Among my recent musical projects has to be remix and remaster my 2018 album Elixr. I was listening to it back in the spring, and although it was a big step forward for me in terms of musical production at the time, my mixing chops have improved substantially over the last few years and I decided I could do it better. In the end I decided to get a small batch of CD’s made, and so it took some time to do the artwork and get it printed and all that. Now the new version of the record is on all the major streaming services, so go ahead and check it out!
I wrote a country song! Well sort of at least. The second in my guitar singer-songwriter experiments, My Ol’ Brokedown Truck is pretty much a traditional country song, although with different lyrics and chord voicings it might be something like a jazz standard from the great American songbook. I wrote it around Christmastime when I was visiting my parents and my Mum asked me to explain to her Nashville notation. I did so by way of demonstration, starting by writing down the title and eight bars of chord changes, and then a bridge, and suddenly I had the beginnings of a song. The lyrics also came quite quickly and naturally, and I liked it well enough to to finish it.
I recorded a basic track with guitar, bass drums and vocal. The guitar sound may take liberties with the conventions of the genre, bringing in some energy of bands like Cake or the The Black Keys. The vocal has a low and high harmony part, and I decided it’d sound better with a female voice doing the high harmony. I asked my sister-in-law Mary, who has been in a number of singing groups over the years, if she’d like to do the part. She came in and nailed it, and lifted the song to a whole ‘nuther level.
The hardest thing was to get the right sound for the solo on the intro and middle eight. A sax was definitely not appropriate, and I don’t play pedal steel guitar or fiddle, or banjo or mandolin, and the chords modulate so a harmonica won’t work. I experimented with various synthesizer sounds, trying to harken back to a rare moment in pop music where pedal steel guitars played side by side with analog synths, as exemplified by songs Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Billy Joel’s The Great Suburban Showdown, or Jackson Browne’s The Load-Out. But the right tone eluded me. I ended up using a melodica (a funny little keyboard instrument that you blow into) run thru a boxy amp simulator, spring reverb and tremolo effect.
Enjoy!
…
My Ol’ Brokedown Truck
My brokedown truck and my rotten luck
Have left me here stuck by the side of the road
With my bleeding heart I will make a new start
But first I must get my body home
We’ve made many miles together
Sure in sunny and stormy weather
Well I could trade ‘er in for some shiny new tin
But you’ll never find peace while you roam
(solo)
We’ve rode many roads together
Fast through foul and fair weather
And I might go far in a brand new sports car
But then how can I carry the load?
So I’ll wait here stuck with my rotten luck
And my ol’ brokedown truck
– John Szinger, 2022
Slope began life as a jazz song with my pre-pandemic group Haven Street, written by our bass player Jay, and appeared on our record. I wrote a lyric for it, but we didn’t do vocals in that group, and I’ve never been much of a fan of vocalese anyway, unless it’s Ella Fitzgerald. So for this record I changed it from a jazz style into an old-timey blues, with a drop-tuned guitar now carrying the main riff rather than a standup bass.
The arrangement is fairly sparse, with just a single vocal, guitar, bass and drum. To finish it off I added a bit of Fender Rhodes, and of course a smokey bluesy sax. I also added real drums doing brushes on the snare, since I have no way to create that using midi and samples.
Just when you think that life’s looking up
And you might drink from that flowing cup
Then comes the day when it all turns around
Just then you think that life’s looking down
Climbin’ up that slope
Slidin’ down that slope
Just when you think that life’s looking up
Just then you think that life’s looking down
Scamblin’ up that slope
Tumblin’ down that slope
And you might drink from that flowing cup
Then comes the day when it all turns around
Holdin’ on to hope
Ridin’ on up and down that slope
We finally had a weekend at home after all that travel. The weather is hot and sunny. Back to yardwork, backyard barbecues and making fires in the fire pit. Running the sprinkler most every day. Last Sunday Jeannie and I did a long bike ride on the South County Trailway, from Yonkers up to Ardsley and back. Very nice, wooded, flat and smooth.
