As yt found out:

This is some gentle touch for old fight cavalera clubbsters, not whole footage but first-hand material, due to some member of the security crew. Using a completely old-school point-and-shoot formula and close comments.

Thist is not the first “coming” of Soulfly in Bucharest, but one of the rare moments when some really devoted to Max Cavalera and to Soulfly as a tricky metaphore for hard-to-the-core (and nothing else) Sepultura fans. 1UP!

Continuing with Native American designs this tunable steel tongue hand drum by MILLTONE features some of the great traditional Native American symbols.

*Click here for more Native American symbol information.

The Hand. Representing the presence of man. His work, his achievements & his history.*

Dragonfly Forms. The graphics are an abstraction of the dragonfly, which can be used as a talisman, especially with the Southern Pueblo Indians. At Isleta it became a double armed cross. This was worn as a symbol of both Catholic conversion and respect for older traditions.*

Weaving Pattern. Navajo Storm Style. Many of the Navajo patterns are followed closely by weaving families, while other designs are created fresh each time. A few designs are similar to designs seen in Plains Beadwork and paintings.*

Model 4G-HGLD-325, Nov. 27, 2009

Native American Weaving Pattern

Dragonfly Symbols on Tongues

Fun and Easy to Play, Enjoy!

Click here to visit the International eBay auction for Steel Tongue Hand Drum.

Thank You

Two approaches:

1 – Pretend you’re an expert in the area to which the instrument you’re perusing belongs. This can be done with a high degree of success but it does involve some dangers. One is that the people “helping” you will try to trick you into saying that something that sucks is, in fact, good (or vice-versa). You can prepare for those eventualities by studying a little before going into the store. However, it’s still a risk.

2 – Pretend you’re somewhat new to the specific area from which you are buying an instrument/accessories but are an expert in a related area. Example: when buying drumsticks, let it be known how you are in fact a master hand percussionist. If buying a keyboard, your specialty is the acoustic concert grand (“It feels weird, with the plastic keys and all. I’m definitely used to ivory by now”). Never, ever admit that you’re totally new to that area and especially to music in general. That will result in the people from the store wanting to take advantage of your ignorance. Remember, the people at the store can pretend to know music all they want because they don’t have to play and they don’t have to know how to play. Which they, for the most part, don’t. If they did, they wouldn’t be working there.

It’s important to always drop a significant name in the opening or throughout the conversation. In a piano store, mention how you appreciate the sound of upright Petrof pianos built in the 1980s. When buying a guitar, point out the warmth of the sustain in Gibsons. Add the name of a player’s player to your reference (adapt to your style – Grant Green for jazz; Jimmy Page for rock; etc).

Drumsticks and percussion are easier areas in which to fake knowledge because they contain so much variety. You can always say that you’ve been wanting to try “those plastic-tipped 5Bs” or that new LP Cajon, even though (remember) your specialty is djembe (for instance). Mention that you’ve been studying the playing of Famoudou Konate, for good measure.

Be sure. Confident. You can choose to either be very friendly and relaxed (you’ve reached a high level of playing and success, so buying instruments is merely a necessary part of a profession at which you excel) or you can be extremely serious and look slightly annoyed (your talent burdens you in ways that no one understands, although people do flock to your concerts to listen in reverential quietude, star-eyed and jaw-dropped). Both of these facades work.

If you’re going with the friendly approach, tell a humorous anecdote of how your fusion band played a standard pop song in 7/8 and how half the audience recognized the song without noticing the new time signature and the other half just assumed it was an original.

If using the serious, aggressive stance, complain that it’s impossible to find other musicians who are able to switch every 53 bars from 17/16 to 5/4 to 6/8 at 320 bpm and how that prevents you from publicly debuting some of your finer work.

