Author: zingblog

Jazz Demos II – Your Dancing Shoes

Here’s another jazz demo in what I hope will become an ongoing series:


The group liked my last song, Dark Skies, but they really love this one. Your Dancing shoes was originally written as song with lyrics, and I recorded it for the Buzzy Tonic album Elixr. But since my rock band is not really open to doing originals and my jazz band is, I thought I’d try a jazz arrangement of it. It has a funk-boogie feel, in the same zone as songs like Red Clay and Mercy Mercy Mercy, and it’s great fun to play. They bass player Jay was particular enthusiastic after having just read the sheet music, and our drummer Mike wants to do the song in the Wednesday jazz group.

As an aside, our piano player Rich recently sold his business and retired and is going back to school to study jazz piano. He’s a really good piano player already even though he told me really only started playing and studying when was 50 years old. He’s 60 or so now. You really gotta admire that. (He’s also one of those guys who works out, so like my brother Martin he appears alot younger than his age in both looks and energy level.) He’s been encouraging me with my composing, and I’ve been encouraging him to write some stuff to bring to the group too.

Gary has been continuing to record our rehearsal, so hopefully sometime soon we’ll capture a good performance of these new originals. Meanwhile I’m gonna go ahead with my next jazz demo, a thing I’m calling Buzzy Blue.

Lefts and Rights of Passage

I’m happy to say that the show at Michelle’s school was a smashing success. The theme this year was Give My Regards to Broadway, and it was basically a revue of show tunes. There were alot of talented kids in this year’s graduating class. Some years there’s just one or two eighth graders, but this year there were more than thirty, including a good handful of soloists. They did the same Phantom/Les Mis medley that we did in the Cabaret show a few years ago, and I’d say they did a better job. This is the fifth year or so I played in the band in its various permutations, maybe the seventh show. It gets easier and more fun every year as I’ve gotten to feel familiar with this group of musicians, and at this point I’ve played with everyone in the group. My playing is at a level now where I can read thru the songs once and pretty much be good. I only learned Friend Like Me when we were setting up for the first show.

Another highlight: Michelle had a ukulele solo in We Are Made of Stars. We practiced that one together a few times. She nailed it.

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Today I gave Lizzy her first lesson in driving a car. I gave her a basic safety primer then took her to an empty parking lot and had her practice driving around slowly, doing circuits of the lot, mainly just lifting her foot off the brake and letting the car roll. Once she got comfortable with starting and stopping and steering and shifting between park and drive, I let her give it a bit of gas. She got up to 11 mph (17kph) one time! Then on the way home I had her drive the last block to our house and park in the driveway. She did very well and was quite thrilled. Next time I’ll have her go in reverse and learn to park with a bit of precision, and maybe even try some neighborhood streets, get up to 15 or 20!

Keith Emerson

I am shocked and saddened today to learn of the death of Keith Emerson, mastermind of the accounting firm, no make that rock band, Emerson Lake and Palmer. Piano virtuoso, organ rocker extraordinaire, synthesizer and electronics pioneer, imaginative epic songwriter, and all around wildly adventurous musician, Keith Emerson was a singular talent and force in music. ELP was the definitive prog rock band, one of the first stadium acts, and the original supergroup, with their elaborate compositions, extended jams, sci-fi themes, deep forays into classical and jazz, out meters, innovative sound palette, monstrous musicianship, and over-the-top stage presentation, yet all held together by some intangible essence. Who could ask for more? Well then, they even had a ballad or two.

Keith ranks up there on my list off all-time favorite musician heroes and influences, right up there with John Coltrane. A sort of weird fusion of Aaron Copeland, Dave Brubeck and Jerry Lee Lewis who took it all too far, but boy could he play anything with a keyboard: left handed, upside down, rotating in the air, stab it with the steely knives, you name it. In a year that’s already seen the passing of many great rock stars, this one is the saddest for me. I’d heard he was sick for a long time, but sadder still it appears that he took his own life. He’d suffered never damage in right hand that pretty much ended his ability to play the keyboards. Just wow.

I was lucky enough to see Keith Emerson live a few times, in a few different contexts, including the full-on Emerson Lake and Palmer rock spectacle on their Black Moon tour. They did a three-hour-plus show that included Tarkus (only slightly abridged but actually tighter and less plodding than the original) and all of Karn Evil Nine, and everything else you’d hope for. The level of playing was superb, but apparently by that time Keith was already having trouble with his hands. One other time was with the Keith Emerson Band. They had alot of great new material and teased us with the promise of a new album that never materialized. Last time I saw him was in an unplugged format with Greg Lake, which was really enlightening in many ways, including several extended improvisations.

In any event, Keith’s legend loomed large. He will be missed, but his music lives on in his fans. Here’s a cover of Karn Evil 9, 2nd Impression I did a while back.

There’s no end to my life
No beginning to my death
Death is life

Showtime!

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.