Around this time last year I created a playlist of 80 Favorite Songs from the 80’s to enjoy while hanging out in the yard. Last weekend two of my neighbors were playing competing classic rock playlists, which inspired me to create a playlist of 77 Favorite Songs from the 70’s. It turned out the be pretty interesting. It’s organized more or less chronologically, which helps to see how trends come and go, and some juxtapositions of different things around the same time. I limited it to one song per artist, and since it was the era of long songs, I excluded full-album-side multi-song suites, or parts thereof.
The early part is dominated by album rock, including early prog, with lots to 7- or even 10-minutes songs. The middle part is thinner, and a bit of a transitional period, with a pretty deep foray into jazz fusion. Toward the end there’s a lot going on again, as funk and disco emerge, as well as new wave and a variety of other styles. Even though this playlist has fewer songs than my 80’s one, its about an hour and a half longer. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy!
1. Woodstock – Crosby Stills Nash and Young (1970) 2. Wah-Wah – George Harrison 3. American Pie – Don McClean 4. War Pigs – Black Sabbath 5. Child In Time – Deep Purple 6. Take a Pebble – Emerson Lake and Palmer 7. Miles Runs the Voodoo Down – Mile Davis 8. Fire and Rain – Blood Sweat and Tears 9. Box of Rain – The Grateful Dead 10. I’m Your Captain / Closer to Home – Grand Funk Railroad 11. Layla – Derek and the Dominos
12. Superstar – The Carpenters (1971) 13. L.A. Woman – The Doors 14. The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys – Traffic 15. Can’t You Hear Me Knocking? – The Rolling Stones 16. When the Levee Breaks – Led Zeppelin 17. Heart of the Sunrise – Yes 18. Wind-Up – Jethro Tull
19. Watcher of the Skies – Genesis (1972) 20. A Hit by Varèse – Chicago 21. School’s Out – Alice Cooper 22. Summer Breeze – Seals and Croft 23. Ziggy Stardust – David Bowie
24. Undun – The Guess Who (1973) 25. Jessica – The Allman Brothers Band 26. Rosalita – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band 27. The Great Gig in the Sky – Pink Floyd 28. The Real Me – The Who 29. What is Hip? – Tower of Power 30. Watermelon Man – The Head Hunters 31. Spain – Return to Forever 32. Birds of Fire – Mahavishnu Orchestra 33. Frankenstein – Edgar Winter 34. Right Place Wrong Time – Dr. John
35. Back Home Again – John Denver (1974) 36. Crime of the Century – Supertramp 37. Apostrophe (‘) – Frank Zappa 38. Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Pt 1. – King Crimson 39. Whatever Gets You Through the Night – John Lennon
40. Band on the Run – Paul McCartney (1975) 41. I’m In Love With My Car – Queen 42. Never Been Any Reason – Head East 43. By-Tor and the Snow Dog – Rush 44. Some Skunk Funk – The Brecker Bros.
45. Give Up the Funk – Parliament (1976) 46. The Boys are Back in Town – Thin Lizzy 47. (Don’t Fear) The Reaper – Blue Öyster Cult 48. Peace of Mind – Boston 49. Carry On Wayward Son – Kansas 50. Song Within a Song – Camel 51. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald – Gordon Lightfoot 52. Miami 2017 – Billy Joel 53. Magic Man – Heart 54. Dancing Queen – ABBA
55. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap – AC/DC (1977) 56. Threshold / Jet Airliner – Steve Miller Band 57. Aja – Steely Dan 58. Contusion – Stevie Wonder 59. Solsbury Hill – Peter Gabriel 60. Slip Slidin’ Away – Paul Simon 61. Watching the Detectives – Elvis Costello 62. Three Little Birds – Bob Marley 63. Paradise by the Dashboard Light – Meat Loaf 64. You Make Loving Fun – Fleetwood Mac 65. Feels So Good – Chuck Mangione
66. Boogie Oogie Oogie – A Taste of Honey (1978) 67. Shadow Dancing – Andy Gibb 68. Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? – Rod Stewart 69. Mister Blue Sky – Electric Light Orchestra 70. Life’s Been Good – Joe Walsh 71. In the Dead of Night – U.K. 72. Runnin’ with the Devil – Van Halen 73. Walking on the Moon – The Police
74. Can You Picture That? – Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem (1979) 75. The Devil Went Down to Georgia – Charlie Daniels Band 76. Funkytown – Lipps, Inc. 77. Rapper’s Delight – Sugar Hill Gang
More summer, more busy these days. The weather has been beautiful. One night last weekend we built a fire in our fire pit and hung out on the patio and considered what song we might use to break Vecna’s curse. Last summer I made a playlist of 80 favorite 80’s songs, and now I’m thinking of making a new playlist of 77 favorite 70’s songs for this summer.
