Here’s another homework assignment from my Basic Graphic Arts class. We had to pick an album with horrible artwork and design a new cover. The professor wanted us to design a cover based on how the music made us feel. Then we’d present our ideas and designs to the class and listen to a song from the album.

Naturally, this was a very entertaining project for me! As much fun as it was to work on my own design, it was great to see what albums other people chose, and to listen to a wide range of music. The funniest cover someone chose was the Beach Boys Pet Sounds. It’s a picture of the Beach Boys feeding a bunch of goats. Quite terrible. A classic album of all time, though. Influenced by the Beatles Rubber Soul, only to then influence Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Another album someone did was Paul Simon’s Graceland, which I love. I do like the album art, but I suppose the meaning is a bit obscure. …that makes it sound like I know what it means. I do not know what it means!

I immediately wanted to accomplish two things with this project: redesign a 1960’s Blue Note album, and redesign a Jackie McLean album. This era is also when Jackie really found his own voice, breaking free of imitating Charlie Parker, exploring the avante-garde, and brilliantly applying his cutting tone to lots of wonderful sessions. The album I chose It’s Time was part of my Complete Blue Note Sessions 1964-1966 box set that lived in my CD changer for six months straight in the spring of 1995. Blue Note album covers are practically a genre of their own. There’s even a book of them. This Jackie McLean album is NOT a prime example. It’s basically exclamation marks with a markedly unflattering picture of Jackie:

The assignment had us focus on how the music makes us feel. Having studied with Jackie for four years, I can’t even begin to explain how his music feels, let alone capture it in a 12cm x 12cm piece of art. Instead, I focused on his sound. Jackie’s voice on the alto saxophone is instantly recognizable, perhaps because he plays it like a tenor with fire and passion. There’s a sense of urgency, and a feeling that his horn is about to burst at the seams. I chose to capture this urgency by rendering "It’s Time!" as a saxophone time bomb:

With the second hand only a tick away, it’s definitely time! From what I gather, the actual meaning of this album has to do with the fact that it was recorded just after Jackie had served a six-month sentence for a narcotics offense. So "It’s Time!" meant jail time. In a sense, I felt like the time bomb also symbolizes Jackie’s addiction, which would have cut his life short had he not gotten clean a few years later. In a roundabout way, that hints back to the original concept. I would have loved to ask Jackie himself about this album, among many other things had I realized It’s Time!

This is a fun clip of an impromptu jam that broke out after our gig last Friday. The whole gig was a bit like this, featuring live musicians jamming with a DJ. Half the band has put its instruments away by the time we did this, though, and the DJ is holding the camera. I wish we had some footage or recordings of the rest of the show, though. There were some really cool moments, including a groove that I couldn’t resist laying some Interstellar Space over! And it worked, and people dug it!

P.S. Yes, it’s that time of year…

It’s kickoff time for Duke Baxter’s fifty-state project Interstate Soul! Our first "state gig" is in Vermont this weekend.

I’ve been playing with the Duke Baxter Band since 2004, and I can tell you this is a great band with a fun act composed of solid musicians and excellent people. I’ll also say that you’d be hard pressed to match the energy and excitement of a live eight-piece soul band with a three-piece horn section at a wedding reception. Sorry, DJ’s!

We cooked up this fifty-state idea last winter, and it’s such a great idea we’ve been rolling with it ever since. We’re looking to line up 10 gigs or so in 2010, probably focusing on the northeast, so if you know anyone who’s getting married… We plan on publishing a book and producing a documentary film. Follow our progress on the Interstate Soul blog.

A while back, Russ sent me this video (audio really) of Chris Potter playing All the Things You Are at a master class. It is mind blowing, and I’ve recently come back to it to work out what I can on my tenor:

Today, Stef sent me a link to Ben Doherty’s transcription posted by David Valdez:

Potter’s solo version of All the Things You Are

If you click ‘download’ below the viewer, you’ll get a link to the PDF file. Better for printing.

This material is worthy of serious study, and probably will induce serious frustration! Thanks to all, and most importantly, Chris Potter for musical inspiration.

I finally got around to installing software on my digital audio workstation today.  The machine, cobbled together from old parts, is an Athlon XP 2600+ with 512MB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive.  It’s dual booting Microsoft Windows XP SP2 and Ubuntu 8.10.  I usually have it running in Ubuntu as my media server and, when I upgrade the RAM, a VMware server for development projects.  The only reason I have Windows on it is to run Cakewalk Sonar 6, which I picked up on the cheap at the CompUSA fire sale a little while back.  Now I finally have a dedicated environment for audio software only, which prevents a lot of configuration headaches.

Anyway, when I got Sonar fired up, I dug around for some old project files.  That’s when I discovered this home recording from 1997.  This is a spontaneous improvisation between myself and Stephen Mazzetta on guitar.  Originally recorded with some crappy dynamic mics and a Gravis Ultrasound card, I did what I could to make it presentable:

Smaz Blues 

This is from the same home recording sessions that produced the Flam and Mars Walk takes on my audio page. There’s more, too. It’s fun listening to this stuff twelve years later!

