I picked up some CD’s this week at Bleecker Records.  After spending a few days listening to these, I’m happy to say I was 4-for-4.  Yeah, even in this age of downloads, I still dig on the actual plastic discs.  No iTunes for me.  Of course, I immediately rip ‘em to my hard drive, but I can use whatever settings I like.  The following are my comments on these albums.  No reviews, no stars, just what they mean to me…

Upon an enthusiastic recommendation, I attended Barry Harris‘ weekly jazz workshop last night.  Barry is a legendary jazz pianist and fervent jazz educator who, at the age of 78, hosts a workshop every Tuesday night for musicians of all levels.  That is to say, beginners are welcome, but he goes through stuff fast and it’s kind of funny when he snaps, "What’s so hard about that?  Play it right!"

Barry took us through the scales to play over "Whispering", the basis for the bebop standard "Groovin’ High".  Measure by measure, he drilled us in eighth-note scales counted off at around 160 bpm:

"Everybody play D7 up and down, one, two, three, four…  [play]   Again!  [play]  Down and up!  [play]  Up and down!  [play]  Now flat the second and the sixth, one, two, three, four…"

Then he’d stop and point out that we’d just changed our D7 scale into a G harmonic minor scale, and then sing some lines for us to play to connect the changes together.

I kept up with about 90% of it.  There was one long line he sung leading into the second half turnaround that was just too many notes for me to process at once, and breaking it apart became a lost cause once the whole room started noodling trying to figure it out.

Working through the song led us on a few tangents, one of them being what David Baker refers to as "bebop scales", but Barry refers to as making the scale "right".  I happened to start working on these heavily within the last month or so, and it’s really improving the flow of my phrases.  I’m not crazy about all the "rules" that go into where to put half steps and when, but I realize that I’m learning bebop and these are merely conventions to get that idiomatic sound.  But what really got me excited was that Barry said they didn’t need to be half steps…they could be "any random note"!  And he had us play G7 descending from the root, first with a half step between the root and seventh, then jumping up to the third between the root and seventh.  Awesome!

To further illustrate this, he had us play C major scales, inserting a half step between every tone.  Where there wasn’t room for a half step, he had us approach the note from a whole step above.  He went around the room making us play ascending from different scale tones.  I got to play from the sixth:

Then he had three of us play from different steps simultaneously.  The harmony sounded pretty cool.  There’s some potential in jazz arranging here, I think…

I learned a lot in two hours.  Even the stuff that I already knew, like G harmonic minor over D7, was worth learning again.  I always approached this as playing the harmonic minor of the target key.  Barry showed us that flatting the second and the sixth yields the related harmonic minor.  I always tell people, the more ways you learn to think of the same concept, the better you will be able to incorporate it into your playing.  So that’s a concept that just sunk in a little deeper.

For $15 a workshop?  Yeah, this is a good deal!  I’ll be going back for more.

On Monday night, my friend Josh Irving played at a fairly new Brazilian jazz club in New York called Cachaça.  Josh is a saxophonist I’ve known for nearly nine years now (has it been that long already?).  His quartet featured long time collaborator George Dulin on piano, Danny Zanker on bass, and special guest Francisco Mela on drums.  Josh kindly gave me an opportunity to sit in on his song "9 Goes To 10".  I didn’t know it at the time, but Jen took this video on her digital camera:

It was really dark in there!  This is the first video of me playing since high school (I dare anyone to try to dig that recording up!), so I thought I’d post it here.  This is actually my least favorite of Josh’s compositions to play on…it just has this way of kicking my ass and is very difficult for me to find anything melodic to play over the chord changes.  Last time I saw Josh perform this tune, he had Dan Pratt  playing tenor.  Dan made it sound like a piece of cake!  Not surprisingly, as everything he plays is supremely lyrical.  That’s one of the beautiful things about New York…there are always brilliant musicians to inspire you!

Incidently, Josh and I recorded a more relaxed version of this tune in the studio in 2000.  It’s totally different in this setting…

Anyway, this really has me excited to play more jazz.  I have a very busy next three months, but I’m managing to get some tenor time in there.

I never knew there was an alumni tent! Every October, my high school hosts a marching band competition, an all day event that involves scores of bands from the northeast. I drop in whenever I get a chance, and usually see a few familiar faces. Well, this time my friend Dan mentioned that there was an alumni tent. In fact, it was right next to where we were standing, a shrine to all things marching since the 70’s, with platters of appetizers and pastries, and my old band director Mr. M like the wizard behind the curtain except without the preceding bellowing voice.

This year’s show was dedicated to Mr. Banks, our drill instructor since 1984 who passed away much to soon this year. He was a fierce disciplinarian loved and feared by all. Mr. Banks had been a sergeant in Vietnam and often pressed us to perform as if we were at boot camp, but at the same time we felt like he was a commander who loved his troops and we knew listening to him would make us better performers. Every year, hours before we left for the final championship, Mr. Banks would give us a pep talk. This is when, for the first time all season, he’d actually mellow out and crack jokes. It charged us up and calmed our nerves at the same time, and that show was always our best of the year.

