People – Zing Blog 2

In the Dead of Winter

We finally got some snow over the weekend, and then it turned really cold the last few days: in the teens in the daytime and single digits at night. Looks like the snow will stick around a while. Of course this meant we got to go skiing for the first time this season. We went Monday, which was a day for for me and Jeannie, and Michelle’s last day at home before going back to school. We got up early before sunrise, went up for day and got home again sometime after sunset. It was a good time, and we all had a good days skiing after getting used to it the first runs. The snow was mainly good, even great for the northeast, with just a little bit of icy patches here and there, easy enough to avoid. Only trouble it was pretty crowded, and by mid afternoon there were alot of kids taking lessons zigzagging all over the place, so we decided to call it day. All in all we skied ten runs, over four hours. Next time Jeannie and I are gonna play hooky from work and go up when the kids are all in school.

All our wintertime projects are coming along. Maintaining good health and good focus. I finished a major chunk of cleaning out my studio over the weekend, clearing the way for new origami and other projects (more on that later). Only downside is Michelle went back to school before we had a chance to watch Return of the King. The Bills are in the playoffs and have advanced to the ACF Championship (once again against the Chiefs, after beating the Ravens in an intense, high-drama matchup), so that’s cutting into our TV time. Ah well, I guess there’s spring break.

Aside: my friend Robert Lang, one of the most accomplished and creative origami artists of all time, lost both his house and his studio in the recent fires in L.A., including a lifetime of literally priceless artwork (much of it has been exhibited at galleries all over the world), all of his tools and his supply of high-end origami paper (I read that Michael LaFosse is coming out of retirement to make a new batch of origamido paper just for him.) and literally everything else except his pets and one origami cuckoo clock. My heart goes out to him and his wife. Amazingly, Robert seems pretty upbeat for the situation, or at least resilient and determined to get thru the current tragedy and rebuild.

Back here where things are more stable, our D&D campaign continues. True to their chaotic neutral alignments, the party decided to open a half-dozen doors at once at the end of the last session, revealing a captive dragon and whole host of goblins. Next session should be fun. I hope they figure out a way to get the dragon to attack the goblins, or that they can run fast. Also they’re on the verge of having enough XP for second level.

I’m also helping Charlie set up a Minecraft server on Martin’s linux box in the cloud. It turns out this is not exactly straightforward, since he wants a modded version, but we’ve made some good progress, and we’ll probably get there soon.

Most of the rest of the stuff I want to talk about has to do with music, and I think I’ll cover that in a separate post.

Oh What Fun to Ride and Sing a Slaying Song Tonight

We’re in the midst of a long and languid holiday break. I’ve been off work for a whole week and a day, and don’t go back until Thursday. I finished off work on a high note, having successfully merged my R&D branch of the codebase back into the main branch, deployed it and all. The project is turning the corner from R&D into productization, always a fun part of the curve. Also lots of planning meetings for big ambitious new features and new R&D threads in the coming year. After a long uphill slog into strong headwinds I now feel that the tide has turned, the wind is at our backs and filling our sail, and we’re gaining momentum as we cruise downhill.

Michelle came home from school a week before Christmas, and Lizzy a few days later along with Josh. We even got snow a couple times and it remained cold enough for the snow to stick around for a white Christmas. We did Jeannie’s family party the Saturday before Christmas, and went to Mary’s on Christmas day. In between was lots of food and drink, movies and games, music, wrapping presents, opening presents, hanging out and getting things done at a relaxed pace.

We’re shaping up for a new release of the Global Jukebox in the new year. Nick has come up to speed as my new second software engineer, which is great. I still miss Martin whenever I work on the jukebox. He wrote so much amazing code and did so much of the devops stuff too. I’m always inside his thoughts and mind when I read thru the code. Anyway, Nick is now filling that role and bringing his own approach and perspective. The major new feature we’ve been working on converting the existing Cantometric codings for all the songs to a new simplified schema, to make it easier to train new coders and to eliminate some ambiguities in the original system. Nick wrote the script to do the conversion, which required understanding alot of domain knowledge as well as the architecture of the web application. Meanwhile I created the spec for the new schema and did all the UI and UX work on the client side. Now it’s all on the staging server and we’re looking at finishing off some P2 features to get into the next release.

