Haven Street Album Is Go

Hi everyone! Our new jazz record, Haven Street is finally done! We’re getting CD’s printed up at this very moment and they should arrive any day now.

I’ve updated my web site with a new page at:
http://zingman.com/music/havenstreet.php

More updates coming soon, including more pictures, album art, links and announcements.

Meanwhile we’ve made the music available at multiple sites. You can preview it at:
https://soundcloud.com/havenstreet/

You can download it, and very soon order the CD, at:
https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/havenstreet

And you can follow the group on social media at:
https://www.facebook.com/Haven-Street-2054724974797760/

Spoiler alert: look for gig announcement.

Enjoy!

Spring Jazz

A few things going on on the music front.

Last Saturday I sat in with my friend Charlie’s band the other night at a place called The Green Growler. The joint has a hip and cozy vibe, laid back with couches and board games a million kinds of craft beer. This would be a good venue for a Haven Street gig. Good crowd that appreciates jazz.

Charlie has a trio with him on guitar, plus bass and drums. Another sax player on alto and myself on tenor were sitting in. Although I’ve playing alot of jazz, this was my first live gig in a while. Still it seems my soloing chops are hot; I got lots of cheers and applause for my solos. Gary’s right: I need to memorize more tunes. I had Footprints, All Blues, and Oleo down, as well as Tom Petty’s Breakdown. Did okay on Take Five and A Night in Tunisia, that is until we got to the bridge. Also learned a number called Beatrice.

Last Sunday Jay came over and we finally mastered the Haven Street CD. We’re really almost there now. Just need to listen back a few times, and do a few tweaks to the artwork, including making room for the barcode on the back if the album cover, and doing the the graphic for the disk itself.

Meanwhile we’re up to ten new originals since we finished the recording date. I have four, Gary has three, Jay two and our piano player Rich brought in one. It’s cool that we have this many tunes and they still all sound different. I could go into detail on all of them, but you’ll hear them eventually.

Two of my songs are particularly challenging. One of them, Lift Off, I wrote a couple months ago. It’s uptempo, with Coltrane-inspired changes that feature a half-step lift embedded in a ii-V progression. It also has an intro that uses a snatch of those changes, but with a different feel. I’m reusing the intro as the foundation for a drum feature later in the tune. We finally got the feel for the intro riff, and the contrast between that and main tune really makes the whole song work. We’ve also gotten comfortable with playing the head and soloing at full speed, which sounds really exciting and propulsive.

The other song is Son of the Sun, which I wrote way back in the late 1980s with Event Horizon, when I was 19 or 20 years old. Up until now with this group I’ve decided to bring in only new material, even though I have alot of stuff we could potentially do. The idea is to bring out what’s special in this group, and to let everybody write and improvise. Still Son of the Sun is one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, and one of things that’s special about this group is they can handle playing it.

The song is mainly in 5/8 time, with a B section in 7/8, and a middle section in 4/4 but in the Phrygian mode. It also has a few twists and turns along the way. Of course there’s no point in doing out time signatures unless they really groove. The feel of the Event Horizon version was synthesizer-laden rock-jazz fusion, but our new version is a hair slower and much more acoustic and latin sounding. It also became a sprawling, 20-minute epic, so I’m trying to pull it in a bit. I must say it’s coming together very nicely, and the band is enjoying tackling it and making it sound musical; they’re really into it. Tonight we got up to the drum solo.

Pedal Point

Another longstanding project got moved forward substantially last week. When I got my new piano a year and half ago I had them put the feet up on little risers. Being very tall I needed to raise the whole thing about two inches so I could fit my knees under the keyboard. Well this worked great except that pedals, which were high to begin with, ended up very high off the floor. I asked the piano people (who rebuild old pianos so they clearly have the expertise) if they could lower the pedals somehow. Obviously this would involve some custom work, and they said they’d have to think about how. So I looked at it and took some measurements and thought about and made some plans and eventually sent them some drawings.

They said it looked doable, but wanted to confirm my measurements. Last month the dude was out here to tune the piano, and agreed my plan was solid and my dimensions were correct. So he took the pedal assembly off the piano and back to his shop. He was delayed in bringing it back, mainly because he was in a car crash and it took a while before he could drive again. Also he handed the work off to one of the guys in the shop. Meanwhile I tried using a MIDI sustain pedal but there was no where to plug it in, so that didn’t work so well.