Un concierto de jóvenes jazzistas abrirá hoy aquí el Festival Internacional Jojazz 2009 en el que competirán unos 29 músicos noveles. Desde las primeras horas de la tarde se impartirá un taller de Armonía e improvisación, a cargo del músico cubano Orlando Sánchez, y echará a andar el concurso de composición, cuyo jurado lo preside Alexis Bosch. En esta edición se incorporó el vibráfono, entre los 11 instrumentos en competencia: flauta, piano, guitarra, trombón, clarinete, trompeta, saxo, contrabajo, drums y dos cantantes, una modalidad ausente hace varios años en los certámenes. Dedicado al trompetista cubano José Miguel Crego (El Greco) por sus 35 años de vida artística, se ofrecerá una gala en su honor con nuevos intérpretes. Un taller de trompeta con varias generaciones de jazzistas entre ellos Yassek Manzano y Bobby Carcasés figura entre los momentos más esperados. El programa destaca los encuentros con las agrupaciones noruegas Pitsj y Listen y el cubano Orlando Valle (Maraca). La Casa de la cultura del municipio Plaza de la Revolución y el Teatro Mella, sedes habituales de la cita jazzística acogerán en certamen junto al Teatro Amadeo Roldán y el club La zorra y el cuervo. Auspiciado por el Instituto Cubano de la Música y el Centro Nacional de Música Popular, el certamen concluirá el próximo domingo con la gala de los premiados en 2008 y 2009.

So TNHZ is back in the studio recording for their 7 song EP set to be released early next year. I went to the studio a few times within the last month to capture their work and atmosphere on camera. My first session was with Mike Steez on drums and second session with Cole Cuchna on piano. The second session I was lucky to have my friend Josh aside with me and I was able to test out his Canon 5D with 85mm 1.8 and 50mm 1.8 lens which really give a shallow depth of field giving more emphasis on the subject. I am in the process of trying to get a hold of a 50mm for my Nikon D60 right now. I really love the effects the lens produces.

Over the next few weeks I will be back to shoot Robbie LaCasse on bass and Scott Simpson on vocals. So check back for updates. Don’t forget about TNHZ’s upcoming show for The Last Club Pow with DJ Shaun Slaughter and Dusty Brown this upcoming Monday. For more details visit Facebook.

There are a lot of people spending an awful lot of money trying to cheat the effects of aging; three men are in Birmingham this week who could share with them the secrets of eternal youth.

I’m guessing, but I think they would probably include constant searching and striving for innovation, and would certainly involve keeping working hard. Crucially, they would involve being jazz musicians.

The real veteran of the bunch is 82-year-old Lee Konitz from Chicago. He played in Miles Davis’s Birth Of The Cool band, he followed Lennie Tristano’s particular branch of cool jazz in the 1950s, sat in with Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan, and has continued to form new and exciting collaborations in the US and Europe ever since.

I met him once when he had got to bed after midnight after a gig in Copenhagen, risen again at 4am to catch a plane, had an argument with airport staff and still had the energy to regale me with anecdotes and advice throughout a two-hour drive through the English countryside.

To retire was to go to an early grave, he told me. And all the hotel rooms, the airports, the tedium of travel, all were worth it for those brief hours on stage, playing jazz, improvising, being truly alive in the moment. He was only 79 then.

These days Lee still plays jazz standards, but so absorbed into his psyche are these tunes that they can emerge in all kinds of disguises, stretched, twisted, refashioned by the thousands of times they have been given the Konitz makeover.

He demands sharp ears and a quick mind, not only from his audience, but especially from his collaborators, and his partner for a concert in the CBSO Centre on Tuesday is pianist Dan Tepfer, just 27.

The pair have recorded a CD together, and Tepfer has also played with Paul Motian, Steve Lacy and Bob Brookmeyer.

Tickets are £15 (£13 for members of Birmingham Jazz), are available from www.thsh.co.uk and the fun starts at 8pm.

Before that, on Saturday, and in the same venue, Andrew Cyrille, 70, from Brooklyn, sits down at the drums and Henry Grimes, 74, from Philadelphia, picks up the double bass. With them is the younger Briton, Paul Dunmall, on saxophone.

Together they are the Profound Sound Trio, a transatlantic meeting of the freest jazz minds brought about by Birmingham Jazz, first at the New York Vision Festival last year, then at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival earlier this year, and now on a UK tour.

Cyrille and Grimes have the dust of lofts and cellars upon them, so long have they been working in the demanding and ill-rewarded world of free improvisation in the US. Dunmall has been paying his dues in similar fashion around the pubs and clubs of this island and Europe since the 1970s.

Together they make a fiercely original and extraordinarily powerful music that gets to the very molten core of free jazz.