I bought a drum mic kit as a present to myself. It’s bundle of eight microphones for all the different drums plus overheads, along with stands and cables. I’ve decided I want to use more real drums on my next record (more on that soon) and so it’s essential to be able to mic it up. Next step is to get it all set up and learn how to use it. Oh, and I’m going to upgrade to a 16-input preamp/DAC unit as well.

Oh, and Jeannie got a Nintendo Switch, so I’m gonna get some games for that too!

We went up to Buffalo for a few days after Christmas. They had a ton of snow when we arrived, but while we were up there it got warm and started to melt. Kathleen and the kids came up too. It was a little sad because we all felt Martin’s absence, but we also felt his presence. There was coming together and healing energy, and it was good to see everyone. I’ve been trying to bond with the kids and get closer to them. I took them out for a long walk around the neighborhood one morning to the park and the lake and all the local playgrounds. Played some chess with Match and Abbie. We also had dinner with Larry and Jackie and place in Allentown called Mother’s which was really good. To top it all off, the Bills demolished the Jets on Sunday. Looking good for the playoffs.

I’ve started a D&D campaign with Martin’s kids as a fun way to try and be a presence in their lives. We’ve had three sessions so far over the last three weeks. The first week we rolled up characters, the second we did a warm-up wilderness encounter en route the the start of the main adventure, and this last weekend the party got the the base town, met some of the locals, stocked up on provisions and all that, and set out for the ruins of the Sunless Citadel, where the adventure begins in earnest. They climbed down into a ravine and are now at the front door of the main dungeon (where a trap awaits, unbeknownst to them). The party consists of the three oldest kids, Charlie, Matthew and Abbie, as well as their cousin Rylee, all aged 12 to 16. Also joining in are Michelle and Jeannie. It’s a good mix of races, classes and alignments. Rylee is and Elfin Fighter, and Charlie and Elfin Ranger. Match is a Dwarven Barbarian, and Abbie a Gnomish Bard who rides around on a giant rabbit. Michelle is playing a Halfling Cleric and Jeannie a human Sorceress. I’m DM’ing, which is something I really enjoy. Everyone is first level, and their alignments are centered on chaotic neutral, which fits with their general attitude.

We’re using a combination of software. It’s amazing how all this stuff has advanced since I first started playing D&D online twenty years ago with Nick. We’re using google meet for the video conference. This mostly works great by the call only lasts and hour, so I have to start a new meeting halfway thru. We’re using DND Beyond for the character sheets, stats, and related stuff like spells, weapons, bonuses, modifiers, and hit points. And we’re using Owlbear Rodeo for maps and combat. All free apps that run in the browser, very convenient.

So far it’s lots of fun, and good to be able to spend time with everyone in a casual, semi-structured way. They’re all definitely enjoying it. My plan is to keep it going thru the winter at least, and maybe longer if everyone remains into it.

Autumn Leaves

We had a very nice Thanksgiving weekend. I was ready for some downtime, since it had been a pretty busy couple of weeks. The week before I hit a major milestone for my project at work, so now life got a bit easier just in time for the holiday season.

Biking season is over now because it’s too cold and too dark, but I did manage to get a few rides in the first few weeks of November. Looking forward to starting again next spring. Meanwhile we have ice skating and skiing to look forward too, and I’ve switched back to the Nordic Track on what used to be biking days. On the plus side, I can listen to tunes while I do that. Meanwhile, my shoulder has been hurting off and on the last few months, no doubt from using the computer too much. So I’ve been going up and down on the amount of weight I’ve been using on weightlifting days. This is the time of year when I usually start to feel generally tired and achy and low energy anyway, and I often go down in weight for the winter and back up again in the springtime. In any event, I seem to have stabilized at a level that’s close to my nominal maximum for everything but bench press, which is about 20 lbs. less. If I continue to feel okay, I’ll probably go up in a week or two.