Last week dude came back with the modified pedal assembly. My drawings had a block at the top to act as a spacer. But they way built it the top was extended seamlessly with the spacer integrated. It looks beautiful but is no longer removable if I want to revert the pedals to their original height. And unfortunately the dude mis-measured, and the pedals now hang below the height added by the spacers. So if I ever want to roll the piano over to the other side of my living room I’d have to take the pedal assembly off first. Oy! The good news is pedal is now at a very playable height, much improved. And, dude came up with a pretty ingenious solution: it only needs to come up a half or three-quarters of an inch, so he can just swap out the wheels on the casters for slightly bigger ones. Unfortunately that means yet another follow-up visit. Ah well, we’ll get there.

Spring Loaded

Okay lots of topics today. First of the weather has finally gotten nice and spring is indeed here! Trees and flowers are starting to bud up and bloom, even a little sunshine. I spent a good part of the weekend outdoors, going for walks and working on the yard. I filled in some low spots in my yard and covered with grass seed. The last vestiges of stumpy are finally covered over. Next up, pulling out and re-laying some of the driveway stones where the tree used to be. Also both of our outdoor faucets are leaky, so I have to see if I can fix ‘em or else call a plumber.

I got the Mustang out on the highway too. It felt good. Last year at this time I was starting in on research to get it restored, but that fell by the wayside after I got sick/hurt. I guess it’s back in the realm of possibility again, but I have other projects I want to tackle this year, like getting some solar panels on my roof and expanding my patio. These also involve alot of upfront research. I’ll probably settle for getting an oil change on the Mustang for now.

At long last our bug fixing marathon at work has come to end, and I can let go of a huge amount of buggy code I’ve been holding in my head. At first it was a month, then six weeks, and kept getting extended and extended again. It’s pretty much all every engineer in the company has been doing for three months. By the end it seemed like every second bug was caused by some other bug fix. That’s a helluva way to run a company. I can understand that we have to deliver features to our customers, but we pay a very high price in code quality and technical debt rushing to do everything as fast as possible. We especially waste time doing things over rather than thinking it thru and getting it right the first time. It’s actually a known problem with our executives, and they keep saying they’ll address it next time around. Maybe this time they really mean it. We’re at the top end of a reorganization of the engineering department, moving to more flexible, cross-functional teams. Sounds good on paper but has a good chance of making things even more chaotic. We’ll see how it goes.

Stormy Monday

We’re still waiting for spring to arrive in earnest. The weather has been mainly cold and windy. I did get the Mustang out and on the road last weekend, but I didn’t take it on the highway yet cuz once I was out a realized I ought to check the tires before I get it up to high speed. Last Friday it was actually warm and sunny in the afternoon, and I went out to lunch in the neighborhood with friends at work. But then Saturday it turned cold and windy again, and Sunday was gusty and ominous the whole day.

Yesterday I went into the city to teach origami at the Museum of Natural History. I hadn’t done it in a while and it was alot of fun. A kid in my class brought a copy of my book, and after we folded my Flying Fish, we went on to do the Giant Squid, one of the more complicated models in the book. Kid is only in fourth grade and is already a very advanced folder, with great technique. I haven’t folded much of anything the last couple months, so it’s good to start thinking about getting something new together for the convention in June.

Michelle came with me and took a class in the morning, doing crystal/snowflakes, and we toured the museum in the afternoon. I always love the dinosaur halls on the top floor. This time there was a special exhibit of a cast/reconstruction of some gigantic sauropod a hundred and twenty-two feet long! Unbelievable.

Today we awoke to a tempestuous downpour with widespread flooding, making the morning commute a cold, wet mess. You couldn’t drive faster than 20 mph and lot of local roads were closed, so there were detours and traffic jams. Everyone was like an hour late. The pond is in effect in our neighbor’s backyard.

Work continues on completing the Haven Street record and getting CD’s made. I created artwork for the album cover. After rehearsal last week we decided to get some photos of the neighborhood around our rehearsal studio, since it’s a funky industrial zone with some character. I got a shot of a street sign, which turned out to be a great cover image. Then for the back and inside I got some more shots, mainly of sky, but it was a cloudy day with a moody tone, and over that a crazy crisscross of telephone poles and wires, and some treetops still clinging to last winter. Perfect backdrop for text and images. On the inside I dropped in some of the pictures of us from the recording session, and on the back all the song names and other info. The whole thing hangs together nicely. All that remains is to finalize it in the format to deliver to the CD dup house. I think I may need to put a barcode on there too.

