I guess it’s the seasonal nature of Holiday songs that hold their appeal for me. You play them for a couple of months and forget about them until the following year.
I’ve started making short videos of Christmas tunes that I’ve been re-harmonizing lately. Here’s my latest.
I am excited to announce a new Jazz organization that I’m now a part of: the Vallejo Jazz Society. We will be presenting a concert, free to the public, on Sunday, Nov. 14 at 5:PM. The purpose is to introduce the VJS to the community and let you know how you can be involved.
The concert will take place at Step Up Music (1716 Sonoma Boulevard (at Georgia St.), Vallejo, CA 94590-6012 (707) 647-3050.
Refreshments will be provided.
We’ll be playing a mixture of original compositions alongside some of the classic jazz repertoire.
The VJS was formed recently by a group of jazz musicians and supporters, all of whom live in Vallejo. The group’s purpose is to raise awareness of jazz in the community, provide performance opportunities for local musicians, and to educate our young people about America’s only original art form. We will soon be welcoming new members (musicians and non-musicians).
It’s been a couple of weeks now since the SSIJ (Secret Society of Internet Jazzers) played the Beta Lounge in Berkeley, CA.
We enjoyed an enthusiastic audience both in the room and on Ustream. The club was very dark so our Ustream crew was treated to primarily audio feed. Fortunately, we had a couple of other cameras that were able to catch a enough visual data for me to provide you this glimpse of the show.
The main thing that struck me from this show was the musical strength and depth with which these musicians play. Who knew a pick-up band from Twitter would be so burning!
Thanks again to my compadres Jason Parker, Steve Uccello, Darin Wilson, Dave Hoffman and Joe Shotwell.
There are several different reasons that I employ the various Social Media tools available to us from around the web. One is connect with people who may never have heard my music and I can reach out to them, and them to me, and we connect. Another might be to keep a dialog open with industry people: Product manufacturers, other blogs etc. Yet another is to reach out to discover and get to know other musicians.
I’ve had the good fortune to get to know a good many wonderful artists all over the planet and this Tues, Sept. 7th, I’ll be celebrating with five people I’m lucky enough to count as friends.
The”Secret Society of Internet Jazzers” (#SSIJ) is a collaborative gig with musos from up and down the Pacific Northwest at the Beta Lounge in Dowtown Berkeley, CA.
This show features myself and my first-call drummer Joe Shotwell from the Atmos Trio, dual trumpet duties from Seattle’s Jason Parker and Seaside CA’s Dave Hoffman, Santa Cruz bassist Steve Uccello and Oakland’s Darin Wilson on piano.
This particular group has never played together before so this provides a unique opportunity to witness/ participate in a Realtime Jazz experience. Dig it!
Not in the area? You can still join us! This concert will be LIVE VIDEO STREAMED.
Here is the Atmos Trio functioning as “The guys” in support of singer Cynthia Tarr. We’ve held down this regular gig in Glen Ellen CA at Olive & Vine for a couple of years and have developed a very enthusiastic audience there.
Here’s a fairly up-tempo tune that the band stretches out on a little. Good times!
This was filmed on a Creative Vado HD cam. Audio was EQ’d/ compressed using Ableton Live and video edited in Final Cut Express.
Here’s the classic “Cry Me a River” from my gig last Friday night in the California wine country. Glen Ellen, CA is home the the Olive & Vine where the Atmos Trio functioned as “The Guys” to singer (and wife to our bass player Cliff Hugo who’s currently rehearsing with Super Tramp for their European summer tour) Cynthia Tarr.