November is the time of year for raking leaves, and we’ve been out and at it every weekend since we got home from our trip out west. Most of the leaves are down now, and this last time we filled up only two cans, compared with 6 or seven cans and bags a couple weeks ago when it was peaking. We also put up fresh new holiday lights outside. I like to keep them up over the winter, and last year I just never got around to taking them down, but they all burned out over time.

Lots of people in our neighborhood go in for big Hallowe’en and Christmas displays on their lawns. Some of them even do Thanksgiving, but compared the other holidays the choice of imagery is kind of thin. Pretty much you can have an inflatable turkey, and that’s about it. If I ever do a lawn display, I want something that will last the whole season. Start with a scary dragon, then give him a pilgrim hat, then a Santa hat. Something like that.

Michelle came home from school to visit for a whole week. The weekend before Thanksgiving we went up to Albany to visit Kathleen and the kids. Now Michelle and I are planning a D&D campaign with them as a fun way to get more regular face time with everyone. More on that as it develops. Michelle spent Monday and Tuesday baking up a storm – cookies, sós kifli, more cookies.

On Thanksgiving day we had a whole lot of family over: Mary’s family, Denis’s too, and Jeannie’s parents. She made a turkey and all the things – stuffing, potatoes, gravy, and our guests brought lasagna, sweet potatoes, Brussel sprouts, pie, lots of great stuff, and a really good time. Good to be around family.

The next day, which in our house we’ve dubbed Slack Friday, we normally stay home and strive to nothing at all. This year, however we went out to Long Island to visit Mary, since Denis was in town, as well as her cousin Carla. After that we went over to visit Nick and Lisa, who live just ten minutes away. The motivating excuse was to sync up with Nick on his progress on the Global Jukebox, but we ended up staying and enjoying Nick’s homemade bread and talking well into the night.

As for Nick’s progress on the Global Jukebox, that’s coming along nicely. He’s been ramping up and doing his first major chunk of feature work, so we had a code review and I was able to explain to him a bunch of things he wasn’t ready for before, but now that he’s in the problem space he can grok. He’ll make a good partner going forward.

Saturday was the Spacecats gig up at the Green Growler. It went amazingly well and was alot of fun. Thanksgiving weekend is a bit of a wildcard for playing in bars. Sometimes it’s dead because everyone is out of town or doing family things. Other times is packed because people are home visiting family and also want to go out and see their friends. This night the place was really packed, the most crowded I’d ever seen the place because it turned out thee was a group having an informal ten-year high school reunion. And everyone seemed to really dig the music. They’d come in, notice the band and start bobbing their heads or doing a little dance. We also had a good number of family and friends of the band, including a couple of the guys from my Wednesday group.

We did combination of straight-ahead jazz and more rock-funk oriented stuff, including eight songs off our record Los Gatos Del Cosmos, and a new song by Josh called Getaway Car. We also had our drummer’s wife Robyn sitting in on vocals. She’s sort of a theatre and show tunes type singer, but can do some standards and pop stuff. She’s really good. So we had her sit on on three songs each set, plus accompany the sax on the melody of Kamasi Washington’s Street Fighter Mas. Having a singer provided a different kind of energy that helped the overall package I’d say. We’ll probably ask her to sit in again.

The only downside is we were supposed didn’t have quite enough material to cover three hours. We ended up spending more time rehearsing with Robyn than I’d planned because we wanted her songs to sound good. We tried a good bunch of songs with her before we settled on the ones we chose, and there was just some getting to know one another musically and work out the arrangements. A few of her songs had rubato beginnings and endings and we had to get a feel for how to do that together as a group. This meant there were a few other new things that weren’t adequately rehearsed that we decided to skip. Ah well. We ended up closing the second set with an extended jam of John Coltrane’s Mr. P.C., which went over great, and did a short third set that included a couple repeats from the beginning of the night. No one in the audience seemed to mind, and the bar invited us back for another gig.

Sunday we finally had a day to sit at home and relax. The Bills game was on TV. The week before they defeated our arch-rivals the Kansas City Chiefs, which was great to see. This week they played the Forty-Niners, and it was a lake-effect snowstorm the whole game. Buffalo showed their cold weather prowess and won handily while SF totally fell apart, and the Bills clinched the AFC East championship. Woo-hoo!