In any event, the whole thing will be available soon. Meanwhile you can get a preview on SoundCloud at:

https://soundcloud.com/havenstreet

Intrepid Adventure

It’s April already and still the winter wont let go. Believe it or now we had a good six or eight inches of snow today!

The bug fix marathon continues at work. It went from a month to six weeks, to two months, and now ten weeks. I took a couple days off for spring break; hopefully we’re wrapping it all up this week.

If we’re not traveling on spring break we usually like to go a museum. New York has lots of them. I’ve been living here over 25 years and still haven’t seen many of them. So last Thursday we went to the Intrepid. This was Michelle’s idea but I’ve never been and always wanted to go.

The Intrepid is a WWII aircraft carrier that’s docked on the West side of Manhattan, on a pier along with a submarine, a bunch of historic aircraft and spaceships and other attractions. The carrier itself is very intersting, although you have to watch your head if you’re tall (the sub is even worse). It has alot of history; in addition to fighting in WWII it participated in the space program, pick up at least one Gemini capsule after splashdown.

The airplane collection is really cool too. Many of them are navy planes intended for use on the carrier. A few helicopters too, a Harrier jet, and a Gemini capsule (a replica I think). There’s an A-12 Blackbird, and that’s only the third coolest plane.

They have a Space Shuttle. This one is Enterprise, which was the prototype that mostly rode on the back of a 747 and detached to test its flying and landing capability. It never actually went into orbit. Unfortunately you can’t go in inside. At this point we’ve seen three of the four existing shuttles: Enterprise, Endeavor and Discovery. Only Atlantis remains.

But the coolest was they have a Concorde! Sixties vintage jet setting for the rich and famous to the extreme at Mach 2 and 60,000 feet! Apparently there were only twenty ever made, fourteen operational as passenger jets, about a dozen still in existence, and only three or four in North America. You can take an in-depth tour where they let you go inside and sit in the passenger cabin, and even up in the cockpit. Somehow I ended up debating the musical merits of Phil Collins, who famously flew the Concorde in 1985 to open both the UK and American portions of the Live Aid concert, with our tour guide, who was not a big Genesis fan, and not aware that Phil also played behind a reunited Led Zeppelin that night.

Last Friday Jay and I finished mixing our jazz record. And it sounds really great if I say so myself. Now it’s on the mastering and getting CD’s made. I don’t really have a concept for the cover art yet, but I’m turning over a few ideas. We do have a handful of photos of the group in the recording session we can use.

Saturday the weather was actually nice and we raked up the yard and started getting ready for spring. I even started up the Mustang and let it run in the driveway for a few minutes. The plan was to take it out for a ride today, but as I mentioned, it snowed.

Fotoz 2017

Winter drags on. We’ve had three nor’easters in the last two weeks, and two more on the way. During the first one a tree branch fell and smashed the windshield of my car. The repair had to be delayed three times because of subsequent stormy days but it finally got done. Lizzy is back home for spring break. Mixing proceeds on the jazz record. We have five and a half songs mixed and the final editing tweaks on the remaining three mostly done.

But the main news of the day is that my photo albums have been updated for the year. Ping me for the login info if you need it. It’s funny we hardly ever even use our camera anymore. Most of these pics were from someone’s phone.

http://zingman.com/fotooz/
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2017/2017-03/
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2017/2017-04/
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2017/2017-05/
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2017/2017-06/

And the Beat Goes On

Believe it or not one, two, three weeks have gone by without anything new happening. Winter drags on with cold and storms. Work work work. In the end I can in fourth out 100 engineers in the bug-fix marathon, just short of getting an extra bonus. Two of the guys ahead of me were managers who get to say who fixes what bug. Hopefully things will relax in the office for a while.

Jay and I are still mixing the jazz record. The editing is all done, and the cleanup mostly so; we’re turning the corner to the actual mixes now. Jay and I did a rough mix of one of the songs last weekend. We still wanna finesse the reverbs, but it’s sounding quite good already. Being a jazz record the effects are pretty subtle, mainly just some light compression and EQ, plus a bit of pan and volume. You hardly realize anything’s been done until you go back and listen to the raw tracks.

Michelle had a nice trip Austria, Switzerland and France, with the youth group from her church, centered around a week in a monastery. I’ve never been to the alps but it sure looks nice; I’d love to go someday. She came back with fifty euros worth of chocolate. Also her robotics team as school has state championships today. If they win I guess she’ll go to the nationals.

Lizzy came home from school for a quick visit, mainly to see the musical at her old high school and hang out with friends. I have a few projects around the house I’d like get finished before spring comes.

