G! Force Gigs

You may be wondering whatever happened to the rock band since we had to kick out our old guitar player. Well, the new guy Vinny has been jamming with us a few weeks now. He’s really good and is a nice and fun guy too, and has learned the whole set. So it’s all systems go! Next rehearsal we’re gonna start in on some new tunes, mostly Xmas carols. We have a run of gigs coming up between now and the end of the year. Hope to see y’all at one or more:

November 30 – Dudley’s in New Rochelle
December 1 – Victors of Hawthorne
December 8 – Barney Mc Nabb’s in Tuckahoe
December 15 – Chat 19 in Larchmont

Boston and Brooklyn

It’s been another busy week. The change of the seasons is arriving with rapid fury. First off they changed the local timezone settings last weekend. It’s been getting darker and darker but now it’s nighttime before five o’clock. Still getting used to that. I did get the Mustang out one last time, but today we had our first snowstorm. Got maybe 5 inches of wet heavy snow, enough to seriously mess up traffic. Now it’s raining and it’s all supposed to melt. Hopefully the morning won’t be too bad.

We went up MIT last weekend for their annual origami convention. I taught my Dirigible and it went over well. The class was very full and there were a couple people in the class who weren’t quite at the level required, so that slowed things down a bit. Despite my providing diagrams everyone didn’t quite get to the end of the model. I also see I need to explain the collapsing of the nose better in the diagrams.

The other model I folded was my Platypus. I haven’t folded one of these in a while, and it’s not diagrammed, so I did it entirely from memory. It went just fine, and we even finished on time.

This is the most technical of the origami conferences that I regularly attend. Alot of these people were at BOS and 7OSME in Oxford at the end of the summer, and now I kinda wish I could have gone. Ah well.

I did reconnect with Robby from rabbitear.org, who is writing origami software in javascript. I want to find a way to collaborate and contribute to the project, despite my being busy with so many other things. Also Adrianne Sack gave a lecture on the parallels between origami tessellations and certain kinds of fabric and textile pleating and folding techniques. Very cool. Of course Jason taught his crazy complex dragon, and despite it being a four-hour class he had to finish up during the evening free-folding.

I saw alot of my origami friends, and it was a good hang, and a bunch of people gave me good advice about planning our trip to Japan next year. Still, these things are always over too soon.

Back at home the next day we were back in Brooklyn, to see Kamasi Washington and his band play at a place called Brooklyn Steel. You may recall we saw Kamasi at the Montreal Jazz Festival back in June and it totally floored me. Well this time we came in knowing what to expect. The show was excellent. And restored my streak: now 8 of the last 9 shows we’ve seen have had a trombone. I think they’ve been touring pretty much continually since the last time we saw them. They did about half the same songs and half different. And some of the songs have evolved. The opening band, Butcher Brown were good too. Only downside was the venue was a cavernous warehouse space suitable for raves, with no seating and the acoustics could have been better, and the drinks very very expensive. Still it was a great concert and a fun time. I even got a t-shirt.

Peak Fall

Driving to work the last few days it’s been peak time for the leaves turning color around here. The local parkways run thru hills of oak and maple forest. Combined with leaden grey clouds and heavy skies the whole landscape was one of striking, eerie beauty. Totally surreal.

Sunday it was a mild a sunny day with bright blue skies, so Jeannie and I went for a hike along the Palisades near the Tappan Zee Bridge (a.k.a. The Mario). Great views of the river, the trees and the surrounding countryside, and we saw lots of hawks and even a family of giant Turkey Vultures hanging out on the cliffs. Way cool.

Last weekend was the first (and last) weekend in a while where we didn’t have a gig with the jazz or rock band, a show to see, or travel plans. But there’s plenty of other stuff going on.

For one thing, over the last several weekends Michelle and I watched Avatar: The Last Airbender. I saw this show out of the corner of my eye with the sound down when it was originally on the air, cuz I worked at Nickelodeon at the time. But watching it for real, well it was just excellent. So much going on, such great characters and conflicts, and such an imaginative story world. I’m still blown away that, like Doctor Markoh from Full Metal Alchemist, the Dragon of the West Iroh has a silent “h” at the end of his name.

For another we finally got the contract signed to get solar power on our roof. This was a big research project and it took a long time to work out all the details. Hopefully we can get the installation finished before the snow comes, but right now we’re waiting on permits from the city.