Global Jukebox Update

The Global Jukebox project is far enough along that I can share some screen grabs. The basic features are in place and I’ve completed a pretty comprehensive first pass at applying styles to everything. Behind the scenes the song play tracking is largely in place, which is a prereq for go-live. There’s still some UI details to attend to, as well as some ongoing refactoring, but now the focus is transitioning to building out the next round of features, including Choreomterics and Journeys. You can learn more here:

zingman.com/portfolio/theGlobalJukebox.html

Winterlong

All quiet on the western front. It’s getting into the second half of winter and I’m starting to feel hopeful about spring. Lizzy is in Switzerland. Michelle got her braces off the other day.

I’m working from home these days, and I must say for the most part it suits me. My health is better then it’s been the last few winters. No getting up before daylight to stand out on the train platform in the bitter cold. No colds or flu, no back or leg pain.

I’m still rehabilitating my shoulder. I can do all the exercises I used to before I injured it, pushups and free weights, but on bench press I’ve plataeued, and every time I try and add weight it starts to hurt, so I go back down and wait a few weeks to try again. This last time the soreness went away faster and I’m ready to try again after only a week.

I have a pullup bar that sets up in a doorframe, and I’ve been using it in the doorway of wizard room (the closet under the stairs) for like 2 years. The other day the molding there cracked, so now I’m thinking about how to rebuild it stronger.

OTOH with working from home there’s less human contact. I’ve been getting out on the weekends, to dinner and the movies (Star Wars) for Jeannie’s birthday, to a party at Nick’s, and surprisingly saw a really good jazz group at a fundraiser at Michelle’s school. The band director is an amazing drummer, especially at Latin jazz.

For Valentine’s day I took Jeannie out to a local restaurant, Infusion, that I’ve passed by hundreds of times but never went in. But then I found out the bass player Jay from my Saturday jazz group was playing there with a guy on vibes as a duo. It turned out to be a very nice place, classy, dimly lit, with very good quasi-French food. They seated us right up near the band so I was able to suggest a few songs: My Romance, My Funny Valentine, All the Things You Are, that kind of thing. They were really good. Just the perfect thing, and a really pleasant surprise.

Before I found out about Jay’s gig the plan was to go to Burke’s bar, where LEFT HOOK is playing next week, to check the place out. So we went there afterwards for a drink of two. It’s a pretty big place, a step up from the joints we’ve been playing. The calamari is yummy and they got lots of different beers. They have a nice big stage, but we still have to bring our own PA. I don’t think they had a band that night cuz it was pretty dead. I’m sure bitter cold snap was keeping people home.

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The Global Jukebox project is coming along. There was a bit of a crisis a couple weeks ago cuz they’d used up the money for my initial contract but we were only about halfway thru the projected work. By the end of the first week we were already several weeks behind schedule, as we discovered that the database needed some serious work, the codebase I was taking over was a mess, and there were lots of little things they’d need to go live that they’d never thought of. Growing pains getting from a prototype to a product. Like I said, they’re not software engineers. But they found some more cash and were able to extend the project a few more months, and they’re working on getting funding for a whole year. I hope it comes thru. They have alot of great ideas and I’d really love to be able to do it right.

I finished a major milestone build last week. Done the first major round of refactoring and getting the core features in place. Still lots of little cleanup and loose ends, but I hope to have something sharable soon.

I’ve also been learning Python and Django (the D is silent), since our database guy has limited availability and there’s lots to do on that side.

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Believe it or not I’m still negotiating with my publisher about the origami airplanes and spaceships book. I thought for a while it was totally dead, but now it may happen after all. The point of contention was the graphics they want printed on the paper. I have a pretty strong idea of what I want and what I don’t. My feeling generally is that it should be pretty minimalist and not detract from the folded form. After they saw my samples they thought it’d be a useful guide, but wanted to have their staff graphics guy do the graphics, and to add insult they want to pay him out of my advance.

Then the sample graphics they sent me were a travesty. It was not my model, and not for my book, but it was a picture of a very cartoony robot slapped on a sheet of paper that didn’t look like anything like a robot to begin with. It looked like they reinvented the back cover of Mad Magazine!

So I said no way, I’ll do the book my own way and get another publisher. Then they decided they wanted to negotiate. First they agreed to pay their graphics guy out of their share. Then I said I’d only go with them if they gave me some sample graphics for my models and I approve of them. Surprisingly they agreed. So that’s where we are now, waiting for them to produce some graphics.

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I’ve been thinking of buying a new synthesizer. It turns out Moog is making reissues of their classic analog synths, but with modern components and with midi and digital control/memory/recall. You can get a full-stack modular moog a la Keith Emerson for a mere $35,000, not including keyboard, ribbon controller, extra modules, etc. Or you can get a modern day MiniMoog for about a grand.

BTW, I learned the other day the original voice of R2D2 was an ARP 2600 synthesizer, one of the first “semi-modulars”. It also appears on a bunch of Rush albums beginning with 2112, and on Edgar Winter’s Free Ride, which my rock group learned and then abandoned because it was too high for our singer.

So in closing, here’s a reminder that LEFT HOOK has a gig coming up a week at Burke’s Bar. We learned 5 new (keeper) tunes including Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel and Beginnings by Chicago. Very rockin’!