The band starts at 8pm, and tickets are £14 (£12 for BJ members) from www.thsh.co.uk

NoiseSoft Releases the “QU” and “ROOT DELAY” VST Effects
November 26th, 2009.

NoiseSoft announces the release of two new effects, the Qu quad filter effect and the Root Delay effect.

The Qu is a new VST quad filter effect plug-in for Windows. The Qu consists of four separate “all band” filters with five separate controls for each channel (A to D). The individual tuning of our custom filters produces audio illusions and phenomena that can not be found anywhere else; phase and frequency based stereo panning controls mean that a user can dial in effects that contrast across the whole audio spectrum, especially when used with track envelopes within the host workstation.

Controls and features:
- VOLUME: This controls the master volume. Lowest setting is silence and highest setting the maximum output.
- MIX: Controls the mix quantity of all filter sections.
- PITCH (A/B/C/D): Adjusts the affected pitch of each individual filter section from low drones to bell-like high pitched ringing.
- RESONANCE (A/B/C/D): Adjusts the resonance of each filter, from minimal effect to extreme phase shifting and everything between.
- FREQ (A/B/C/D): The frequency control for each filter has custom coded extreme frequency shifting, capable of lo-fi filtering in the low knob settings, all the way to harsh industrial/glitch effects.
- LEFT and RIGHT (A/B/C/D): These are separate controls for left and right phase shifting.
The Root Delay is an echo / delay VST effect plug-in for Windows. The Root Delay is designed for creating dub style echo and filter sweeps as well as other delay effects found in all kinds of modern electronic music. The effect features a delay section with separate adjustable controls for left and right time settings and also a filter section with controls for sweep rate and depth. The delay and filter combination produces everything from granular glitch / idm style processing to sweeping dub style echos and slap back effects.

The Root Delay is an echo / delay VST effect plug-in for Windows. The Root Delay is designed for creating dub style echo and filter sweeps as well as other delay effects found in all kinds of modern electronic music. The effect features a delay section with separate adjustable controls for left and right time settings and also a filter section with controls for sweep rate and depth. The delay and filter combination produces everything from granular glitch / idm style processing to sweeping dub style echos and slap back effects.

Controls and features:
- LEFT and RIGHT: These are separate controls for left and right echo / delay times
(milliseconds from 0ms to 10ms).
- FEEDBACK: knob is for controlling the amount of echos you would like.
From 1 to (almost) infinity.
- RES knob: Adjusts the resonance of the filter, from minimal effect to drone
sound and everything between.
- CUT: Adjusts the filter cutoff. From very metallic to very (sub)bassy.
- RATE: Adjusts the sweep rate of the filter, from about a minute to pseudo granular.
- DEPTH: Adjusts the depth of the filter effect. From light filtering to very dramatic sweeps.
- WET: Controls the volume of the delay and filter effects combined.
- DRY: Controls the volume of the dry signal.

Pricing & Availability:
The Qu and the Root Delay are both priced at $14 each, both available for Windows as a VST effect plug-in.

For more information about Qu visit: http://www.noisesoft.com/qu.html

For more information about the Root Delay visit: http://www.noisesoft.com/root_delay.html

Vibes player Jim Hart brings his excellent Gemini quartet, featuring fellow Loop musicians Ivo Neame on saxophone, Jasper Hoiby on bass and Dave Smith on drums, to the Yardbird in Birmingham this evening for a gig organised by the Cobweb Collective. Read my review of Gemini’s album, Narrada, here, and hotfoot it to the Yardbird now – more info here.

Shabaka Hutchings (Pic: Russ Escritt)

Jazz Club
The Rainbow, Digbeth, Birmingham
26-11-09
Many bands like to take their time and build to a big finish – not this trio of saxophonist/clarinettist Shabaka Hutchings, electric bassist Neil Charles and, for this gig, Seb Rochford on drums. We were in at the top, at the centre of a churning storm of free jazz intensity, Hutchings on tenor howling and screaming with double notes, harmonics and overblowing, Charles hitting thumb slaps and strumming chords simultaneously, Rochford stirring around the kit playing those accents only he can.