I’ve been busy with origami. A couple weeks back I made a pair of Cuttlefish for the Origami USA Holiday Tree at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. This project came and went so fast I didn’t even take pictures! But had a similar pair already folded, shown here. The twist is that the cuttlefish is an animal (not really fish, BTW) that changes it’s body color to blend in with its surroundings, to express it’s emotions and to imitidate other life forms with vibrant displays of color and pattern. To simulate the different moods I folded on out a plain beige sheet, as if blending in on a sandy seafloor. The other I made out of the loudest psychedelic fractal paisley pattern I could find, and posed the tentacles spread as if ready for attack. Way cool!

My other recent origami project was to diagram my Dirigible. I’ll be teaching this at the upcoming OrigaMIT convention, and wanted to submit it for the convention collection. It turned out to be a bit longer than I expected. I had estimated about 30 or 40 steps, but it ended up at 51. Still it’s a great model and well worth getting down. I plan on using it in an upcoming book.

Bridge’n’Tunnel

We had a really fun and interesting weekend full of music and visiting the old neighborhood. First off, my jazz group Haven Street played a gig a club called Shapeshifter Lab in Brooklyn. The gig was on a Friday evening, so getting into the area took about two hours for a trip of fifteen or twenty miles, going thru, as Jeannie put it “all three boros”. We took the route down the FDR drive which was at least fun and scenic since I rarely go that way.

It turns out the club was only a few blocks away from where we used to live in Park Slope in the year 2000. Fun and intersting to see how the neighborhood has changed. It still seems lively as ever. We found a great pizza place right around the corner form the club.

Shapeshifter is a very nice place to play, with a big stage, grand piano, drums and PA already set up, and even a professional soundman. You can tell they care about the music and the musicians. It’s run byt the son of the bassist Jimmy Garrison, who is famous for playing the classic John Coltrane quartet among many others.

Our set went well. As mentioned previosuly, the band has been sounding better and better, and the songs getting freer and more interactive. Everyone’s playing was in top form and the set was all originals, wide-ranginng and expressive. We had only and hour and we focused on getting more songs in rather than stretching out. We played eight songs, four from our first record, and four from our upcoming future record.

The second band that night was a big band doing avant-garde material. They were very good musicains, and intersting music. But when the main idea is to eschew traditional melody, harmony and song structure, there’s only so much one can take. Still I’m happy they kept alive my streak: the eighth band in a row I’ve seen with a trombone player.

After the show Jeannie and I decided to drive past our old apartment in Brooklyn to see how the neighborhood had changed. Driving home we went across the new Kosciuszko bridge, which was pretty neat. Then we decided we might as well drive past our old apartment in Queens from the mid 90’s since it was pretty much on the way.

Saturday it rained all day. In the evening we went out to see Ravi Coltrane at the Village Vanguard. Wow, what a sax player! A very high level of vrituousity, and very expressive. He has alot of his father in his sound, but is doing his own thing, very modern and up to date. The thing that impressed me probably the most of anything is his tone on the soprano sax is so full and fierce it’s actually baddass! He also had a great group with him: piano bass and drums.

We hadn’t been in the Village for a while, and it was just a few blocks away from where I used to live in the early 90’s. It was Saturday night of Halloween weekend when we got out of the show, so it was extra fun to watch the people all dressed up and going out to party.

There’ll Be Spandex Jackets One for Everybody

It’s been another busy week. Last Friday my piano guy finally came by with my adjusted pedal board. If you recall, way back when I bought my piano I had them make some casters to raise the height of the keyboard 2″. This is because I’m tall and me knees need to fit underneath. However the pedals were quite high. Close inspection revealed it looked like they had been raised previously. So had them extend the pedals again to be lower. But they didn’t follow my directions and they made them too low, so that I would never be able to take the piano off the casters. I had to have them raise them back up again partway. This is all custom work and it took a long time, and I’ve been without my pedals the last few weeks. Now at last it’s at the right height and all is well. Ah happiness.

I’ve been trying to get out to see more live music. Jeannie and I saw Steely Dan at the Beacon in NYC last weekend. It was a great show. They do complete albums nowadays, a different one each night, and for us it was The Nightly. Technically it was a Donald Fagen solo record, produced by Walter Becker, but I guess now it’s part of the Dan cannon. Of course it’s a great record, opening with the retrofuturistic classic I.G.Y., and naturally the band played the heck out of it. It was a big group, with Donald on vocals, piano and melodica, two guitars, another keyboardist, bass and drums, three backup singers and four horns. When I’ve seen the Dan in the past the horn section was all saxophones, but this time they added a trumpet and trombone, extending my streak to seven of the last seven bands I’ve seen have had a trombone player.

