jobbing gigs. I don’t even own a tux any more. I wear a black suit when I have to don the uniform that marks the caste of the private function musician.

These factors all collided mightily last night when I started to get ready for my tuxedo-wearing-make-enough-to-pay-my-publicist New Year’s Eve gig. As I began to get dressed, I realized that my black suit was still in the folding part of my suitcase from the trip to Minnesota 10 days ago. It looked like it had been wadded up for 10 days.

My wife recently bought one of those fancy front-loading high efficiency washer and dryer combos. The washer has a steam refresh cycle. It says not to use it on wool garments, but I took the gamble on my suit. 15 minutes in there and it looked like it just came back from the cleaners. I love technology.

Happy New Year!

Cell phone companies are still stupid

I don’t intend for this to be a consumer gripe blog, but I feel like I have to get my Seinfeld/Andy Rooney moments when I can.

What’s the deal with…?

Did you ever wonder why, cell phone companies don’t try to actually do what their customers want, instead of making their customers do what they want? Why do we put up with this lousy service?

I want to get my stepson a new cell phone. He has some money, and is willing to pay for it. The problem is, that his line isn’t eligible for an upgrade yet. They guy tells me that I can add the new equipment on my line, then he can change it to the other line, and I can go through the whole setup thing again on the phone that I have now, on the line I have now. WTF? Either way they are getting me to commit to two more years of abuse with extortion payment as the only way out. Why can’t they just do it the easy way? Why do I have to jump through hoops for their stupid rules?

I thought capitalism was supposed to create a better scene for consumers. Why do we let it work the other way? It makes me consider dropping off the grid…