Jazz, Teaching, and Lucky Brown

A couple of really fun performances around town over the past couple of weeks:

Claudio Rochat-Felix and Michael Marcus at 418 Public House:  Drums, Bass, and Saxophone.  Really cool chance to stretch on things and mess with forms in interesting ways.

Claudio, Tim Kennedy, Ian Sheridan, and Thomas Marriott at Vito’s:  First time playing with Tom and a great time playing tunes and interacting as a quintet.

Eric Hullander, Owen Ross, and Tyler Graves at the Seamonster:  Another standards gig, for the most part, but run through the Seamonster lens.

Bill Bradburd, Geoff Harper, and Tim Kennedy at the Columbia City Gallery:  Sort of a Dexter and Hayes reunion; it had been too long since I’d played with Bill!

Jacob Zimmerman jam session:  This was just Jacob and me playing saxophone and talking; I left his house really motivated to continue getting deeper into playing music!

I was really happy to be a little busier in town with different people; Although I always feel connected to the music community in Seattle, this added something different to the connection, in a great way.

I also participated in a student recital as a teacher for the first time!  Although I still want my focus to be performance, I really enjoy teaching kids, and I was happy and proud that some of my students were able to perform in front of friends and family.  Hopefully the first of more to come.

Last but not least, this past weekend I played in the Lucky Mystery Now Orchestra, which was essentially a conglomeration of several funk groups including the Polyrhythmics, and performed original music written and arranged by Lucky Brown.  Many of the other Polyrhythmics members have known Lucky for years and years, but I’ve known him just for the last year or so, and I admire his dedication and energy that he puts toward his music.  To see him in front of the LMNO so happy to hear us play what he wrote was inspiring to me, and something I hope to remember as I continue to write and perform.