Tag: jazz

Vocabulary

I’ve been talking with students about the use of vocabulary, “licks”, and learned musical sentences in improvisation in 20th century Black American Music.  If we compare music to visual art, I think sometimes it can be helpful to practice improvisation more like creating a collage than trying to paint something completely new on a blank […]

Transcription

  Hi all! I think a lot of you have already seen me post this clip elsewhere, but I thought I would put it up here as well. I would like to get more in the habit of posting video of what I’m playing/working on; just short informal bits, nothing too intense.  This is the […]

Updates/Listening to the London Scene

Hi all! It’s been an eventful Summer: –  Polyrhythmics played across the region, including the Eclipse Festival and the High Sierra Music Festival, where I had the opportunity to share the stage with both Skerik (who I talked with on the blog here) and Karl Denson, a musical highlight for me.  We added the finishing […]

More Focused Listening

When David Bowie passed away, I was motivated to listen to more of his music, as I had really only heard his big hits previously.  As I have occasionally done with other artists in the past, I decided to start with his early albums and move through them chronologically (I wrote about this approach previously […]

Lottie’s Lounge

Great gig at Lottie’s Lounge with Eric Hullander and Papa Josh the other night.  I got a chance to really dig into some standards that I haven’t played in a long time, and all three of us were listening close. I found myself thinking a lot about the old Dexter and Hayes sessions I used […]

Listening

Two tracks I can’t get enough of right now: Claudia Quintet – Keramag, from Royal Toast I love the melody that first shows up at 1 minute 1 second that the vibes and piano play together. It gets moved around and displaced throughout the entire song. Christian Scott – American’t, from Yesterday You Said Tomorrow […]

Mark de Clive-Lowe at Nectar

This is a repost of my entry for my friends over at Rust and Rum: Mcguirk met up with me to check out Mark de Clive-Lowe at Nectar in Fremont. MdCL is not necessarily a DJ as much as a beatmaker, with a bunch of drum machines and keyboards around him on stage that he […]

Earshot

So the Earshot Jazz Festival is about halfway over.  The Seattle Times talked about it a bit , as did Lucas Gillan of Accujazz and Jason Parker from One Working Musician. As with every year, I am impressed with the diverse schedule of music and film, and several of the musicians in particular have been hype-worthy for […]

Sasquatch/IO Awards

I’m back with another double post that I’ve been wanting to do for a while, a recount of and some thoughts about Memorial Day Weekend.  I was very excited for this weekend for several reasons.  There would be great camping with some of my favorite people, a full day’s worth of music that was largely […]