Category: Music

Gratitude

  Taking a moment to send a general thanks out to the amazing community of musicians and music-lovers I’ve met recently. Whether it’s a small town or a big one, huge stage or tiny room, the support that I’ve gotten from those who are listening is essential to me; I could not perform music otherwise. […]

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 […]

3 Months In

So here I am, almost 3 months into working exclusively as a musician and teacher. It feels as though my workdays have become compressed; lessons can’t start until kids get out of school, and gigs and rehearsals are almost always at night, plus most gigs are squeezed onto the Fridays and Saturdays of the week.  […]

Sideman adventures continued

Last week was one the busiest playing weeks I’ve had in a long time.  It’s not often that I have many weekday/midweek performances, so it was kind of a new experience for me.  This is also on the heels of a couple of sub gigs I’ve recently done, so I’ve been thinking a bit about playing […]

Listening

Above: an old favorite from dogsitting not too long ago     I’m in a funk, and not the good kind. Some tunes that have been helping me when I’m feeling down lately:   Homebase NYC – Sleep (featuring Coco O.) Band of Horses – No One’s Gonna Love You Gretchen Parlato – Weak

Slumgum/Post lengths

  This past weekend the group Slumgum came to Seattle as part of their album release tour.  Slumgum is a quartet that plays a blend of free and composed elements that give them a really individual sound, sometimes delicate and other times in your face, sometimes long waves of sounds and other times precise rhythms, sometimes loose improvisations and […]

Adam Danger Bacot and Covers

I got a chance to sit in with my friend, vocalist and guitarist Adam Danger Bacot, on Saturday night.  I enjoyed myself for so many reasons, but the one in particular that prompted this post was the notion of cover songs and why they are so much fun to play (at least in certain settings […]

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 […]