Cute Animal Stories!
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/specials/article5274376.ece
Listening to yourself
Tonight I went to the Douglass St. Musicians Collective to see Tony Romano and Michel Gentile play a set. Those guys are fantastic together. Half of the music they played was completely improvised on the spot, and it was unbelievable. Can’t wait for the next one.
When I got home, I started to listen to my practice tape for the day. Each day when I practice organ, I record it on a digital tape recorder so I can listen later and take notes.
It’s really thrilling to listen to the tape, because you never know what you are going to here. Often, my playing sounds completely different than I remembered. Today, I played a ‘brazilian warm-up’ exercise that i’ve been working on for the last couple of weeks: half notes in the bass line, and right hand comping. In the right hand, I’m treating the upper and lower manuals kind of like a high – pitched and low-pitched drum. Then every once in a while, I’ll toss in a few measures of soloing.
The point of doing this warm-up exercise is to push the limits of my ability. In Nate’s words, “You want to sound terrible playing it” because you are pushing yourself beyond what you can play.
Lo and behold, when listening back to it, it’s not too bad! The coolest part of it is that all of the elements of a jazz group are present: the bass, the chordal instrument, the percussion (with the upper/lower manual drum ideas), and the soloist – all being played on a single instrument. I’m surprised that I can do it at all.
Of course, each time you learn one thing on the organ, it just opens a window of possibility through which you can see a million other things you need to learn. (Unlike bass, where you just thump quarter notes all day and try not to fall asleep 
How A Bowl Should Be Licked
In case you didn’t get this forward in your email reader:
Wanna see owls????
This is a pretty cool piece of animal news I just came across on the Internet. A guy set up an owl box in the wild, and put a camera in it so you can watch the owls. Those owls are totally awesome.
http://www.ustream.tv/theowlbox
Heaven 17 – Penthouse and Pavement
You may be surprised to learn that I’ve been completely obsessed with the album Penthouse and Pavement for the last four months. It was recorded in 1981, and was pretty much banned from the radio because of its scathing political lyrics.
Raging lyrics, phat and raw synthesizers, booming 808 beats. And a complete lack of irony.
Not to mention the outrageous slap bass lines of John Wilson. Furthermore, the mind-scrambling diva Josie James. This just in: the lead singer’s chewing gum.
Black and White Cookies
I made these yesterday for our friend Olive’s first birthday party. The first time I tried a black and white cookie was in 1990, on a trip to upstate New York during the winter break of my freshman year in college. Now, 20 years later, I got around to making some. They tasted pretty good!
I tried to make them a few years ago, before Nancy and I were vegan. They didn’t turn out so great back then, so I’m not going to officially count that time.
I got the recipe from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Usually, black and white cookies are made with eggs, but I like this egg-less recipe even better.
Also, a little off topic, I’m excited that congress voted for the health care overhaul bill. I haven’t had a chance to sit down and read the entire bill online, so I’m curious about how much it will help me, Nancy, and baby Jessica.
I’m not sure how you would categorize my family’s economic status, but I’d say we’re solidly middle class. I remember about 15 years ago, it was easy to live on a musician’s salary. Now, it’s difficult, because food prices have skyrocketed, gasoline costs 3-4x what it did back then, and medical insurance has gotten completely ridiculous.
In terms of saving money on food and gas, it’s not hard to find ways to economize. But if your family has to have health insurance, and you don’t have a job that provides it, you have no choice but to bend over…
Hopefully, some government control over health insurance will give us a more affordable option.
What happened to the fire?
Sometimes I wonder why I can be driven and committed to something, only to give up on it a short while later. For example, in January I bought a cool pair of running shoes. The plan was to go running every day.
For the first five days I enjoyed it, then I stopped all of a sudden. Now I’m not the type of person to point a finger at myself and feel guilty, but I wonder why I can just stop doing something that is so positive. I believe it’s because I had no extra energy or time, and there is always such a long list of stuff to do that it’s hard to justify taking time for myself. Whenever I start to do any type of solitary exercise, I have to compensate by not spending as much time walking Truffles or cleaning up the apartment or cuddling the baby.