I edited up some highlight form the the Spacecats gig. I’m going to update my web site soon to feature of few of the best ones, but for now, you can see the whole set here:
I got out for a bike ride five days last week. I mostly go around our neighborhood, which is kinda hilly and some streets have alot of cars. Sometimes to a local place called Nature Study Woods, which is mountain biking trails, and not particularly well maintained. The steep parts tend to be washed out and stony, and the low spots muddy. Also I tend to go on fairly short rides – a half hour to an hour, and usually go as fast as possible.
All in all Jeannie doesn’t enjoy this style of riding, but we wanted to start doing some biking together.
So on Sunday Jeannie took our bikes out to Jones Beach and biked along the scenic Ocean Parkway Coastal Greenway. It’s a great bike path, smooth and flat, that runs the length of the island, out from the main beach, through as series of smaller beaches, saltwater wildlife refuges, and the occasional marina, restaurant or bar. We went out a little over seven miles then turned around, for a total of fifteen miles or so. On the way back there was a pretty consistent headwind, but it was a very doable and fun ride. We had a lunch of ice cream and clam strips, then went out to the beach, but it was too cold for swimming. The water was unusually calm and there were lots of seashells. Also tons of giant container ships out at see, queued up to get into New York harbor, like I’ve never seen before. There’s usually maybe two or three, but this time there was over a dozen.
I also got the mustang on the road over the weekend, and continued with the yardwork. This time is was doing the edging on the driveway and front walk. Still to go is the walk around the back of the house, and the patio. It seems everything has grown in quite alot this spring, and needs an extra level of cutting back. Also I’ve never seen so many bunny rabbits and chipmunks in our neighborhood, nor heard so many songbirds.
Lastly, I’m continuing with doing origami and preparing for the convention, which starts this Friday. My two dodecahedron star balls are nearly complete, but it’s taking some work to finish them. They’re single-sheet polyhedra, a very advance form of origami, and closing off and locking the bottom where the edges come together is a nontrivial design challenge. I’ve also been experimenting with a new design called the Space Cat, a variation on my Sophie the Cat, with a midcentury modern look and proportions. Hopefully will get there and have a few new pieces for my exhibit.
Meanwhile, I’m teaching a couple classes, and agreed to pre-record them for people who are attending the convention remotely. This process grew out of last year’s online-only convention, in which all classes were taught live as Zoom calls. This year we’re recording Zoom sessions, with a camera pointing down at the work as it’s being folded. I kind of view this a run-thru, a rehearsal for the real class, and good opportunity to make sure I know the model and can teach it. My first class, Sophie the Cat, went off without a hitch, totally great. For my second class my Five-Banded Armadillo, I somehow skipped a stepped and messed of the proportions of the bands, which are created by pleating. I realized my mistake after I did the collapse and it was too late to undo, so I had to just roll with it and adjust the proportions as I finished the model. All in all it still turned out in the end, and I’m sure to get it right in the actual class.
Well, Spacecats had our first gig Saturday night, at the Alternative Medicine Brewing Company in Mount Vernon. It went really well. The band sounded great. The crowd dug us, and the owner wants to have us back, and is talking about putting together a regular jazz night.
