Thursday, April 26, 2012

Earf Day

How did you all spend your Earth Day?

What's that, you say? Didn't even realize this past Sunday was Earth Day? Me, neither. I was too busy recording a new track with Sean Waldron.

All mic'd up at Soteria.
We spent a few hours in the afternoon recording drums at Soteria Studios here in Colorado Springs. It was my first time tracking at this particular studio, and I ended up having a fantastic time. It was probably the best raw drum sound I've ever had the pleasure of recording and I can't wait for the rest of the band to get their parts laid down (which should happen sometime next week). There will be an accompanying video for this particular track, as well, so be sure to check back often for updates.


There are also some additional plans to record a 5-song EP with the aforementioned Waldron, so rest assured: Señor Ward isn't the only one finding himself in some unexplored territory this summer. All kinds of new musical adventures are being had by the whole Crew, and I'm going to try my darndest to carve it all (or at least my part of it) into stone here on the blog.

Stay tuned, kids. Same Bat-time. Same Bat-channel.

The Best Music You Haven't Heard (Yet) - Dave Beegle & Jay Oliver

One of the best musicians I've ever had the pleasure of working with (or even knowing, for that matter), is guitar virtuoso Dave Beegle, and I'm thrilled to be able to introduce you all to his art.


Dave is a Jedi Master, of sorts. He's perhaps the greatest undiscovered gem of the guitar world, combining his own rock stylings along with jazz and world music to form a truly unique, beautiful, and masterful alchemy of acoustic sounds. If you're interested in instrumental music, the acoustic guitar, or just something brand new for your ears, I cannot endorse Dave's albums emphatically enough. Even though not readily available through Amazon.com, (you can get some of the albums from private sellers or download the mp3's, however), be sure to check out Beyond The Desert and A Year Closer on iTunes, along with Dave's monster live performance, Acoustic Mayhem.




Additionally, if you're interested at all in solo piano music, I recently purchased an album that I'm absolutely in love with.

Jay Oliver, a jazz keyboardist who came up with legendary drummer Dave Weckl, recently put out an independent release entitled Outside The Box which is, to put it mildly, breathtaking. Half of the album is comprised of new arrangements of classic pop songs (such as 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow', James Taylor's 'Fire And Rain', the Beatles' 'Let It Be', and Sting's 'Fragile'), while the rest of the tracks are Oliver originals, some rearranged specially for this CD. The album is loaded with beautiful melodies and new piano techniques derived from rudiments that drummers (but not necessarily pianists) are familiar with. It is unlike any CD you've probably ever heard before, but it is far from unlistenable. It is gorgeous and colorful, and I hope you make your way over to Jay's site and download or order the disc for a mere $10 (it's available exclusively through his website). Believe me, it's worth every penny.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Of Tubists & Batmen

I picked up the motion picture soundtrack album for The Dark Knight today. It's one of my all-time favorite movies, and, well, it was time.

The score is epic, dark, and spookily riveting: Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard are both masters, so when you get them together, what else would you expect?


Thursday, April 19, 2012

Levon Helm (1940-2012)

  
 Hope I'm still doing this when I'm 70.


 
 When music was music.



 
Marc Cohn's own kind of tribute.

Quotables

It's been said that talking about music is like dancing about architecture. I disagree. And so do all these people.

“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.” - Sergei Rachmanioff
"One of the perks of being an unemployed musician is that you get to play much less bad music." - Jack Daney

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Aldous Huxley

“Music... will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.”  - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all. Music expresses itself." - Igor Stravinsky

"Hell is full of musical amateurs." - George Bernard Shaw

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

On Drumming - A Perspective

I sense that the art of drumming is in dire straits these days. For the benefit of my rhythmically-minded brothers & sisters, let me expound.

I once saw an interview with Peter Erskine that elucidated something I had been feeling for a long time but had previously been unable to a put a finger on. Erskine is a master of the jazz arts and has been able to craft a more-than-30-year career for himself from behind the drumset. What he said was something along the lines of, "We drummers spend far too much time playing for other drummers and ignoring the rest of the audience." Boom. There it was.

The Queen's Hall / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND
If you've paid any amount of attention at all to this blog, you're probably aware that I find the current state of music to be precarious, at best. We, as a culture, are in danger of losing the art of music to those that would use it as nothing more than a tool in their unyielding pursuit of commercial success. Thus, we have come to live in a time where songs are focus-grouped as if they were political candidates running for an office of Time On The Airwaves, and radio DJ's are nothing more than push-button automatons, serving at the beck and call of their rank-and-file station managers. It is an inelegant time for music, to be sure.

Monday, April 16, 2012

How To Sing The Blues - A Primer

1. Most Blues songs begin with: “Woke up this morning…”

2. “I got a good woman” is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line like, “I got a good woman, with the meanest face in town.”

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes… sort of: “Got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Yes, I got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher, and she weigh 500 pound.”

4. The Blues is not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch… ain’t no way out.

5. Blues cars: Chevys, Fords, Cadillacs, and broken-down trucks. Blues don’t travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain’t even in the running. Walkin’ plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin’ to die.



