I was only able to catch the tail end, but Jose-Miguel Yamal, alongside Thomas Helton and Sam Knight, did an awesome tribute celebrating the 50th anniversary of Ryo Fukui’s Scenery at Echoes in Houston.
Jose-Miguel is the pianist who played on my senior recital, and Ryo Fukui is the pianist I discovered from the visit with Hishashi at Bar Gyu in Niseko, so it it was a cool confluence! I snapped a few photos with my new Nikon D6 setup.
I love this version from Kamasi Washington of Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune, or “light of the moon.” Here’s the Paul Verlaine poem that inspired the original composition:
Your soul is a chosen landscape
Where charming masqueraders and bergamaskers go
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad beneath their fanciful disguises.All sing in a minor key
Of victorious love and the opportune life,
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight,With the still moonlight, sad and beautiful,
That sets the birds dreaming in the trees
And the fountains sobbing in ecstasy,
The tall slender fountains among marble statues.
Slate memorializes the passing of jazz great Ornette Coleman with a review of his recent album Sound Grammar, covering what they call the key to understanding the legend’s “harmolodic” music. Also check out some jazz quotes from Coleman.
Houstonist did a quick interview with me, it was nice to chat about my home town for a bit. Covers a bit of history, and my top 6 favorite jazz albums right now.
The Fillmore Jazz Festival is this weekend in San Francisco.
I remember reading about MusicBrainz forever ago but I’ve really started using it in earnest today and it’s totally blowing me away. Running a little slow though, this might be the application that gets me to upgrade my computer. Why don’t these guys have every music site and VCs pounding down their door? Fantastic, moderated metadata plus collection management? That’s hot.
At midnight I hope to be no where close to a computer, so I’ll post this now because I’m sure it’s 2005 someplace already. Thank you, everyone, for such a wonderful year and I wish you all the very best for the coming one.
Here are my resolutions for 2005:
As the year draws to a close, and it has been a wonderful year, I find myself drawn to a few tasks that always seem to catch me around this time:
What catches up with you at the end of the year?
A little Christmas music for all of you from the big band arrangement of the Nutcracker Suite. (Sorry I didn’t have the Duke Ellington version handy.)
Slim Server is “powerful and free Open Source software. Not only will it power Squeezebox, but it also serves the SLIMP3 network music player or any software MP3 player on your network. SlimServer runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD and Solaris.” I’m going to set up the software a little later, and the Squeezebox looks pretty sweet too. Something for the wishlist. Might be the answer to my multi-room audio problems.
My Virtual Band, cool idea and using WordPress.
It’s been a gorgeous day today, highlighted by a mini-picnic with Heather, Richard, Tantek, and [forgot name] in Yerba Buena park for lunch. I’ll leave you this Friday with Ella’s version of “Blue Skies”. For extra credit compare it with Robert Glasper’s rendition.
“Music Is Not a Loaf of Bread” says the Wilco guy.
Blue skies smiling at me, nothing but blue skies do I see. From the amazing Robert Glasper, a fellow HSPVA alumni. (Dig the enclosure action.)
I said I would take it down, I never said for how long. Thank you to everyone for taking a little time out with me in celebration of the big day. I was as surprised as everyone else, and watching the reactions come in was pretty interesting. The emails ranged from shocked to congratulatory to incredulous to angry. Thank you to everyone who wrote in. Many people linked to the site being down which should help solidify the #1 position in the eyes of the fickle mistress Google. Thank you all as well.
You’d think it would be cooler here in Houston, with hell freezing over and all, but it is as hot as ever. At the same time I’m told in San Francisco I need to dress in “layers.” I packed all my layers up months ago! Might have some <div>s around though…
I was able to get some of the work I was planning to do on the site done, mostly tweaks to the look and layout of things. I wouldn’t call it a redesign, more like a summer variation on a theme. Many of the changes are very subtle, but in my eyes important. The most obvious change, the sun in the corner, looks nothing like I want it to, so I’m not sure what will happen to that. (If you have any ideas, send them in.) Many other things still need attention, so expect to see occasional breakage and constant tweaking over the next week. I finally closed the comments on the mosaic. So it will stand at 1,017 comments,. The page is still huge, so I’m going to move the comments to a separate page just for that entry. The jazz quotes need some cleaning up, and I’d like to add a little information about each player to each page, including at least a picture. The photolog is being overhauled, and the long-promised classics section is almost done. Finally I promise that photo will be random again, any day now.
It was just a little over a day, but it feels good to be back. Let’s not do that again though. I really missed writing here.
I’m going to be in San Francisco next week, so if you are too I’d love to meet up. Drop me a line.
This is too beautiful not to share. Pursuance, the third movement of the Love Supreme, as performed by the Branford Marsalis quartet. When I first heard he was doing this, I thought there was no way he could do justice to the original. I have also heard a recording of him attempting Love Supreme from the early nineties and it wasn’t up to snuff. This recording, however, is amazingly intense.
Lars Holst, Designing With Jazz Standards. I’ve always been inspired by Blue Note record covers and the design of Reid Miles. In fact Sarah got me a book that is nothing but Blue Note covers and I love it.
Well the last gig got canned due to torrential rain, and now this Monday I’m feeling a bit under the weather. That’s life! Here are the details again, try to make it out if you can:
Tonight at 7:30 PM I’ll be performing with the Dennis Dotson big band on lead alto. Our entire program is going to be exclusively music from the highly talented composer and pianist Joe LoCascio, who will also be playing with us. It is the first night of what they’re calling JazzFest 2003 and there are more details, including directions and a map, at JazzHouston. They say they’re charging for tickets but I don’t think they have in the past so I’m not sure about that. I’ve been looking forward to this gig and I think it’s going to be great, so if you’d like to hear some exciting jazz tonight, try to check it out.
By the way, welcome to December. It’s by far my favorite month of the year and I’m going to savor every minute of it. December is the month I look forward to when trudging through all the other months. Lot’s of exciting things planned this month, from HPUG to WordPress to even something with the elusive Mike. And that’s just the volunteer stuff.
Update: Thanks to all who came out. Having people you love in the audience makes performing a whole difference experience. 🙂
Tonight at 7:30 PM I’ll be performing with the Dennis Dotson big band on lead alto. Our entire program is going to be exclusively music from the highly talented composer and pianist Joe LoCascio, who will also be playing with us. It is the first night of what they’re calling JazzFest 2003 and there are more details, including directions and a map, at JazzHouston. They say they’re charging for tickets but I don’t think they have in the past so I’m not sure about that. I’ve been looking forward to this gig and I think it’s going to be great, so if you’d like to hear some exciting jazz tonight, try to check it out.
The gig has been cancelled due to rain! Sorry to any who were planning on going. It will most likely be rescheduled and I’ll post an update when it is.