It was pretty full-on for the first three quarters of the set with pieces like Surman Part 2, and even when Hutchings finally switched to the gentler clarinet and tunes like The Forest the storm only abated temporarily.

There is a great amount of delicacy there in the digits of the band’s debut CD, Night Time On The Middle Passage (Babel BDV2982) and the band played nearly all material from it, but in live performance, and in the cruder ambience of the Rainbow’s back courtyard, delicacy needs to give way to power and intensity and, quite rightly, that’s the side of the band it chose to accentuate.

And what intensity! For those of us who remember the young Shabaka Hutchings standing tentatively at the side of the stage awaiting Andy Hamilton’s encouragement, or rising from his chair in the Walsall Jazz Orchestra saxophone section to play a quietly powerful solo, the man who on Wednesday evening turned his silver tenor into a raging bull elephant has come an awfully long way and grown immeasurably in stature. He is surely now one of the most original voices on his instrument(s) in this country today.

The man he most strikingly reminded me of was Pharoah Sanders – for his sheer instrumental force, for his expertise way up in the higher reaches of the tenor saxophone, and also for the way he worked away at fairly simple melodic phrases. So many modern saxophonists are keen to rip up and down the instrument, fitting in as many different notes as quickly as they can. Hutchings can do that if he chooses to – thankfully he chooses to quite rarely and so those lightning runs are always eloquent contrasts to the power of a piece like Chief, in which he restricts himself to a single note for a fair amount of the time, relying on tonal and rhythmic variation to give the interest.

Charles is an original player, too, using quiet wah-wah and a lot of chordal work. He could have been louder for a lot of the gig, but that is a minor carp. Rochford is not this band’s regular drummer but he fits in just fine, having just the right melodic sense and trans-stylistic abilities to do free rhythms when they are needed, or a kind of jazz metal or hip-hop when that might be appropriate.

Very strong playing, especially from Hutchings, but employed to bring out strong writing, too, and that makes it even more rewarding. Great band, great gig.

Welcome back to more DEF LEPPARD. Before we get to ‘Hysteria’, I’ll finish off on the ‘Pyromania’ sleeve.

Having a clear image in my head of what the cover should be was one thing, creating it was another. I’d recently met a young illustrator, Bernard Gudynas, who had impressed me with his portfolio of airbrush illustrations. They had a futuristic feel which was entirely appropriate to the album concept. We sketched out ideas, including a magnified section of the exploding building which I would build the graphic ‘sight’ around. It was demanding work for both of us to get it exactly right (‘exactly right’ is always a good aim). I had already decided the illustration should be contained within a border which smoke could pour onto – creating a further dimension to the design. The ‘sight’ itself added another – the ‘viewer’ – YOU. The sight, as a piece of graphics, may seem complicated and detailed but it had to imply a weapon much bigger than a rifle sight – a rocket launcher perhaps. Bernard’s take on the perspective – looking up at the building – created scale and dynamics. Originally the border around the illustration was white, to emphasize the black smoke, but when we tried a black border we all agreed it was more powerful.

Describing visual concepts sounds pretentious sometimes but that’s the nature of using words to describe images. (Artists are often asked to explain their visual work in words but I’ve never heard anyone ask an author to describe a novel by painting a picture.) Creating a visual image is based on intuition for the most part and decisions made in that process are not limited by the need to explain them. That’s why I love creating visuals – there are mysterious forces at work which I don’t really understand – or feel the need to.

I have been fortunate enough (I’d like to think talent played some part!) to work with some great artists who understood that intuition is vital. The ‘THAT’S IT!’ moment never comes from a long intellectual conversation – it more likely comes from an instinctive immediate reaction. There are a couple I’ll get to later, with PAUL McCARTNEY and with LED ZEPPELIN, where I was so sure which design they’d choose, I wrote on the back of it before the meeting – ‘You’ll choose this one.’ (Yes – Magic Tricks ARE an intrinsic part of presentations.)

DEF LEPPARD were a band I could rely on for instant reactions to artwork ideas. There was no pissing about. ‘Hysteria’ was a case in point. After working on the cover for close on a year, something Joe said made me abandon most of what I’d done and start again on the central image. In those days, and for such a major project, I had the luxury of time to develop ideas. Now, in the ‘I want it yesterday world’, there is often no time to consider and re-think – budgets and schedules catagorically deny it. I have turned down important work on occasion, simply because the time-frame imposed would have been hugely destructive to the creative process. I simply can’t produce half-arsed work that ultimately I’m unhappy with and almost certainly will damage reputation.