Wintry Mix

Been busy recently.

The days are getting longer and the weather getting milder, even some sunshine. I think the end of winter is in sight. I’ve been working out in the mornings, but now it’s daylight. Been focusing on the legs, building strength. We might go even skiing next weekend.

Last weekend was Jeannie’s birthday. We saw a great concert in the city. There’s a little nightclub inside the Apollo. The show was Matthew Whitaker, a blind, sixteen-year-old piano prodigy. Jeannie actually saw him a few years ago because he’s the son a friend from her old job, and she’s been telling me ever since to check him out.

The kid is amazing. Matthew’s main influences are Chick Corea and Stevie Wonder, but there’s flashes of Herbie Hancock, Ray Charles, Oscar Peterson and lots of other stuff in there. He also plays a mean Hammond organ, including some bass solos on the pedals, and some tasty Moog. He has his rig set up kinda like Keith Emerson, with the piano and organ back to back, and the synth on top of the piano. The thing that amazes me the most is how he’s able to draw straight line thru 100 years of jazz and R&B, from Art Tatum to Gnarls Barkley, and make it all sound unified while treating each style faithfully and making it his own.

Its crunch time at my day job. We’re in the bug-fix Olympics and our CEO has offered a bonus to whoever fixes the most bugs in the next two weeks, like a pirate captain nailing a gold, silver and bronze coin to the mast. Too bad cuz last week I fixed 11 bugs, by far the most in the company, but they don’t count toward this goal.

Jay and I have been continuing on with mixing Buzzy Tonic. We have four songs in the can, five to go. I’ve decided to re-track the bass for Rocket to the Moon because the existing take is not very well recorded. This is because it’s a very hard part to play. So I’ve been practicing and trying a take every day. Getting closer but still some rough spots. Jay was over the other day and and I showed him the riffs and he could just play ‘em like that. Basterd.

We’ve also begun work on the jazz record. When we left the studio not everyone was really satisfied with their playing, but I knew we had enough coverage to put together a killer take of every song. I don’t think Jay really believed it until we started cutting together the songs. This is more my area of expertise but he added an invaluable pair of ears. One thing I’ll say is that our tempos were really consistent. At one point I dropped in a whole ‘nuther solo, something like a minute and a half of music, and at the end had to adjust the timing by only a few milliseconds. We got thru half the songs and hope to do the rest this weekend, then move on to the actual mixing.

On the downside, it looks like our rock band may finally be dead. Been trying to get everyone together but it’s just not happening. More on that in a future post.

Meanwhile right now the Olympics are on, which is cool and fun, but I never watch TV anymore so the ads are all really weird.

Recorda-Me

We had our long-awaited recording session this weekend. It came off great, without a hitch. Thanks to Robert Kessler for the use of his studio and for doing the session engineering, and to Josh his assistant. The whole process went really smooth and the sound was great. As mentioned before, Robert has a great live room with a Steinway Grand piano, and a deep bench of mics and preamps, an overall comfortable setup, and he really knows what he’s doing. So the group could just relax and focus on the music.

We actually managed to record a whole album of material, nine songs in all. In the end we jettisoned the cover and added two more originals, both from Gary. A Minor Event is a cool hard bop blues kinda of number, and Case DiGozo is very latin, bouncy and piano-driven with a fun drum solo.

We got there around ten and by the time everything was set up and we were rolling tape it was a little after noon. We averaged around forty-five minutes per song. In that time we got at least one good take, and usually two or three, and since we figure we can splice them together we have a few of just the first part or last part of a song. Everyone in the group did a really fantastic job playing. Gary, Dan, Rich and Jay, thank you all.

Next comes the editing and mixing. Jay and I are going to do it in my studio. Fun fun fun.

And just in time too. We’ve all been writing new songs. I have a number called Lift Off, inspired in part by John Coltrane’s Countdown, and particularly the idea of having a sax-and-drums section to lead off a song. However I picture the groove more like Bodhisattva by Steely Dan.

Harmonically I’ve been experimenting with chord substitutions, specifically different ways of embellishing a ii-V by putting another ii-V inside of it. The pattern I’m using for this song is to lift the inner ii-V up a half step, so you get ii-biii-bVI-V. You can loop it into a iii-IV-ii-V and you’re off and running. By the time you get to the bridge it’s kinda whole-toney and Monk-ish. I had envisioned it uptempo, but once I put down a melody and started practicing, I discovered it works great as a ballad too. So we’ll see where it goes. Sometimes songs take on a life of their own.