The second set was a bunch of hits and deep tracks from throughout their career, all great stuff. In a group of top-notch musicians doing complex arrangements, the drummer really stood out over all the rest, with Neil Peart level chops applied to nonstop funk and soul grooves. At the end of the set he did a drum solo. Just wow.

The opening act was an unexpected treat: the Peter Bernstein trio with Jimmy Cobb on drums and some old guy whose name I didn’t catch on organ, just amazing.

As mentioned a few posts ago we had to get rid of the guitar player in my rock band cuz he was always too loud, wouldn’t stop playing between songs, was generally unprofessional and just didn’t get along with the others in the group. But we have a whole string of gigs coming up between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we need a new guitar player fast. This week we got a new guy Vinny who came in. He seems like a nice guy, learned a bunch of the tunes, and he’s a good player. So it looks like we can move ahead again. Looking forward to the new lineup coming together.

I had to go the music store this week to get a box of reeds. We have a jazz gig coming up Friday in Brooklyn and I was down to my last one. While I was there, they had for sale the Real Book, Sixth Edition in Bb. So I finally replaced my old 5th edition which I bought out of the trunk of some dude’s car my freshman year of college, before they were legal, and is so deteriorated it can longer properly even be called a book.

One other thing they had for sale in wind section – a melodica! I picked one up, inspired by the Dan, and also Michelle has been asking for one. I brought it to jazz rehearsal, thinking i might try it out. I told Jay about it, and he asked “Is the the instrument with the little keyboard that you blow into? I hate those!”

So that was that. Nevertheless the jazz group continues to sound better and better, tighter and more free each rehearsal. We’re starting to plan our next record. I’m totally psyched for our gig on Friday.

Haven Street in Brooklyn

Here’s announcing my jazz group Haven Street will be playing at Shapeshifters Lab in Brooklyn, Friday October 26 at 7 pm. Should be a good show, featuring half originals of our debut record, half new stuff, and maybe a standard or two.

Spoiler alert: I’ve been getting deep into All the Things You Are. It was Gary’s idea to do an original arrangement. It’s a song I’ve played a million times, but recently I realized I was just kind of riding my way along the changes without having much to say, so I decided to really learn it. With a song like that the melody and the harmonies are so strong it’s kinda hard to go a fresh new way when you solo, but the material is so rich it’s really worth it to explore. I found a really cool version by Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan that I’m kind of using to influence my approach.

Also I should mention that Eric Puente is now our full time drummer. He brings a great energy and swing to the group, and it’s great having him on board.

What Keeps the Planet Spinning

Been busy. A week ago we went upstate to visit my parents, and also Lizzy at college. It was a fun trip, and Lizzy is doing well and having a good semester. While we were up there we took a trip to my uncle Ron in Welland and celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving along with that side of the family, including my cousin Tom, whom I haven’t seen in years.

We all caught Lizzy’s cold on the trip and been trying to shake it off ever since. Meanwhile back home Gina caught cold too, so we had to cancel our gig last weekend. We also had to kick out our guitarist, so now we’re looking for a new guitar player again. We don’t have any gigs for about six weeks, then it’s a run of four gigs in a row in late November thru mid December. Hopefully we’ll find someone.

The weather is turning cooler and it’s dark in the morning when we get up and in the evening by suppertime. We finally took out the air conditioners and had to start running the heat in the morning. And there’s been a ton or rain. At least Sunday was nice and clear. I took the Mustang out and Jeannie and went for a hike, first up around Kensico Dam and then a woods nearby called Cranberry Preserve, which has a stone quarry that looks to be where they got the stones to make the dam.

OrigamMIT is fast approaching. I’ve been diagramming my new Blimp, which I’m going to teach there and contribute to their collection, and is going to go in a future book.

The Debut of G! Force

Last Saturday night was the debut of my new rock pop dance party band, G! Force. It was a fun and successful night. The venue was Victor’s of Hawthorne. I’d played there a couple times before, but never got a huge crowd (once was a snowstorm, the other the day before Thanksgiving). But this night the place was packed. The music went over well, and the band was reasonably together, considering we learned 40 tunes in about six weeks. The bar even invited us back for another gig in November.