For those of you unfamiliar with DEF LEPPARD’s history, after the phenomenal success of ‘Pyromania’, (in 1984 the band were voted favourite band in the US – ahead of peers like THE ROLLING STONES and AC/DC), the next few years recording ‘Hysteria’ proved to be tragic and challenging on so many different levels. On New Years Eve,1984, Rick Allen, Def Leppard’s drummer, swerved off the road on a sharp bend near Sheffield and crashed into a drystone wall. He lost his arm. I can’t begin to imagine how Rick and the band dealt with the tragedy but what I do know is that their unswerving loyalty to their drummer and friend must have positively contributed to the the quality and impact of one of the biggest albums in rock history – ‘Hysteria’. A one-armed drummer? Surely, most bands would have considered finding a new drummer, however difficult it might be emotionally. Not DEF LEPPARD – it was not an option – they never sought a replacement.

Rick realized, after practising drumming on pillows, that he could use his legs to do some drumming previously done with his arms. He then worked with a pioneering British electronic company, Simmons, to design a customised electronic drum kit. Rick’s triumphant comeback was sealed at the 1986 Donnington ‘Monsters of Rock’ festival with a huge and  emotionally charged ovation when he was introduced by Joe Elliott.

Earlier that year the band had moved to Dublin. Robert John “Mutt” Lange, who produced ‘Pyromania’ began to work with the band on ‘Hysteria’. He retired from the project suffering from exhaustion. Pressure from their record company, clearly aware the band were on the cusp of megastardom, was intense – afraid the momentum built up by ‘Pyromania’ would be lost. Q Prime, the band’s management, in typically anarchistic but humourous style, got so pissed off by relentless requests from the record company demanding a release date, they asked me to design t-shirts for meetings which pre-empted executive questions. Working my way through my DEF LEPPARD archives of artwork (they’re huge), I came across the artwork for two of them …

I wish Lep fans could see the DL archives. All the artwork is on boards – singles, posters, tour programmes, calendars and promotional material. There is something about artwork with printer’s instruction overlays. They have an artistic value of their own, and obviously each is an original piece.

I’ve always envisaged an exhibition of the original artwork for DEF LEPPARD (the ones above are 2 of hundreds of pieces). I’m sure hardcore fans would be interested in the process that’s involved – how the work they know so well was physically created. Any ideas?

Before I began the DEF LEPPARD series of blogs I re-discovered the original sketch for the ‘Hysteria’ sleeve – created using colour pencils. So was the final artwork, but there is something about the preparatory sketch – an isolated image, not the final combination of all the elements, which is very powerful. I’ve said before that some of my favourite work is unpublished and this image is right up there with the best of them. I began a few weeks ago to publish some work on my website and I’ve recently created a Limited (there’ll only be 200) Edition of the illustration. Visit andieairfix.com to check it out.

which neatly brings us to …

Eight months into the artwork for an eagerly awaited album, I flew to Holland to meet the band where they were recording. The trip was one of the most challenging, upsetting and productive I’d ever had with the band. The working title of the album for a long time was ‘Animal Instinct’ and for months Adrian Baumgartner, an incredibly talented artist and perfectionist, had worked on the cover illustration. I showed it to Joe and he said, ‘It’s brilliant Andie, but don’t you think it looks a bit ‘laboured?’. Laboured? My heart sank. Adrian had worked with such intensity and concentration on the illustration for 5 or 6 hours a day producing about 4 square inches a month. Although the final work was astonishingly accomplished containing unbelievable detail, Joe was absolutely right – it lacked a vital spontaneity. ‘And,’ said Joe, ‘we’ve changed the title to ‘Hysteria.’ I had to start again.