The room itself is pretty big, although half of it, behind the band, is where they brew the beer, and the other half, out in front is the bar. So the acoustics were good, with a large, boomy reverb. The bar provided a PA, which was very nice and saved us alot of trouble hauling and setting up our own.
We did a combination of jazz and funk, standards, originals, and interpretations of rock and pop songs. I was definitely happy with my playing, and the sound of the group, and everything musically. We really came together as a band, focused and leveled up the last few weeks.
We played two sets of just about an hour each. Here’s the set list.
Buzzy Blue (Szinger)
All the Things You Are
Mister Magic
Heavy Skies (Szinger)
I Hear a Rhapsody
Walking on the Moon
Pour Me a Fifth (Duetchman)
Some Skunk Funk
Peg
Dr. Pluto (Szinger)
Sunny
Minority
Atonement Blues (Szinger)
Havona
Dolphin Dance
Lift Off (Szinger)
Cape Verdean Blues
You Can’t Get What You Want (‘Till You Know What You Want)
Some of these originals I played in previous bands, altough the arrangement and sound have been updated. Dr. Pluto is all-new, a funk jam written for this group based around a bluesy bass line, which Ken plays with a wah-wah effect. Pour Me a Fifth is also new, a jazz waltz by our piano player Josh.
Watch this space for audio and video clips from the show, coming soon.
…
In other news, I finally finished trimming the hedges over the weekend. All in all it took five sessions over three weekends. This last one was all up on the ladder, including getting low-hanging boughs from the neighbor’s willow tree. Now we’re done for a while, but next it’s on to weeding and edging.
And, it’s origami crunch time. I’m trying to finish a few original models before the convention. This week it’s dodecahedron star balls. Watch this space for pics, coming soon.
So let’s see. I guess project dirt was completed a while ago and the new grass is well on its way to being grown in at this point. I’ve been mowing the lawn for several weeks now. We even did the first round of weeding, planting in the garden, and putting down mulch under the hedges. Next job will be trimming.
A couple weeks back I got up on a ladder to unclog the downspout of my gutter in one corner of my job. I used to have to get up there and clean out my gutters every year or so, when there were hundred-foot-tall trees all around my house. But one by one the trees got cut down and I didn’t have to do it for several years. This time instead of leaves and sticks, it was beads of whatever our roof shingles are made of. We got a new roof put on a couple years back, same time we installed our solar panels, and some of the material has worn off with the weather. Of all the jobs I do, this is the one I dislike the most, because of the potential danger of falling off the ladder twenty feet up. So far I’ve been careful and never met with any harm but you never know. Next time I’ll probably hire someone.
Now that the yardwork situation is under control, I’ve been trying to move forward with project furniture. I want to get a good armchair for the living room to replace the awful recliner we have, and a new coffee table and end tables, plus a new sectional sofa for the family room, and maybe and entertainment center too. By the end of the year, if possible. We started thinking about this at the beginning of the pandemic, but it turns out to be a kinda complicated research project, and there’s always something else to do, and every time we find something we think we like, it turns our to backordered for months. Nevertheless, it’s getting to the point where our kids have nicer furniture than us. So it’s time to get moving.
As the weather has been getting nicer, Jeannie and I have been spending more time outdoors. We’ve gone for a couple hikes, mostly at local places like Saxon Woods. I’ve also been getting on my bike alot more, averaging about three times a week this spring, and my strength, speed and endurance are increasing. My typical ride is pretty short, less than an hour, but the neighborhood is kinda hilly. My main ride these days is a loop into downtown Bronxville, then thru Chester Heights and back home. Also went to the Nature Study Woods once, but mostly it’s been too muddy cuz of the rain.
I’ve gotten the Mustang out on the road a few times. Even had to put a tankful of gas in it yesterday. So far it’s been running great. I want to get new tires put on it this spring. The tires I have are the ones from when I bought the car in 1997!
