Flutin’ High: Improvisation: Freedom and Responsibility: “How do you exercise responsibility within this freedom? Well, in music, it is relatively easy, just listen. “
(Via @musikFabrik.)
Shofar, conch shell, & 4 laptops
I was working on a paper, and ending up (re)discovering this video. It is the documentation of one of my two public performances on conch shell. The piece is Concerto Grosso by Stephen David Beck, who plays shofar in the video. Enjoy!
‘It Can’t Be Done’: The Difficulty Of Growing A Jazz Audience : A Blog Supreme : NPR
I disdain the use of the word “Jazz” as a reference to a monolithic cabal with a singular focus, but the article linked below contains some noteworthy insights, in spite of that J word usage.
‘It Can’t Be Done’: The Difficulty Of Growing A Jazz Audience : A Blog Supreme : NPR: “Jazz simply needs to continue doing what made it great in the first place: engage with popular culture in an intelligent, nuanced and sophisticated manner, as some successful groups are doing today. If there is any hope of audience building, this is where it lies. It must be organic, visceral and culturally relevant, qualities which cannot be consciously conjured by an audience development committee.”
(Via @tedgioia.)
Music Universe, Music Mind
I just finished reading this book about the Creative Music Studio, Karl Berger’s school in Woodstock in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. It isn’t too long and is a pretty easy read that offers some great stories and nuggets of wisdom from the participants in CMS.
Solo/duo video
I love the way Google Alerts sometimes alerts me to video of myself of which I have previously been unaware. Here is one of them.
This is from the Search & Restore NOLA Round Robin Duos concert. I like the fact that once Helen comes on stage I am heard more than seen.
Sounds familiar
I offer the following without further comment.
Search & Restore New Orleans
Some of you are probably familiar with the NYC based organization called Search and Restore. It is run by a tireless man named Adam Schatz. Well, Adam is bringing his ever-excited craziness to New Orleans via a three night festival in New Orleans on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Jazz Fest.
Search And Restore: New Orleans is a 3 day festival (April 30th-May 2) celebrating the incredible new jazz musicians, creative composers and improvisers operating in New Orleans today, organized by Adam Schatz (founder of Search & Restore), Justin Peake (founder of the Merged series @ the Dragon’s Den) and Jeff Albert (founder of the Open Ears series @ the Blue Nile)
There is a Kickstarter campaign in place. I know I am always curious about how the Kickstarter money will be used. Your donations will help us guarantee a fair fee for every musician performing in the festival, with equal pay going to every artist in an effort to truly value the work. This financial security will allow us to go above and beyond with promoting the event, so that we can expose bigger and newer audiences to this vital community, and we hope you will be a part of it too!
Please pledge at the $600 level. It is the only way my wife will let me have my favorite summer hair style…
George Porter Tribute & Lifetime Achievement Award
This past Friday, offBeat Magazine had their annual Best of the Beat Awards show. George Porter Jr. was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award. George invited many of the old & current Runnin’ Pardners to play that night, and like every gig with George, it was great. His daughter Katrina also put together an all star tribute band that did a couple of tunes. I am thankful that I got to play in that group as well, and thankful that someone from offBeat had a camera.
Horn section (l to r): Brian Graber, Khris Royal, Tracy Griffin, Mark Mullins, Jeff Albert. Front row (l to r): Art Neville, Dr. John, Cyril Neville, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, David Berard, Stanton Moore, Papa Mali, & Brint Anderson (out of picture to the right).
What Does Practice Look Like for You? – ProfHacker – The Chronicle of Higher Education
Thoughts on music practice, adapted to other practices, which made me think about my music practice.
What Does Practice Look Like for You? – ProfHacker – The Chronicle of Higher Education:
“At the heart of Newport’s writing is the simple idea that success doesn’t require courage, it requires working hard in the right way. There are a number of ideas that follow from that: for example, you have to “become so good that they can’t ignore you” and becoming that good requires “hard focus.” The idea I’ve found most helpful is that to become good you have to practice deliberately.”
Instigation Quartet recording session
Here are some behind the scenes pics from my Instigation Quartet recording session on November 21, 2011. The musicians involved were Kidd Jordan, Hamid Drake, Joshua Abrams, and me. Zack Smith took the pictures.
I should have info about the release of the music some time soon(-ish).
Like much of the day, I was talking, and Kidd was practicing. Or maybe he was just trying to drown out my talking.
When he wasn’t practicing, he was laughing, or making us laugh.
Here we are with Wesley Fontenot, our fabulous recording engineer, checking out some playback.
Co-producer Benjamin Lyons and Hamid in (I’m sure rather deep) discussion.
We did actually record some music too. There are more action photos here.