Even more tenuous is the daily practice routine. Ever since January, I’ve been getting up at 5:30am to practice keyboard for an hour or so. It’s been a fantastic habit for me to cultivate and it has done wonders for my musicianship and self-esteem. But it can seem pointless sometimes to wake up tired as hell and start playing. What am I doing it for? What’s my ultimate goal? Is playing organ really that important? Plus nobody is ever going to give you a pat on the back and say ‘good job’, your motivation has to come from within.
I think when you first realize that you really want to do something, like learn a new instrument, your mind tends to look at the final goal and think about how cool it will be. We know it will take work, but we don’t realize at the time how tedious and frustrating the work will be. Also, while we’re practicing, it’s difficult to see improvement from day to day, and it’s also likely that there will be times that we regress or take a step backwards. Or even worse, we may spend weeks practicing something that is completely wrong, and which you have to un-learn and correct.
So anyways, how do you keep the creative fire burning? The best way for me is to forget about anything discouraging that I’m thinking about at the time, and have faith in my original vision. In other words, just think back to how excited I was about learning something new, and assure myself that someday, I’ll feel the victorious feeling that I accomplished what I wanted to.
One day, I was walking in the park with Jessica and Truffles and I was feeling troubled because it seemed like I would never play as good as my organ teacher Ondrej. Then I realized that the only thing separating me and Ondrej is tons of practice time.
That made me feel so much better, because I know now that it’s only a matter of time before I can play well. It may take many years, I’ll get there.
Music & stuff
This morning I got to thinking about the music that made me who I am. There are moments in my life, where regardless of my age, I can remember when I first heard something and it is burned in my memory forever. I’d like to share some of these moments now, and in the future as I remember them, and just for fun, my approximate age at the time:
Age 5 – AM radio at my grandparents’ house: Gloria Gaynor/On The Radio
Age 6 – Over PA system at a swimming pool (before I could swim): Earth Wind & Fire/Gotta Get You Into My Life
Age 11 – on friend’s walkman at lunch – Quiet Riot/(not sure of the song)
Age 11 – on parent’s stereo – Earth, WInd & Fire/In The Stone, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young/Carry On – The Who/Pinball Wizard
Age 17 – on my walkman at UNC – a jazz mix tape that my friend Gabe gave me – Keith Jarrett/Falling In Love With Love, Hal Galper/A Foggy Day, Michel Camilo/Suite Sandrine. I gotta mention here that after hearing this tape, I saved up for a CD player and receiver, and started going to this used CD place in Chapel Hill, where used CD’s were $17(!) and most jazz CD’s were Japanese imports with no english writing on them.
OK I’m officially changing this topic to list a few of the first CD’s I ever bought. Used Miles Davis/Relaxin’ W/The Miles Davis Quintet, John Scofield/Loud Jazz, the Best of Billy Preston
Oh my God, this post is threatening to splinter off into about 200 different posts about music right now. Just posting this has gotten me excited about music again – hope it does the same for you.
Being a beginner
“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few” -Shunryu Suzuki
When I was taking Alexander Technique lessons from Kristen Davis, one of the important concepts she introduced to me was the beginner’s mind thing. I notice that it’s true when playing with master musicians: often the best ones try to approach their playing with a fresh, open mind to try to keep their music sounding spontaneous and original.
One cool thing about playing the organ is that I actually am a beginner! Versus playing the bass, it is much easier to have a ‘beginners mind’ playing the organ. In fact, I have a sense of wide-eyed wonder at each organ lesson I go to.
It’s great to sit down at an instrument and to not have any preconceived ideas or prejudices about playing it. I believe with that sort of attitude towards making music, it’s easier for your personality (soul) to shine thru.
2010 March Gigs
Hey – I hope to see you out in March
Mon 3/22 7:30pm – 9:30pm w/The Big 72 (formerly The Traditional Jazz Collective) @ Banjo Jim’s (9th St @ Ave C)
Wed 3/24 8:00pm w/Lee Ann Westover @ The LIC Bar (45-58 Vernon Blvd @ 46th Ave, LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS)
Sun 3/28 6:00pm w/J. Walter Hawkes Quartet featuring Tom Beckham @ LIC Jazz Fest The Secret Theater (44-02 23rd St, Long Island City)
Tues 3/30 8:00pm – 11:00pm w/Michael Arenella @ Apotheke Bar (9 Doyers St., New York, NY 10013)
Wed 3/31 7:00pm – 10:00pm JWH Trio @ The M Bar at the Mansfield Hotel (12 W44)