In the software realm, I’ve been working on several things. One of which is the Origami USA convention scheduling tool. If you recall, I’m on the OUSA convention and web committees, as the person who creates the schedule of classes and events, and the one who writes the software to make that task easier. The last few years we haven’t had any in-person conventions. Last year we had a zoom convention, and I did the schedule for that. Along the way, I discarded the existing scheduling tool, basically a bunch of macros for MS Access, and wrote a web application in Drupal/PHP that integrates with the main web site and other tools. This year I enhanced the functionality in a few ways. First, I created a workflow to reschedule a class without having to first unschedule it then schedule it again. Second I added the capacity to sort the classes by name, to make it easier to find them. On the roadmap is the ability to sort and filter by a number of parameters including the class name, the teacher name, the class type, level of complexity, number of periods, etc. But Drupal and PHP are a serious pain to work with, so I’ll save these enhancements for a future convention.
Meanwhile I have a little over a month to get some new models completed, get and exhibit together and decide what to teach. I have a big pile of half-finished models and an even bigger backlog of ideas. But for the zoom conventions don’t really inspire me and I haven’t been doing that much folding lately. Luckily, this year’s convention is live and in person, at the Sheraton Hotel in NYC, the third weekend in June (I think). Should be alot of fun to reconnect with my origami friends, and hopefully I’ll have a bunch of cool new models.
Been working hard at my new consulting gig at Consumer Reports R&D Lab. Hard to believe I’ve been there three months already. They’ve just extended my contract to the end of the year, which is good news. My group is involved in this thing called the Digital Rights Protocol, which is designed to make it easier for consumers to exercise their rights to opt out of online data collection, tracking, etc., and easier for companies to comply with requests around these rights. We lead a consortium of startups involved in the internet privacy business, and last week we had the first end-to-end test of the Protocol with partners in various roles. Meanwhile Consumer reports is involved in several business-oriented capacities as well, so I am building a reference implementation of the DRP to live in our application ecosystem and provide a touchstone to our partners. Anyway, the end-to-end test was a big success, and now we’re planning out the next phase of development.
Meanwhile at my other big client, The Global Jukebox, we’re getting ready to roll out a new release to Live. This one has a new backend and a cutover to a new server, to get rid of a bunch of old headaches. Everything is all tested and ready to roll. All that remains now is to switch over the DNS server.
Lastly, my music projects proceed apace. Mary came over and laid down the vocal track for My Ol’ Breakdown Truck a week or so ago, and it came out great. Afterwards we went out for Mexican food. Now I have three songs mostly done, with the vocals, bass and guitar tracked and mixed. All that remains is the fine-tune the drum parts, and add a little keyboards and sax to fill things out. Also, Elixr – 2022 Remaster is vary much almost done; all that remains is one final listening back.
Now that my Thursday band has a name and a gig, the music has been rising to the occasion and getting more intense. Today we had a rehearsal where we really drilled down on some of the finer points of some of our songs, to really master the arrangements and make them our own.
Meanwhile, I’ve noticed my Selmer Reference ’54 tenor sax, which I was so in love with, seems to have developed a leak somewhere, so the notes below low D don’t sound clearly and require alot of force to sound at all. Plus one of the mounting posts on the low C keyguard has come loose. So I need to find a new sax repair guy. The guy I’d been using for year – Virgil Scott – was up on Yonkers, only 10 minutes from my house. Sadly, he died of covid during the pandemic. My new guy is great, he’s out in Connecticut up new Massachusetts, almost two hour from here. So I need to find someone local.
For the time being I’ve switched back to playing my Selmer Mark VII, which I had worked on last summer. The low notes are clear and effortless, but best of all, I had the action set up, which it turns out makes a huge difference on tunes like Some Skunk Funk. I’d been struggling with playing that fast and cleanly on my other horn, and now the notes just roll right off. On the downside, I have to get used to this horn’s intonation again. And even worse, I’d been busting my ass to get good on the altissimo range on the tenor, and could get all the way up to the second high D, and play riffs up there. I was developing some real chops. On this horn, the embouchure required is completely different, so I’m back to square one.
My jazz and funk group has a name now. It’s Spacecats.
