Category: People

Announcing a Jazz Concert:

Mon July 25 6:30 PM
Henry Gourdine park at the Ossining waterfront

Featuring yours truly on tenor sax, Lucas Saur on bass,
Gabe Faden piano, Ed Bettinelli drums, and Ava Bradlow vocals

We got together last night to rehearse and sounded great. Doing some Miles, Wayne Shorter and a bunch of other stuff. Ed is a great drummer and young Lucas has a ton of ideas.

Should be a great time, hope you can come out and see it.

Lots going on around here. Really enjoying the summertime.

Last weekend was full of shows from the kids. Friday evening Lizzy’s choral group gave their spring concert at their church. I think I mentioned this before when I saw them do Lessons and Carols back around Xmastime, but it’s a proffessional-level singing group (and indeed the memebers make more than I do with my rock band). The group is twenty singers, four each of bass, tenor, alto, soprano I and soprano II. The church itself is a medievalesque stone building with amazing reverb. You can listen to them blend or focus in and pick out an individual singer. Particaluarty the lead soprano and the basso profundo. Their voceis can really fill the hall.

The program was largely classical choral works, Handel and that sort of thing, with a few lighter works and feature for the organist and the great big pipe organ as well. Thier conductor and music director is also a serious choral composer, from London and apparently of some repute, and they did three of his works. Lizzy says its her favorite stuff in their repetoire.

All of it was very good. Lots of great supsensions and movement in the inner voicings. Just gives you chills. Really a great show.

The next two nights, down in the chuch basement, the kids theatre group put on their production of You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown. They actually did two complete productions with different casts, one for the middle school kids on Saturday and one for the high schoolers on SUnday. Michelle was in the younger group as Charlie Brown. They split all the roles among two or three (or sometimes more) kids so everyone would have at least one featured scene or song. The show worked quite well in that format. Michelle had a bunch of scenes, and is getting to be quite a good singer, lound and clear.

The high school version was at a whole ‘nuther level. There was just one kid for each role, and much more coherence, chemestry and commedy. Lizzy played Lucy, and she and the girl who played Sally stole the show. Afterwards I said to Lizzy “I knew you could sing but I didn’t know you could act!”

Just got done playing two back-to-back amazing gigs. Friday I had a rare jazz gig, at the Carl Jung center in Manhattan. Believe it or not this was my first gig in Manhattan since I’ve come back from California. Luckily, as a jazz gig all I had to bring was my horn, some charts and a stand. I worked in the NYC office that day and walked to the gig. The rest of the guys had to drive in, unload and worry about parking.

The gig was organized by my friend Gary Trossclaire, a trumpet player and Jungian analyst. It was a wine-and-cheese fundraiser event, and the format was first Gary gave a lecture/seminar on the The Dionysian Dynamics of Jazz, then we jammed for a half hour or so. The seminar itself was very good and Gary touched on alot of topics including Dionysius, the Greek god of wine, song and extasy, the historic roots of jazz, a bit about psychotherapy, the relationship between creativity and substance abuse, how it all relates to Jung, and even a bit of music theory. For such a diverse range it was very well delivered and woven together. My favorite bit of knowledge in the whole thing: Jung didn’t dig jazz.

Next came the concert. The group consisted of Gary T. on Trumpet, Gary B. and Jay from the Haven Street Five on guitar and bass, this dude K. C. on drums, and myself on tenor sax. We’d gotten together twice to rehearse, in the music building of SUNY Purchase, where K.C. is on the factuality. It’s actually a great place to rehearse, with high ceilings and great acoustics. The set included a bunch of standards, all great songs: Bohemia After Dark, Mercy Mercy Mercy, Willow Weep for Me, I Mean You, Straight No Chaser and Second Line. We ran thru the set before the show, and it all really came together for the performance with great energy and spontaneity. K.C. in particular had alot of feel, ideas and dynamics. Hope to be able to play with him again. The crowd and the Jung Center people loved it and sent each of the musicians home with a bottle of wine.

Next day LEFT HOOK played for our bassist Ken and his wife Kate’s 125 party. It was his 50th birthday, and hers as well, and their 25th wedding anniversary. 50 + 50 + 25 = 125. So it was a big todo with lots of their friends and relatives, great food, cake and all. The venue was a lodge house in Croton Point State Park. Very nice but also very hot and muggy. We played one set, a little over and hour, all our best stuff. I must say it sounded great and went over well although by the end people were drifting out cuz it was much cooler and breezier outside. All in all a great time. Congratulations Ken and Kate!

The last LEFT HOOK gig before that was three weeks ago. Musically the group keeps getting better and our songlist keeps expanding. The Bowie was a hit among the young hipsters in the crowd as well as the old timers.

But we’re growing dissatisfied with the same old dive bars and the same old crowds, so we’ve stepped up our quest for better gigs. It’s an uphill climb. We’ve started calling and visiting bars and other venues. We recorded the audio from that show and I’ll be putting together a new demo reel as soon as I’m able. Now with the gigs from Ken’s party and the audio from the Burke’s gig I have three shows worth of material to draw from. Just sifting thru it all will be a major task. At the same time we’re focusing on tightening up our arrangements and vocal harmonies and looking strategically towards picking new songs.

My friend and former trumpet for Seven Jazz West, Gary Trosclair, is putting on a combination semniar and jazz concert on Friday June 3 at the Carl Jung Center in Manhattan. You might know CJ Jung from his writings on the collective unconscious, or his influence on Sting’s songwriting in the Synchronicity era. I didn’t know he had a center named after him here in town, but I had a feeling.

Gary’s day job is a psychologist, author and lecturer, and expert on Jung, so you see it all makes sense. Gary had to leave 7JW about a year ago – had some dental problems – but now he’s playing trumpet again and put together a group for this event called The Archetypal Jazz Quintet, mainly players from the Haven Street Quintet, some of whom were also in 7JW and are some of the best players I know. It should be a really fun and interesting time. I’ve never really thought about jazz from a Jungian perspective, although doing so for just a minute or two lights up some interesting lines of thought. So I’m really keen on hearing what he has to say.

More info on the event here:
http://www.eventzilla.net/web/event/cg-jung-foundation-presents-the-dionysian-foundations-of-jazz-2138860416

Spring is creeping closer. Days are getting longer and warmer. No flowers yet, but I’m thinking of taking the Mustang out already! Lots of music events happening these days with the kids. Lots of running around.

Lizzy just finished with her school play yesterday. They did a production of Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. It was very well done. Lizzy was in the chorus and had one line (she did great!). The fact that she’s new at the school notwithstanding I was a bit surprised she didn’t get a bigger part, being and experienced singer and all. But it turns out there’s alot of talent at that school. All the leads were superb, as was the orchestra. I guess it’s a high school after all, and I’m more used to the K-8 or K-12 performances. They did four shows in four days and it was a huge amount of work and she had a great time, and a bonding experience for the kids. But on to the next thing.

This coming weekend is honor band. Both Lizzy and Michelle are in it. Michelle still plays clarinet regularly in her school band, but Lizzy is dusting off her flute for the first time in a while. Still, they’re both very excited as always.

Then the week after that is the musical at Michelle’s school. The eight graders are the big kids in this production, and this year they have some good talent too. I’ll be playing in the orchestra for this one, and so last week I got a couple CD’s and a big packet of sheet music. I’ve listened thru a couple times and read thru it once, so I’m set for joining them in rehearsal next week. I’m doing ukulele on one song, We’re All Made of Stars. Michelle learned the uke part too, so she’s gonna do it on stage while I double her from the pit. So we’re practicing that song together every day.

Here’s a video from her recital last night. Enjoy!