On the Way Home

We finally got a weekend at home to relax. This week we passed a big deadline at work, the release of Permission Slip 3.0, delivered on time and without any major problems. I also finished re-architecting and deploying the key generation and storage mechanism for OSIRAA, the API compliance test tool for the Data Rights Protocol, after a long and deep debugging adventure, thus unblocking the road forward to testing. And, I submitted Plutonium Dirigible to get CDs made and put on streaming services, so that project is officially completed.

Last weekend we were traveling again, this time up to Buffalo. It was good to see Mum and Dad and talk about things. They are doing basically okay, very stoic, which I guess is not too surprising.

I also saw old friends Mark C. and Chris S. I hadn’t seen either of them in many years, although we used to be very close, so it was great to reconnect. Mark and Chris were the drummer and piano/synth player in Event Horizon, our prog jazz fusion band that was together for a number of years and was the vehicle for alot of musical growth. We were in several other bands together around that time, and both of them stood up at my wedding, which, by the way. was thirty years ago this week. Chris has a new wife and baby. Life has a way of moving in circles sometimes, and after many adventures they’re both back living in Kenmore, just a few blocks apart, in the neighborhood we all grew up in.

After that we went to visit Lizzy and Josh at their new apartment in North Buffalo, just a few block on the other side of Kenmore Avenue. They have a very nice place, and the main decorating them is legos galore. I always admired that neighborhood when was growing up, with it’s tree-lined avenues and well-kept Victorian houses; it’s good to see the neighborhood is still that way. They’re right near Hertel Avenue, with a district of restaurants and shops.

Back home Michelle is home from school visiting. The weather remains nice. It’s been a super pleasant autumn so far, with mainly warm and sunny weather and beginning to get cool at night. Haven’t really turned the heat on yet. Much better than last fall, when it rained pretty much every day. I’ve been continuing to do alot biking. This weekend I went twenty miles on the local rail trial. Hope to get a few more long rides in before it turns cold, and get up to thirty by the end of the season.

This week I’m trying to finish up some origami Flying Fish for OUSA’s holiday tree at American Museum of Natural History. I also have some ideas for a couple new models that I hope to complete for a convention coming up in November. So watch this space for that.

And the Wonder Will Set Me Free

This past weekend Jeannie and I went up to the greater Berne area, in the hills between Albany and the Catskills to visit Kathleen and the kids and participate in a benefit concert in Martin’s honor. We had to get up early Saturday so I could be there for rehearsal. I hadn’t used my rock keyboard setup in a while, so Friday night I plugged everything in and turned it all to make sure it still worked and sounded good, and if I still remembered my way around the controls of my synth. Then I tore it all down, figured out what to pack, and pre-loaded the car.

The rehearsal was at the East Berne Band’s drummer John’s house. He has a nice rehearsal space, set up a bit like mine in that you come in thru the garage and don’t have to go up or down any stairs. I’d met the guys in the band briefly once before, and had been texting and emailing them, so I felt pretty good about the situation. John sent me a list of tunes to learn a few weeks ago, then last week sent me a mostly different list. One thing that was for sure was that we’d be doing two of Martin’s original songs.

The band consists of John on drums and vocals, Dan on bass and vocals, Chris on guitar and backing vocals, Jim on keyboards in the summertime, and sometime vocalist Lorissa, who wasn’t at the practice. They’re all excellent musicians, who sound really good together, and the vibe was very relaxed and friendly. They’re very versatile and can handle everything from the E Street Band to Brittany Spears. We ran thru a good part of the setlist they’d given me, focusing alot of the time on Martin’s songs, which they asked me to sing. Everyone said I sound just like Martin. I guess that’s not far from the truth. I’ve been going over some old recordings we did together and can’t always tell who is singing what part. I was playing sax as well as keyboards and singing. I’ve been playing more and more on Martin’s old sax, a Selmer Mark VI tenor from the late 1950’s and really growing to love it.