On the plane back to London I gradually accepted that after months of work I had to find something more intuitive, dynamic and more fearsome. I was also dreading telling Adrian. My introspective musings, however, were constantly interrupted by Marc Lebon. At the cutting edge of photography (and outrageous behaviour) he had been shooting pictures of the band at the same time I was there. We discovered we were both coincidentally on the same plane back to London. We decided to  meet up in Amsterdam and had a crazy, extremely enjoyable night roaming around the infamous red light district – the emphasis being on the word ‘extreme’. Without going into too many details, let’s say the early morning plane had to accommodate two individuals who were smashed to high heaven. Marc, as part of our previous night’s entertainment had bought a couple of explicit porn novels and he decided halfway through the journey that he wanted to read extracts from them to me. It wouldn’t necessarily have been much of a problem except for one thing – he was sitting six rows behind me! An innocent adopted entourage of passengers were unwillingly (for the most part) subjected to an unrelenting bombardment of sexual scenarios they really didn’t want to hear over breakfast. Fortunately the flight was very short and by the time embarrassed passengers became a potential lynch mob, we landed at Heathrow and beat a hasty retreat before the police and airport authorities could act on the demands of our shocked and outraged fellow fliers.

Next time … more on ‘Hysteria’ – there’s so much …

Ludwig Drums, le batterie più note del mondo, festeggiano i loro primi 100 anni con una campagna stampa davvero interessante: Ludwig, terrorizing neighbours since 1909.

L’immagine evoca il lieto sconvolgimento di una vita tradizionale quando il rock entra a farne parte, “terrorizzando” i vicini di casa. Adolescenti di ieri e di oggi possono riconoscersi nelle immagini, che contrappongono con grande ironia passione per la musica (di un certo tipo) a tradizione e tranquillità.

Anche la triste, solita minestra viene sconvolta dal suono della batteria..

Le batterie Ludwig sono diventate un mito, ormai centenario, che si è saputo adattare ai cambiamenti nella comunicazione e nella musica, pur conservando un’immagine ben precisa e autorevole. Profilo Twitter, MySpace, Facebook FanPage, web tv sono alcuni dei mezzi attraverso i quali è possibile stare sempre in contatto con la propria passione per la batteria.

Una passione centenaria, ma trasversale, come recita il profilo Twitter:

Drums your dad played. Drums cooler than your friends are playing. Drums that your children will play and melt your face.

Joy

]]> http://thejazzbreakfast.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/sound-that-is-bound-to-be-profound/ Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:00:14 +0000 peterbacon http://thejazzbreakfast.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/sound-that-is-bound-to-be-profound/

Birmingham Jazz doesn’t just put on gigs in Birmingham – sometimes it organises national tours and spreads the jazz word far and wide. Currently BJ artistic director Tony Dudley-Evans is spending some of his time on the road with the Profound Sound Trio. They arrive in Birmingham on Saturday for a gig at the CBSO Centre.

More on them and how jazz can be the elixir of a long life in a while. Before then, read how the Profound Sound Trio tour has been going here.

It’s the cymbal thingy on a drum set? It’s played by raising and lowering the foot allowing it to clash together. The pressure of the lowering can depend on the sound it produces. It reportedly was invented as a way for musicians to play more than one instrument at a time.

Its also apparently a type of cupcake. Hmm, learn something new (and random every day)

Here’s a cool video of Steve Smith of Journey performing Mr. Hi Hat:

Buddy  Miles foi um cara surpreendente, pois participou da banda do Hendrix (Band of the Gypsys) e também tocou com o Santana. Porém seu trabalho individual é extremamente importante e de muito valor. Vamos falar agora sobre seu disco “Them Changes”, um instrumental com presença forte de vocais excelentes. O baterista aqui participou também no baixo, vocais, teclados, guitarras, além de ser o produtor, arranjador e principal executor das músicas. Viveu até 2008 anos muito bem vividos, até 2005  participou de vários álbuns e teve cerca de 20 discos solo lançados.

O disco “Them Changes” foi lançado em 1970, e ajudou principalmente a definir, descobrir e explorar a fusão entre funk e rock. Buddy Miles era um exímio baterista, um músico poderoso, que manjava muito de blues & ritmo.

As músicas são um passeio por um som versátil e original, que abraça o rock n roll com abordagens r&b e funk. A capa do disco mostra o artista jovem, sentado junto a sua bateria, uma ótima imagem de Miles.

“Heart’s Delight”, contém um naipe de metais em chamas completo com trompete, saxofone tenor, trombone, trompete e até mesmo um funky.

