My friend Stefan rigged an old bari sax to shoot five feet of propane-fueled flame from the bell! This video of a test run is making it’s rounds on the internet: Check out Stefan’s account at Introducing: The Flame-O-Phone!.

Here’s a roughly-edited sampling of sax clips from last Saturday night’s BlackTails gig at The Puck:

We sold out the joint and made a lot of friends. It was definitely a party. A word about The Puck. It’s a really awesome venue. They are super nice there and take really good care of the performers. And my favorite part is they have a wide variety of non-alcoholic drinks like Izze soda, Jones juices, and Honest Tea. How often do you see that at a bar? Never. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it in a venue like this. Best of all, they had my favorite drink of all time: Honest Tea Peach Oo-La-Long!

On a technical note… I tried several open-source video editors in Linux (Ubuntu 9.04), including OpenShot, LiVES, Cinelerra and PiTiVi. However, the only one I could get to work was Kino. Basic, but splices and dices nicely.

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…

Star Trek Meets Monty Python! I love it. Well done!

Star Trek A-Team. This is just a seque…

…into Han Solo, P.I.! Here is the side-by-side comparison. It’s fun to see how the shots line up with the original. Links to the separate versions are in the video description.

I’m glad I don’t have the time to do stuff like this. It looks very time consuming.

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.

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

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.

This is something my brother and I learned from a book many years ago.  We used to do this in my grandmother’s yard.  Today, I showed Jen how to make rockets from matchsticks for her In The New blog.  I thought the video was so cool I’d cross post it here.

These are wooden matches, which don’t work as well as paper matches because they are heavier.  Some warmer and less blustery day, I’ll try this again and shoot for better results.

If you want to learn more, check out this Matchstick Rockets site for information and safety tips.  They claim launches up to 12 feet distance.  As I recall, 6 to 8 feet was about average when my brother and I tried this.

DISCLAIMER: This is playing with fire! Kids get adult supervision. Protect your eyes, and be careful not to burn yourself or other people. Don’t do this inside, or in the presence of flammable materials or vegetation.

I had a dream last night that one of Jen’s friends was addicted to flight simulator and was obsessively landing at Kai Tak, the former international airport of Hong Kong.  This airport was well known for it’s dramatic and challenging approach to Runway 13, necessary due to the nearby mountain range.  This approach included a 47° turn to line up with the runway just moments before touchdown.

The dream reminded me of this amazing video on YouTube.  It’s a ten minute montage of landing clips in tribute to Kai Tak, which closed in 1998.  If you don’t watch the whole, the segment from 1:21 to 2:09 depicts that last turn very well.  And be sure to watch 4:26 to 4:42…it’ll make your eyes bug out!  That landing exhibits the strong crosswinds that often made this landing even more difficult.  (Plus, the salsa music soundtrack will make a fan of anyone!)

Pretty cool, huh?  Imagine living in Western Kowloon with those 747’s coming in just overhead all day long!

Anyway, in my dream, while Jen’s friend was landing planes in her simulator, I was actually there in Hong Kong floating around while the planes were landing overhead.  And by floating, I mean hovering, levitating, flying…the kinds of dreams I have almost every night.  Another favorite dream super power, I was passing through walls.  I wish I could capture in pixels the incredible Chinese interior decor I witnessed in some fabulous old hotels.  Astounding detail.  Where does it all go when I wake up?  Where does it come from?

Related Links
Kai Tak on Wikipedia
Kai Tak on Google Earth Explorer (Check out the surrounding terrain, too!)

The Boston Red Sox are MLB World Champions for the second time in four years! This was their 8th straight World Series game win, having swept the last two series. They outscored their opponents 99-46 this postseason.

Enjoy…

Oh yeah, everybody learn the Papelbon jig!