After that I went back to Kathleen’s house and hung out with her and the kids. We’re trying to spend some time with them, be more of a presence and get to know them better individually. This time it was mostly Charlie and Abbie I was talking with, with Match interjecting now and then. I also seem to be their dog Gus’s new best friend, having played countless rounds of fetch with him. I spent some time talking with Kathleen’s father Charlie too. We went for a hike later in the afternoon in some nearby woods overlooking the escarpment and, at the furthest point out, offering a scenic view of Albany. Apparently it was one of Martin’s favorite hikes. Kathleen and Jeannie and I went out to dinner with John and his wife Linda, who had been raising alpacas for their wool. Abbie and Ellie and their cousin Bailey came too.

Next morning we spent more time with the kids. Jeannie taught Abbie how to fold Sonobe modules, a kind of geometric origami system that’s very popular. I helped organize some stuff in Martin’s studio. I found a notebook of some of his older songs. He never seemed to write down his chord progressions, but sometimes there were hand drawn tabs in the margins. He liked to explore patterns alot and figure out the names of the chords later. The concert was out at a brewery about a half hour from the house. I got there around 1:30 to set up. The stage was out at the edge of a big lawn behind the brewery, bordered by wildflowers all around. Out in front was a bunch of picnic tables and a shelter. A very nice scene. With four bands on the bill the stage was pretty full: two drum sets, three keyboard rigs, multiple guitar amps. The bass player Dan was in all four bands, so we pretty much front and center the whole time. The first two bands did a mixture of covers and originals, all very good. The overall vibe was a cross between the Grateful Dead and the Barenaked Ladies. I spent the time meeting and talking to alot of Martin’s friends. He definitely made an impact on people. Alot of people seemed to be part of extended family clans, like Martin and Kathleen. Also a whole networked scene of musicians. There was a food truck there that served dumplings. Very yummy.

The East Berne Band went on third, and we started with Lorissa singing, doing a bunch of songs which we hadn’t rehearsed and I didn’t know about. So they called out the key (sometimes) and I followed along by ear and watching the bass player’s fingers. I sang Martin’s songs, One of These Days and Making Miles, and both went well. I almost made it thru without breaking up, but then I looked out into the crowd and there was Jeannie and Kathleen crying. Still, overall a fun and joyous occasion. At the end of our set, a bunch of musicians from all the bands came on stage for an epic jam session to close out the day. Tons of fun. Lots of good feeling and healing energy. I hope they do it again sometime. Meanwhile we’ll be back up there to visit again before too long.

The Shade Songbook

I’ve been taking some solace in listening to Martin’s music. Martin left behind six or eight albums worth of songs in various stages of completion. In fact, we were were starting to work on album together, with me producing some of his newer original songs, and he’d been sending me material.

A couple of weeks ago I found on my hard drive a set of eighteen songs he wrote way back in the 80’s when he was first learning guitar. He recorded them on a little 4-track cassette recorder in the early 90’s with Kim playing drums and him doing everything else. I’d totally forgotten about alot of those songs. Now I’m learning them on guitar. I even bought a new guitar because I never had a good rock’n’roll electric guitar before.

https://zingman.com/music/victoryhearts/shadesongbook.html

Martin – Words

I lost my brother and lifelong best friend a week ago. There’s so much to process that I’m still not able to put my feelings into words very much. So I’ll share something Jeannie wrote.

…

I met Martin for the first time the same night I met John in late August 1987. It was my first night at UB and I met John at a dorm party. John took me around to meet some friends of his and I remember poking our heads into Martin and Dwayne’s room. They greeted us sitting at their computers which were set up side by side.

Dating John meant getting to know Martin. We drove to Toronto together with some friends to see Pink Floyd in the first few weeks I knew them. Martin was a fellow engineering freshman and our circles of friends crossed quite frequently and he became a friend of mine right from the start. I’ll never forget the first time I went to supper at the Szinger home on Curtis Parkway. I don’t remember exactly what type of stew John & Martin’s mum made but Martin nudged me and whispered something like, “You know we’re having squirrel tonight.”

Sometimes I would sit with him and Dwayne at dinner. I dubbed the experience “The Martin and Dwayne Diet” since they would find something gross and unappetizing about anything I put in my mouth. That was Martin with his endearingly odd sense of humor.

