This was one of the stream of odd links that popped up in my Twitter stream today. I don’t know if it would be more or less surreal if I understood Japanese.
Can the question be the answer?
I must admit that I am a bit jealous of Larry Ochs, who has been investigated by Spanish Police for playing music that was not in fact jazz. I am sure people have said it behind my back before, but no one has ever called the the jazz police, or the real police, because I wasn’t “jazz” enough.
Check out Neil Tesser’s nice take on it here, and the story from The Guardian here.
They Love Like Me
The online balloting is now open for the 2009 “Best of the Beat Awards” which are presented by offBeat Magazine. I have been nominated for Contemporary Jazz Performer and Trombonist of the Year, and Similar in the Opposite Way is nominated for Contemporary Jazz CD of the Year. It really is an honor to be nominated, but I also feel that I must tell you that you can vote here: http://www.offbeat.com/bob09/, should you feel so inclined. Let your ears and your conscience be your guide.
Holiday Bundles from Greenleaf
Amongst the large number of “holiday/black friday sale” emails in my inbox this morning, was one from the Greenleaf Music Store. They have some cool Holiday Bundles at pretty good prices. I just downloaded the Paperback Series Bundle. There were a couple of records in this series that I have been wanting to get, but hadn’t pulled the trigger yet. I couldn’t pass up 4 albums for $28 as FLAC downloads ($25 for the mp3s). If you want to treat yourself to some good music, it is worth checking out, and as I’ve said before, their store is super easy to deal with.
“Similar in the Opposite Way” is #8 on offBeat “Top 40 of 2009” list
Similar in the Opposite Way is #8 on offBeat Magazine’s “Top 40 CDs of 2009” list. Read the article here. We’re in there with some pretty good company. If you haven’t yet heard Similar in the Opposite Way, click here.
Hamid Drake & Bindu in Milan 31 Jan 2010
A little promo video from the producers of the concert series that we will be playing in Milan in January.
Recent Listening – Mike Reed / David Binney & Alan Ferber
These two disks have been in my heavy rotation recently. They are both excellent. Click links, listen to samples, explore, and purchase.
Mike Reed’s People Places & Things About Us
David Binney & Alan Ferber In the Paint
Fun remix of St James Infirmary
Dig this Preservation Hall remix of St James Infirmary, that features an old friend of mine, Clint Maedgen, on vocals. BTW, I’ll be playing with Clint’s rock band, Liquidrone, this Friday (10/23/09) at One Eyed Jack’s in the French Quarter. Trombone effects and costumes, how cool can that be?
Benefits as unique musical events
Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking part in a benefit concert for Marva Wright. Marva is a New Orleans singer who has suffered from two strokes recently, and is still early in the recovery process. Regardless of the state of one’s health insurance, when a musician can’t work she/he doesn’t have income, so these sorts of benefits are very common. There was a nice crowd there yesterday, and hopefully much money was raised to help Marva and her family get through this time.
In addition to the philanthropic aspects of these events, they are also times when communities of musicians gather, which can lead to some unique musical happenings. George Porter Jr and the Runnin Pardners serves as the house band, and we (or parts of our band) backed many of the performers. There were many highlights, I got (bad camera phone) pictures of a couple.
Herman Ernest (Dr. John’s drummer who is recently recovering from cancer surgery) was there and it was great to see and ear him. Someone else was playing bass at this point, but Porter couldn’t stay away so he joined Herman on cymbal.
I’ve played the Meters classic “Just Kissed My Baby” with George many times, but never with Kirk Joseph on sousaphone and George singing. Ivan Neville played organ and sang parts of the lead too.
“Hey Pocky Way” with Cyril Neville on drumset and Porter on bass is about as cool a New Orleans music experience as one can get.
It was quite an afternoon.
Free slightly dog damaged copy of Pluto Junkyard
One of our dogs (I am pretty sure I know which one) got a hold of a copy of the new Lucky 7s CD Pluto Junkyard, and chewed a bit of the corner. The disc should still work fine as a music delivery device, and the package is now a one of a kind. I’ll send it for free to the first person to email the mailing address to which they would like the slightly chewed CD to be mailed, to me at jeff (at) scratchmybrain (dot) com.