“Dreams” mostra como ele é apoiado por um coro de cantores, e a guitarra + teclado passeiam pelas notas dando uma sutileza à canção. “Uhul!”.

“Paul B. Allen, Omaha, Nebraska,” demonstra um baterista criativo que ele poderia ser, só que um órgão e guitarra mínima aparecem providenciando o devido apoio. A linha de baixo é sensacional!

E que nós continuemos a ter influências tão boas para produzir os nossos sons.

Track list:
01- Them Changes 3:22
02- I Still Love You, Anyway 4:14
03- Heart’s Delight 4:08
04- Dreams 4:53
05- Down by the River 6:22
06- Memphis Train 2:57
07- Paul B. Allen, Omaha, Nebraska 5:33
08- Your Feeling Is Mine 2:13

Ouça!

No, not those kind! This is a reminder that an exceedingly exciting trio plays the Jazz Club, the monthly get-togethers for intrepid jazz explorers at the Rainbow pub in Digbeth, Birmingham, tonight. It sometimes feels in this behind-the-pub courtyard that this might be what it was like in those New York lofts in the 1970s and ’80s – gritty, cutting edge, filled with the excitement of listening to jazz’s future being made here and now.

Providing the excitement this evening is Zed-U: Neil Charles on bass, Shabaka Hutchings on clarinet and, for this gig, Seb Rochford on drums. Among many really interesting young British jazz groups this is one of the most interesting, experimental yet accessible with it. Doors open at 8pm,, the music starts around 9pm, and it’s just £4 on the door to get in. This is a Birmingham Jazz gig. Read my review of Zed-U’s album, Night Time On The Middle Passage, here.

Afraid of retaliation after kneeing his older brother in the groin several times, Riley now has both his soccer shinguards stuck down the front of his jeans.  It’s not particularly comfortable to walk around this way, but it makes a great sound when you energetically play drums on your crotch.

“Hey Mom, wanna play drums on my nuts?”

“Um, no thanks.  I think I’m good, thanks.”

“Reeeally?  You don’t know what you’re missing…”

“It’s an incredible offer,  but maybe some other time, yo.”

 He shakes his head in disbelief.  “Crazy.” 

And away he wanders, happily drumming his nuts.

Mehr können wir nicht hizufügen: WE ROCKED THE PRINZREGENTENTHEATER!!!!

DANKE AN ALLE!!!!!

The Red Garland Quintet with John Coltrane: Dig It! (Prestige PR7229)
Of course it is that crucial “with…” that makes the ears prick up, and pricked ears are just the thing for listening to Coltrane’s dazzling opening solo on Billie’s Bounce, filled as it is with the remnants of bop and the beginnings of the sheets of sound explorations that the saxophonist would increasingly engage in.

This was 1957 and along with Trane, the Miles Davis Quintet pianist had Donald Byrd on trumpet, Paul Chambers or George Joyner on bass and Arthur Taylor on drums. This was an influential band for record collectors but not a live playing unit. Nevertheless it has that late ’50s jazz essence, and Garland remained a favourite for many piano fans.

The tracks are unusually long for the era – Garland’s original composition, Lazy Mae, which concludes this Rudy Van Gelder remastered edition CD, runs to over 16 minutes. It’s a stately blues with the leader laying out the basics in a left hand riff before he adds some treble, and the rhythm team enter for a strong, swinging work through. In fact, it’s not until near the halfway mark that Coltrane enters with another masterful solo, followed by Joyner and finally Byrd, high and lyrical.

The single trio track is Crazy Rhythm, with Garland in exemplary form.

Apparently this disc was originally compiled from the left-overs from sessions which had produced three previous records. Well, what delicious leftovers!

I tend to forget how “new” the concept of congregational singing in worship really is.  There’s lots to be said about the history, but part of Martin Luther’s stand against the Catholic church was the initiation of singing in a language that the people understood (the Mass is in Latin, and at that time, most people didn’t speak or understand Latin), but also to include the singing of the people in worship services.  Then again, Martin Luther at the time also thought that organs were basically an instrument of the devil (some would probably still say this is true today!). 

Anyway, John Wesley was actually an important person with the protestant development of congregational singing, and he urged worshipers to stand while they sang hymns.  This was in the 18th century, not really that long ago, in the scope of time.