One day in my senior year, I had the low brass section dress up as Swedish Chefs for rehearsal. I believe this was during band camp, yeah…this one time in… Anyway, while standing at attention in formation on the field, Mr. Banks was making his way down the line inspecting our form. As he got to our row of chefs, he gave each member the sternest of faces. Then, when he got to me, knowing that I was the section leader, his stone face broke into a quiet laugh. I laughed, too, in a ‘guilty as charged’ kind of way and he moved on.

Each year, the band alumni march (well, not march…at this point none of us care to roll step) onto the field preceding the band. I dubbed Jen an honorary alumni so that she could partake in the same awkward not recognizing anyone action that I do. Luckily, there were some familiar faces that had graduated before me, but mostly it was a swarm of ‘05-ers and ‘06-ers.

They made a nice presentation to Mr. Banks’ family honoring his longtime dedication and contribution to the marching program at my school. He was brought in to whip the band into a well-oiled competing machine, and I owe a lot to him for his success at that. I originally started with the band helping with equipment. If they hadn’t been so successful and I hadn’t been exposed to the excitement of the competitions, I would not have taken up the saxophone in the first place. So really, my passion for saxophone all started here and he was a big part of it.

Farther than a full tank from Chicago, Martha’s Vineyard is the final resting place of John Belushi. This weekend, the Blues Brothers star and soul music fanatic surely crashed the wedding in spirit as the Duke Baxter Band put on a memorable show for our very hip and generous hosts.

Sittin’ on the dock of the bay…

The weather was perfect all weekend, which made for pleasant ferry rides both ways. We docked in Oak Bluffs where we amused ourselves with severely undercooked lunches and the comically overprotective ranting of a high school soccer coach. Due to lack of vehicles this side of the water, part of the band went ahead to set up the gear. When they came back, we learned that it was possible to fit eight musicians into a Honda CRV with their luggage and instruments. Shame nobody had John Philip Sousa on their iPods…

We couldn’t sound check, so we just turned invisible

The wedding was on the grounds of a beautiful contemporary house with beach access. There was a giant tent topped with white pennants set up in the back yard for the reception. The ceremony itself was in a sandy clearing near the water’s edge. I would have loved to parade our dusty dress shoes past the shoeshine fellas at Grand Central.

Matt restricts his gear to the essential effects

None of us had much sleep between Friday’s late night rehearsal and Saturday’s early ferry trip. Fortunately, our hosts let us use a bedroom and private bath for our “backstage” area. We had several hours to kill before the opening set, and much of the time was spent catnapping or cowbelling, even simultaneously.

I sure hope she wore cowboy boots for the ceremony

We even got some group photos of the band taken shortly before taking the stage. Not with much success in the dwindling dusk light, but we were on the beach and that’s what counted. I also warmed up my sax by playing on the beach, which will be my second favorite place I’ve played after I’ve played on a mountaintop.

Everybody needs somebody to sing lead like Darren

Two new arrangements, Joe Cocker’s “The Letter” and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”, enhanced three powerful sets that had everyone dancing til 12:30 am. The “sweatiest guy on the dance floor” contest was almost too close to call!

Elizabeth sure knows how to play this thing

Complete darkness, a starry sky, a comfy deck with lawn chairs, and a bag of Sour Patch Watermelons is one of the better ways to wait an hour for a ride. That’s how we passed the time while waiting to go to the guest house they put us up in for the night.

And there were shadow dancers!

We were expecting a tiny cottage with sparse furnishings, but were thrilled to find a marvelous home lit up and waiting for us with amenities including ping pong and a piano in the basement. Darren cooked us pasta and we stayed up until 5 am having a good time and jumping in the ocean.

The next day, we finally caught up on our sleep, checked out the beach in the morning, got lunch in town, and rode the ferry back to the mainland. Definitely a five star gig all the way!

My dreams can have amazing soundtracks. Whenever a great song comes up in my dream, I wish that I could remember the music and write it down when I wake up in the morning. Usually, there’s no way I can remember all the details. Last night, however, yielded a simple blues riff. It was nicely orchestrated for big band, but here’s the melody:

I named it Mister Sausage after a short film I saw in my dream about a deranged French guy who called himself Mister Sausage and hit on women randomly in the street. He spoke English with an accent and he replaced every couple of words or so with a completely inaccurate substitute. In my dream, I found this film on Channel 102, but you won’t find it there. Check out that site, though.

The John Lennon memorial was decked out in full peace rally glory yesterday for the 4th of July.

John Lennon doggie…

It took me a few minutes to wade through the crowd of people in Strawberry Fields. As I did, I overheard two women with British accents:

“Oh look, Strawberry Fields. Do you think they used to grow strawberries here?”

“Probably.”

How could you not know who John Lennon was??!

This is just awesome. Check it out:

YouTube link

www.michaelbrecker.com

Heartbreaking and profoundly inspirational at the same time.