We’ll be playing Saturday June 11, and Alternative Medicine Brewing Company in Mount Vernon, at 7pm. More info as the date draws nearer, plus a poster and stuff. Meanwhile, here’s our blurb:
Spacecats
Spacecats is a jazz and funk quartet featuring sax, piano/synth, bass and drums. The group imparts their own imprint to a spectrum of styles from cool hard bop to high-energy fusion, r&b, rock and pop.
John Szinger – saxophones John Deutchman – piano and keyboards Ken Matthews – bass Steve Russo – drums
I’m now in the middle of three studio recording projects. First on the stack is the next Buzzy Tonic album and the follow-up to Bluezebub. It’s working title is BZVR, and is more of a rock album, with all the songs so far including and electric guitar part. I had three songs mostly complete before I decided to make Bluezebub as an instrumental jazz record, so now I’ve dusted them off.
One is The Story Lies, written by my brother Martin, a cool uptempo funky number. Second is Who Speaks on Your Behalf, a prog-pop anthem by The Cheshire Cat from Buffalo back in the day, reinterpreted with a horn section. I had this one in the can, but when I listened back I decided it needed a heavier sound. So I added a guitar part, mostly big sustained power chords to give it some fill, or syncopated rhythm accents behind the riffs, which are handled by saxes and synths. Third was Why Not Zed? which already had a pretty heavy guitar, and a sort of metal-industrial vibe, but the sax sounded a bit thin. So I doubled the tenor part on bari and octave down and replaced the tenor solo with a bari solo. Just the thing!
That was back in late winter. Then I began work on the three new songs, all short, singer-songwriter style songs written on guitar. The first of these was Slope. It began life as a jazz song with my pre-pandemic group Haven Street, written by our bass player Jay, and appeared on our record. I wrote a lyric for it, but I’ve never been much of a fan of vocalese, unless it’s Ella Fitzgerald. So I changed it from a jazz style into a blues. The arrangement is fairly sparse, with just a single vocal, guitar, bass and drum. I’ll probably add a bit of fender rhodes and organ, and a bit of sax. Possibly also some real drums doing brushes on the snare, since I don’t have a good sample for that.
Second is My Ol’ Brokedown Truck. This is pretty much a traditional country song, although with different lyrics and chord voicings it might be something like a jazz standard from the great American songbook. I wrote it around Christmastime, when I was visiting my parents and my Mum asked me to explain Nashville notation. I did by way of demonstration and came up with the beginnings of this song. I like the chords and lyrics enough to finish it, and it came out quite good. I now have the basic track recorded, with guitar, bass drums and vocal. The vocal has a low and high harmony part, and decided it’d sound better with a female voice doing the high harmony. I asked my sister-in-law Mary, who has been in a number of singing groups over the years, if she’d like to the part. Now we’re trying to set up a time.
Third is All of the Above, which is a rock song with a uptempo fell, and lots of little changes in time signature, basically going from 4/4 to 6/4, but more easily expressed as 2/4 throughout. I have the guitar and bass tracked, and a basic drum part, and have been trying to find the time to lay down the vocals. But things have gotten busy …
I was listening back to my earlier Buzzy Tonic record Elixr for comparison. This was the last one before Bluezebub, and again more of a rock record with lyrics. It took me about eight years to write and record it. My friend Jay helped me mix and master it, and at the time it was a big step forward for me in terms of musical production. But my mixing chops have improved substantially over the last few years and there are a few things I don’t like about the sound of that record. So decided to remix and remaster it. And I must say I’m quite happy with the result. I don’t think I’ll get new CD’s printed up but I’ll probably replace the existing record on Spotify. I’m almost done; just tweaking the time between songs and a final listening back on different stereos.
But then along came an opportunity for a gig with my Thursday Jazz and Funk Group. The group has been getting more and more solid, and none of us has played out since before the pandemic, so we’re all pretty excited. A few weeks ago I bought a portable digital recorder and started recording our rehearsals. To give bar owners an idea of our sound, I put together a few some clips of songs from our last rehearsal. You can hear it at:
Well the weather has finally turned nice, and everything is going great these days. Only problem is I’ve been super busy, and the pace is accelerating.