Martin greeted me with a big hug when I visited John during the summer after my first year at UB after I was away from Buffalo for over a month. It helped make me feel accepted into the family I would eventually become a part of.

As time went on Martin became a person who you knew could be relied upon. Years later, when my car broke down and I needed to move my brother out of the dorms at UB before Christmas, he helped me move all Denis’s stuff back to my apartment. There are stores about him stepping in

and helping people in his circle with things like re-writing resumes and helping with job searches. He wanted to make the world better for the people around him.

When things were dark for him two decades ago, it was tough. We sat with him and listened, and talked about where he was going. He didn’t sit long at the bottom of despair, and found ways to keep moving, finding something to reach for. He decided to run the Pikes Peak marathon. That gave him a goal to work through, a very important thing for him. I remember he called our house after he completed the Buffalo marathon that summer. John was out somewhere and I took the call and heard all about his experience. At that time he also doubled down his determination to work in the gaming industry and he sought solace in music by recording an album with John. They built matching home recording studios so they could work together remotely. He also found some local musicians and joined a band.

It was through that band that he met Kathleen.

It’s from here that many of you know how the story goes. We were happy he found someone who shared so many interests. We knew that when he decided he wanted a life with Kathleen he would bring the same dedication to her that he brought to everything he did. They started a family. They built a house. They had chickens, bees and cows. He was a wonderful father and uncle. His 4 children all hold his spirit each in their own unique way.

Martin was as brilliant, passionate, creative and as motivated a person as I have ever met. He did nothing halfway. John has been a major collaborator with him the whole time I have known him, especially these past 20 years as their music has filled our home.

For the last few years he collaborated with John on the “Global Jukebox” project. It was suited to both of them as it combined their programming skills with their love of music. John says that one of the greatest pleasures of this professional life was having the opportunity to work with Martin. I was a fly on the wall for many zoom calls that were a combination of fun brotherly comradery and deep technical knowledge.

Last time I saw Martin he came to our house for a barbecue with a few friends. A good time was had by all. John and Martin spent the next day biking and playing music together. As he left, he gave me a hug. The same hug from that summer long ago and same one I got countless times over 37 years.

I will miss you forever Martin.

Martin Szinger

Martin Szinger (54), of Westerlo, NY, passed away on Sunday, August 4, 2024 of a sudden and unexpected heart attack.

Martin attended Kenmore East High School where his passion for gaming began. He went on to attend the University at Buffalo, NY, where he received a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering. Martin worked as a software engineer by profession and loved his work in the video game industry.

He was also an accomplished musician and songwriter who played the guitar and saxophone, most as recently a proud member of the East Berne Band.

So many of the connections he made were through the things he loved most; hiking, camping, beekeeping, building, traveling, and, most of all, being a dad. Martin had a special relationship with his children and his world revolved around them.

His loving spirit is carried on by his wife Kathleen; his children Charles, Matthew, Abigail and Eleanor; parents Frank and Eva Szinger; brothers James (Una) Szinger and John (Jeannie) Szinger.

Zero to Sixty in Three Days

Adventure July continues. Jeannie and I just got back from a long weekend up in Buffalo, with a side trip to Canada. We drove up Thursday night after work. Listened to Sheryl Crow’s The Globe Sessions in the car, and early U2. Friday we had lunch with Larry and Jackie at a place called the New York Beer Project. Lovely stone and glass architecture, good food and brews. I learned there’s such a thing as an International Bitterness Unit. Wonder if applies to coffee, or people, or just beer.

Friday night we went to the wedding of friend Scott and his new bride Sue. She grew up on Tonawanda and went to my high school, and the church as right near where I grew up, although I’d never been in it before. The reception was at the old Wurlitzer factory in North Tonawanda, which was unused for many years, but now has a banquet party space in the tower. The whole thing was very nice. There were a few friends there with whom I’ve kept in touch with over the years, and a larger circle of people whom I haven’t seen since college and didn’t immediately recognize. A fun night of catching up. Congratulations Sue and Scott!