John Wesley also gave some pointers and guidelines for singing, “Sing lustily and with good courage.  Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength.  Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sung the songs of Satan” -1761.

I’m not sure what he means by the songs of Satan, but maybe we could apply that to secular music today?  Gosh there are LOTS of great songs on the radio that are songs you just sing out without any fear (unless the window in your car is down)… so why should our worship be quiet on Sunday mornings?  And why are we always “half dead or half asleep”?  This is a call to let our praise be loud, exciting, and full of DRUMS I say!  (Interesting but here’s a fact about faster music, “Some churches use drums in worship; a beat slightly faster than of the human heart enlivens a group of people, gets them on their feet, and unites them into one vibrant body” -Gail Ramshaw).

Anyway, just a few thoughts to share with you all.

Hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving!

It is quite common now days for people to want to know the best way or the best format for learning how to play a musical instrument. Fifteen to twenty years ago the answer was simple, go to a music school or music studio and take lessons from a qualified teacher. Today, times have changed in large part due to the crazy, busy schedules the average person/family maintains and also because of the technology that now exists.

I remember when I was working in a retail music store and at that time the big deal was CDs that were starting to be included in instrument method books. This gave all beginning musicians the opportunity to “teach themselves” how learn their instrument because they now had a CD that could walk them through the book in the comfort of their own home. Soon after that came “teach yourself to play” VHS tapes and then DVDs. Now you could have a teacher on your TV screen teaching you the basics on how to play your instruments. This was very exciting for aspiring musicians because they could watch how it should be done and then try to do it for themselves on their own instruments.

Today with the latest video technologies and the help of the internet people can now take music lessons on-line. Anyone can log on to a specific website and get quick tips on how to play any instrument at pretty much any level. Just like the technologies of the past (Cassette tapes, CDs, VHS, DVDs), the current form of stay at home music lessons offers an easy way for people to learn music. As a supporter of incorporating music and technology I am excited to see how accessible music instruction has become, and as a musician I love how easy it is to gather information about musical techniques and approaches to playing a particular instrument.

Now as a music teacher and owner of a music school should I feel threatened or afraid of the fact that people can go on-line to learn how to play an instrument? Absolutely not! The goal of every music teacher, every music school, and for that matter every musician should be that others find the same joy and passion for music that we ourselves have found. So if that means that someone buys a guitar and goes on-line to figure out how to play it, great! As long as it promotes the great joy of learning to play music than I am all for it. The reality is that the more there are people are seeking music lessons in any form, the better. The truth still remains that there comes a time in every musician’s journey where in order to grow and advance in their craft there is a need for human interaction. Music is always better when it is shared, and because there are so many levels to learning to play music there will come a time when every musician will need personal interaction and instruction. It’s just the way it is.

So my concern is not whether or not the student comes to the Recreational Music Center from day one to learn how to play music, it is simply that every beginning musician is taught the JOY of music making. The Recreational Music Center was started because we saw how often people would start taking music lessons and then quite never to return to playing music. The biggest reason was not because they couldn’t do it, but because of how it was being taught. We believe that you cannot successfully teach music if you aren’t first and foremost teaching your students the joy of the process. Also, equally important, is the fact that music lessons are supposed to be FUN! If anyone is taking music lessons at any level and it is not fun than something needs to change immediately and often times it means that the instructor or method of instruction needs to change.

Here’s the bottom line – the only way to sustain the ups and downs of learning to play a musical instrument is if it is fun. In addition, always remember that the process of music making should result in joy and a deeper appreciation for music in general. If the type of instruction that you have chosen to learn how to play music does not meet this criteria than you need to change. Always remember that music is meant to be enjoyed and learning to play music is supposed to be FUN!

This new tunable steel tongue instrument was made by request. It is Clear Coated Steel with Purple MILLTONE lettering and a Purple Sri Yantra graphic inside. If there is a design you would like just let me know.

Model 4G-CLR-322, Nov. 24, 2009

Purple vinyl Sri Yantra inside

Fun and Easy to Play, Enjoy this short demo.

Click here to visit the eBay auction for this tunable Steel Tongue Hand Drum.

Thank You