6. Teenagers can’t sing the Blues. They ain’t fixin’ to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, “adulthood” means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or any place in Canada. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably just clinical depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the blues in any place that don’t get rain.

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain’t the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg ‘cause you were skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg ‘cause a alligator be chomping on it is.

9. You can’t have no Blues in a office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

10. Good places for the Blues:
a. highway
b. jailhouse
c. empty bed
d. bottom of a whiskey glass

Bad places for the Blues:
a. Nordstrom’s
b. gallery openings
c. Ivy League institutions
d. golf courses

11. No one will believe it’s the Blues if you wear a suit, ‘less you happen to be an old ethnic person, and you slept in it.

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues?

Yes, if:
a. you older than dirt
b. you blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can’t be satisfied

No, if:
a. you have all your teeth
b. you were once blind but now can see
c. the man in Memphis lived
d. you have a 401K or trust fund

13. Blues is not a matter of color. It’s a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Sonny Liston could. Ugly > white people also got a leg up on the blues.

14. If you ask for water and your darlin’ give you gasoline, it’s the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. cheap wine
b. whiskey or bourbon
c. muddy water
d. nasty black coffee

The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. Perrier
b. Chardonnay
c. Snapple
d. Slim Fast

15. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it’s a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So are the electric chair, substance abuse, and dying lonely on a broken-down cot. You can’t have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or while getting liposuction.

16. Some Blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie
d. Fat River Dumpling

17. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie

18. Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Jennifer, Debbie, and Heather can’t sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

19. Make your own Blues name Starter Kit:
a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.)
b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.)
c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)
For example: Blind Lime Jefferson, Jakeleg Lemon Johnson, or Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc. (Well, maybe not “Kiwi.”) Or, as Martin Mull coined, Blind Lemon Pledge.

20. I don’t care how tragic your life: if you own a computer, you cannot sing the Blues.



(I wish I could take credit for this. Alas...)

Friday, April 13, 2012

Thursday, April 12, 2012

The Best Music You Haven't Heard (Yet) - Chris Botti

Ever have one of those moments whilst listening to music where everything stops, it's just you and the song, and you're so powerfully moved by it that somebody could knock you to the ground with the touch of a feather? I recently had just that experience when I found myself listening to Chris Botti's latest live record, Chris Botti In Boston. Recorded at Symphony Hall in 2008, the concert is a spellbinding mixture of jazz, classical, and pop music with Botti inviting a slew of great artists to the stage to join him in duet, among them Sting, Yo-Yo Ma, Steven Tyler, & Josh Groban. His simple, beautiful performance of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" floored me so hard that I exclaimed to my wife, "If you don't get that, there's nothing I can do for you." The whole concert is nothing less than masterful; a stunning display of musicianship that most musical artists of any genre can only hope to equal.

Chris Botti began his career in the mid- to late-90s, but rocketed to notoriety when he joined Sting's band for the ...All This Time tour. For those of you currently outside the know, ...All This Time was Sting's re-orchestration of his own songs into a more jazz-based format, and Botti was tapped as the trumpet player. I myself was fortunate enough to see Botti perform with Sting at Colorado Springs' very own World Arena, and I, like the rest of the world, took notice. Since then, Botti's been able to crank out album after album of spectacular music and shows no signs of slowing down.



Melody and control are the hallmarks of Chris Botti's musicianship. He's been known to serenade female members of his audiences with the bell of his trumpet less than a foot from their heads without blowing them out of the room. Botti brings a quiet intensity to his performances that tends to draw the focus of the listener right to where he wants them, and it's a pleasant thing, too: his orchestrations and arrangements are comfortably listenable. He is a jazz artist who routinely incorporates classical music into his albums as well, but it's his jazz that's truly easy to listen to. He doesn't lose the pop-based audiences by diverging so much into "playing"; he keeps his commitment to the melodies and doesn't drift into musical la-la land.


I could not more highly recommend Italia, When I Fall In Love, Night Sessions, as well as his wonderful Christmas music album December (along with the aforementioned Chris Botti In Boston). Do yourself a favor and check Botti out. You won't be disappointed.

Rock vs. Jazz

Question: What's the difference between a rock musician and a jazz musician?

Answer: A rock musician plays 3 chords in front of 1,000 people. A jazz musician plays 1,000 chords in front of 3 people.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Resistance

It's that thing.

'Ya know... that thing.

Steven Pressfield called it "Resistance" in The War of Art. Resistance is the internal pull to not do what we love to do. I have no idea where it comes from or what causes it, but I can certainly testify to its reality and presence in my own life.

Reality Check

The wife and I stumbled across The Voice tonight while waiting for House to come on. Maybe it's my predilection towards avoiding really trendy things. Maybe it's my resentment at seeing music become little more than a backdrop for water cooler TV talk (especially when you add American Idol, The X-Factor, and America's Got Talent to the mix). Whatever the reason, I had a few thoughts I felt compelled to write about.

First and foremost, let me say that I appreciate the effort a show like The Voice puts into getting truly talented people around which to build their show. It's not about embarrassing tone deaf people via a controlled and produced audition process. I appreciate that - 10 years of crappy auditions is starting to wear on those of us who don't even watch American Idol.

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