I’ve been seeing lots of live music lately, making up for over two years of not being able to go out and see bands. Since my last blog post I’ve seen four live acts.
First, jazz pianist Brad Mehldau at Caramoor. Brad has a unique and compelling style that combines a melodic approach with a deep, abstract imagination and great technique. His album Nearness with Joshua Redman a few years ago really drew me in and remains one of my all-time favorites. This was a solo show and the program was about half originals and half interpretations of pop and rock songs by artists like The Beatles, Radiohead, Stevie Wonder and David Bowie. It was not exactly jazz, because his left hand doesn’t follow typical patterns for modern jazz, but is much more rhythmically active, but pretty different from the stride style. Probably the closet thing I’d compare him to is actually Duke Ellington, not that he sounds much like Duke, but has a similar approach in using all the different tones, dynamics and registers of the piano like an orchestra.
Caramoor is a great place to see a show. It’s this former mansion and grounds of some long-dead rich guy (presumably Mr. Caramoor) that’s been turned into a sort of park and art center. I’ve only ever been there in the summer, for that jazz festival that’s outdoors. The main house is this rococo Spanish monstrosity, at once garish and exquisitely tasteful in a hundred-year old way, with the main ballroom transformed into an 200 seat theatre. I’m guessing the Steinway grand piano was close to a hundred years old too. Great sound, but didn’t quite have the low end power of a modern instrument.
Surprisingly, Brad didn’t play any Rush. Just a few weeks earlier he dropped a new record called Jacob’s Ladder, that includes several interpretations of Rush songs, plus some originals with titles like Maybe as His Skies are Wide. It combined his piano stuff with synthesizers, some vocals, and protools loops and electronic effects. Overall pretty mind blowing. I was hoping he’d recreate some of that stuff live.
Just a few days later we saw Brad Mehldau again, this time backing tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman, along with Christian McBride and Brian Blade, reuniting the quartet that made them all famous much earlier in their careers. Seriously, it’s like one of the great Miles quintets or Coltrane’s great quartet. The show was at the Blue Note down in Greenwich Village, and it was a great night for walking around New York City. The music was quite inspired, everything you’d hope for. Christian McBride and Brian Blade in particular played lots of great stuff, both in solos and as part of ensemble. Mehldau in a group setting took a much less radical approach, but still was great. And Redman remains on of my top three tenor players on the scene today. His altissimo is out of this world, and tone and melodic inventiveness.
We thought we’d finally have relaxing weekend at home, but then Friday morning Jeannie won tickets to see the jazz-adjacent jam band Lettuce at Capitol Theater in Port Chester. The bass player in my Wednesday band told me was going and that I ought to check them out. It was alot of fun. Lettuce are in the same general zone as bands like Galactic and Snarky Puppy, as sort of psychedelic jazz-funk. The sax player ran his horn thru a synthesizer, which was pretty cool. They seemed to have alot of fans, it was was pretty different from the modern jazz crowd. Best of all John Patatucci sat in on the encore.
Then Saturday, on a whim, I went to check out a place Alternative Medicine Brewing Company. They’re a local microbrewery that recently opened near my house, and I got the impression form their web site that they have live music from time to time. I thought it might be an opportunity to get my Thursday band a gig. As luck would have it, there was a blues band playing there that night. The drummer was a I guy I knew from when our kids were in middle school together, and I was in a band with him for maybe a couple months about five years ago. He was just getting back into playing after a long haitus, and his time and endurance weren’t so good. But now he’s playing with power and taste and groove. The band was excellent, particularly their singer and their lead guitarist.
It turns out the guitarist is the co-owner of the bar, and my friend introduced me. And, yes they’re looking to bring in more live music, and are open to different styles and genres. A jazz and funk band sounds good to them. I few weeks ago I bought a digital recorder with idea of recording the band rehearsals. I was able to edit up a highlight reel of a few tracks to give an idea of our sound. Now the question of availability for the guys in my group.