We played two long sets, about an hour and a half each. We do a mix of tunes from the 80s up to the present, with a few reaching back to the 60’s and 70’s. To give you an idea, the first few sung by Gina were Exes and Ohs by Elle King, Mercy by Duffy, Domino by Jessie J, Valerie by Amy Winehouse, and No Roots by Alice Merton. Gina has a powerful voice and pulls off that kind of stuff of really well. She also sang lead on a number of rock numbers like Any Way You Want It, Working for the Weekend, and Hit Me With Your Best Shot, as well as some disco tunes like I Will Survive, Boogie Oogie, and Hot Stuff. I sang lead on a bunch of numbers including You Can’t Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want) by Joe Jackson, I Want a New Drug, Cheap Sunglasses, Drops of Jupiter, Closing Time, Vehicle, and I Just Want to Celebrate. I’ve really been working on my singing and it’s definitely been been improving. Some of the best songs we do are duets: Stop Dragging My Heart Around, Get Lucky by Daft Punk, and Tub Thumping by Chumbawumba.

There were a handful of good sax tunes in there as well. And unlike in previous bands, I’m playing a bunch of synthesizer sounds in addition to the usual piano and organ. It’s fun and a throwback to the 80’s when these songs were new. Right now I’m just calling up various presets but I’d like to put some time into crafting the sounds on some of the tunes.

Gina of course is polished and professional, has a fantastic voice and uses it well. Ken on bass is awesome, especially on the funk and disco numbers. He even had a few solos. Andy on drums is not the steadiest drummer I ever played with, but his playing earnest and powerful. Walter on guitar is versatile and can pull of all the parts in a variety of styles, and had some really good solos. He was the last to join and got it together very quickly. He seems most at home with the hard rock numbers. Unfortunately he tends to turn up his amplifier too loud, and he and Gina don’t seem to get along very well. Ah well, we’ll see how everything plays out.

Now that we have the basics together we’re gonna work on refining things and getting tight. Our next show is in two weeks. After that we have a few weeks to maybe learn a few more songs, then a run of shows from mid November thru mid December.

Come check us our at:

Barney McNabbs on Tuckahoe Rd in Yonkers, Saturday October 13.

Air and Space Origami

At long last, my new origami book Air and Space Origami has been printed and as making its way to bookstore shelves across America and worldwide. The collection includes 14 original models of generally intermediate level, designed for broad appeal. This is a kit book that includes custom printed paper to go with the models, and even stickers for extra fun!

Look for an update to my web site soon with a new page in my origami publication sections. Meanwhile you can learn more from the publisher’s web site, and order it online.

https://www.tuttlepublishing.com/japan/air-and-space-origami-kit

https://www.amazon.com/Air-Space-Origami-Kit-Spaceships/dp/0804849242

Everybody Must Get Stoned

I finished off a longstanding project last weekend. The row of stones on the edge of my driveway had become unseated, pushed and tumbled over by the action of a nearby former tree, plus my wife and/or daughter driving over them. So I had to dig out on dirt to get at the stones, pull them out, level them up, seat them in new concrete, then re-fell and grade the topsoil and put down new grass seed.

I had actually planned on doing this last year, but was limited by injury, so the task was hanging out there for a long time. At the beginning of the summer I bought supplies and got ready, but then it turned 95 degrees for a solid three months. Finally in September it was cool enough to work outside. It ended up taking three sessions. The first one was to dig out, after which I had to stop cuz it started to rain. Then second I mixed the concrete and set the stones, and third I put back the dirt and put down new grass seed. All in all it took longer than expected cuz along the way I pulled alot of weeds out of the topsoil, and I ended up re-grading the yard so I had some leftover dirt to fill in some low spots.

Since I’ve finished we’ve had moderate temperatures and alot of rain the last few days, so I’d expect the new grass will come in nicely.

While I’m here I’ll mention we went for another great hike last weekend, this time around the Palisades in new Jersey just on the the other side of the George Washington Bridge. I had been there once before when I lived in Brooklyn. My friend Mark and I biked all the way from Park Slope. It was a long and epic ride, especially pulling back up the escarpment. This was only a few weeks before 9/11 and I got the last picture I ever took of the World Trade Center from the bridge.

This trip Jeannie and I parked at the top of the Palisades and hiked down, then walked along the shore for a while. There were some parks there that I don’t remember from before. Then it was up again further north and back to the beginning along the summit. Very nice.