Who does Beatles covers better than the Muppets?

Blackbird

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Octopus’s Garden

She Loves You

With a Little Help from My Friends

Setting some realistic and worthwhile music goals for myself next year:

Attend more jam sessions

I always tell myself this, but don’t follow through for more than a session or two.  For one, I never have a lot of tunes in my head.  It take so much time and study to build up a viable repertoire; time I never have.  But there is a short list of standard jazz vehicles that ought to be able to keep fresh.  While I might not know all the esoteric session tunes of the moment, I can tear the hell out of the common repertoire.  I’m not a fan of some of the one-upmanship and cats "vibing" each other that can happen in this scene, but it’s good networking and being part of a community.  My closest, most talented musician friends are some of the nicest, most open people I’ve met, so it’s always a plus if they show up or are running the session.

Get to Barry Harris’s workshop more

I went to two workshops last year, and my playing improved by leaps and bounds.  To not go on a more regular basis is simply foolish.  Barry is the current reigning jazz Yoda.

Finish the studio work with Frank Viele

Playing with this band is a wonderful opportunity to polish my pop chops.  I get to play in a section, help compose horn lines, and stretch out on solo sections like Michael Brecker or Lenny Pickett or Bob Reynolds or other tenor players who meld jazz, soul, and R&B concepts in such tasteful ways that they remain valid within the pop context.  It’s really hard to do well.  Unlike Brecker, I can’t go into the studio and nail the solo on the first take.  But the more I work at it, the more it seems to gel.  And the concepts all translate back to jazz, where simplicity and melody cannot be overlooked when crafting a powerful solo.

More gigs with Duke Baxter

These guys a such a pleasure to work with.  And the road trips to Martha’s Vineyard are fun as hell!  Got some more of that in store for ‘09.  I’ve also semi-officially taken over the duties of maintaining the horn arrangement library.  That’s been time consuming, but now that most everything is arranged, it’s only special requests that need attention.  At least Sibelius is easy software to use!

Keep developing the altissimo register

It’s no secret that Lenny Pickett was my first and continues to be a major influence.  But I didn’t pay much attention to my altissimo chops until meeting Norbert Stachel a few years back.  He’s developed an amazing altissimo register, having also idolized Lenny Pickett, and subsequently played lead tenor with Tower of Power for four years.  He inspired me to get back into it, and has given me valuable tips, some via bandstand osmosis.  I’ve got myself within a couple notes shy of four full octaves that pop.  So this year, I’ll be working on applying that range musically, as well as working my way into the fifth octave.  Also, research Bert Wilson if you’re aspiring to the top tones…

Compose eight new tunes for my jazz album

I desperately need new material.  The musical concepts in my head are so much farther developed than the tunes I’ve written 5 or 10 or more years ago.  I need to write fresh material that I’ll be proud to record.  Writing music comes in spurts for me.  I can write eight tunes in a week, and none for two years.  It helps to be prolific, even if just writing a little ditty whenever you can.  I’m not full time at the music thing, so that kind of output just doesn’t happen.  But now’s a good time.  As for recording the album, I just don’t see that happening this year.  I’ve got some really big business projects coming up.  But I have plenty of musicians to workshop tunes with.  When it comes time to record, it’ll sound killer.

More sideman gigs

Being a bandleader is time-consuming and definitely frustrating in the current local jazz scene.  All I really have time for is playing on other people’s gigs.  That’s just fine with me, and I especially love playing other people’s original jazz compositions.  It’s a great way to find new ideas and hone your skills in novel settings.  Playing for live audiences is where it’s at.  So much better than being holed up in the practice room for months on end.

Launch blog project

This is an idea I’ve been formulating for a while now.  I’ll be able to get it off the ground soon.  I’ll save the details for when I’m ready to promote the site.

There are other things I’m sure I won’t get to this year.  Don’t think I’ll have any pit orchestra gigs come up.  My clarinet and flute will gather more dust.  I’d like to play the soprano more, but it’s a tricky beast and I don’t think I have the time to tame it.  It’s mainly for travel.  Travel would be nice.  No time to run my own jazz group, but I’m cool with that given what I do have lined up.  Practice every day for at least two hours?  Ha ha, not since college…  I’ve gotten good at maximizing my practice time.  It’s all about focus.

I recorded some studio tracks with Frank Viele & The Manhattan Project a few weeks ago for our upcoming album.  We released this track online to promote the band at the Gavin DeGraw concert in Hartford tonight.  This is "Turn Around", featuring a saxophone solo by yours truly:

Please download from the band site…
http://www.frankvielemusic.com/mp3/turnaround.html

Let me know what you think.

The band won’t be performing live for a couple months as we focus on the recording.  Back in the spring.  (Though, I’ve got some jazz stuff coming up…)

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.