The next day we took it easy. I went for a walk around the lake with my Dad. Later in the day I went for a skate around the neighborhood on my rollerblades. I haven’t done any skating this summer, mainly since I’ve been doing a ton of biking, but my parents’ town is much flatter then mine so it was a good opportunity. I have an app now to do metrics, so I can say I did two laps of the neighborhood in 35 minutes, just under 5 miles. That’s about twice as fast as walking and half as fast as biking. Saturday night we went out to dinner with Lizzy and Josh, at a place on the Lake Erie with a view of the sunset. Fancy drinks, yummy seafood. The west coast of New York State.

Sunday we went with my parents up to Hagersville, Ontario, hometown of famous drummer Neil Peart of the rock band Rush, for the sixtieth wedding anniversary celebration for my Uncle Gabor and Aunt Mary, a backyard barbecue party. More good food and wine. Lots of family on my Mum’s side. My Uncle Ron and Aunt Emoke, and cousin Barb and her husband Al, such wonderful people I don’t get to see often enough. Their son Curtis just graduated from university this spring with a degree in biomedical engineering and is working as a field tech way up Sudbury. His girlfriend is studying computer graphics and animation. Curtis has my origami book and has folded most of the models. All my Mum’s cousins were there too. I haven’t seen most of them in many years, since my kids were little. Many are former tobacco farmers living all over central Ontario, and most of the rest are involved in professional motorcycle racing. Good to catch up and know that they’re all doing well.

Monday Jeannie and got on the road early, and on the way home stopped at Letchworth Park. It’s among the most scenic places in New York State, known as the Grand Canyon of the East because of it’s three famous waterfalls on the Genesee River. Again I hadn’t been there for many years but had visited many times when I was younger, so it was good to check it out and do some hiking. We stopped for lunch at a place called Big Dipper Barbecue off Route 17. It’s become one of our favorites. After so much traveling we have a few weeks off to unwind and get some things done at home before it’s time for the next adventure.

Jazz and the Mountains

Just got back from a nice vacation to the Montreal Jazz Festival and the Adirondack mountains. I feel like I’ve been in one long run of deep focus between work and music and other things, so it was a welcome break.

Jeannie and I drove up to Montreal on Monday, which also happened to be Canada day. We arrived mid-afternoon and our hotel was right downtown where the jazz fest was, so we just walked out into the street to enjoy things. The festival is centered around their big performing arts center call Place des Arts, which is on the level of Lincoln Center here in New York. The streets around it are closed to cars and become a big public party space with several outdoor concert stages, and lots of vendors for food, libations and merch. Several other clubs, bars, theaters and other venues host concerts as well. We found a Canadian Asian fusion place for dinner in view of one of the stages. I had a Bloody Ceaser with dinner because, when in Rome …

The main act that night was Robert Glasper, who is sort of a jazz-soul-hiphop crossover guy, somewhat comparable to Kamasi, except he sings and plays keyboards, and his band consists of him, a bass, drums and a DJ. The music was generally groovy and soulful, with some songs featuring modern and minimalist ideas juxtaposed against the main groove. The band were excellent improvisors, individual and collectively, going beyond just taking solos to build moods and structures and atmospheres. It was cool to see the DJ as an integral part of the sound too.

The next day we lounged around the hotel in the morning and got breakfast, then went for a big walk in the scenic downtown dominated by old stone buildings, and finally out to the waterfront. The weather was beautiful, sunny and not too hot. We checked out a science museum on a pier with lots of interactive hands-on exhibit. We got lunch at a cafe nearby: poutine, shrimp and avocado salad, and some Molsons. We bought some souvenirs including a stone sculpture of an Inukshuk in the shape of a human figure. If it can be carved from a single stone, it seems like it might also be a good subject for an origami model too.

That evening the big musical attraction was Joshua Redmond with a new group in one of the theaters in the Place des Arts. The band were excellent and featured a vocalist in addition to the rhythm section. She and Joshua on sax did really cool tight harmony sections together a few times. The theme of the new record they were touring for had to do with the concept place so most of the songs had the name of a place in the title, including some standards like a mashup of John Coltrane’s Alabama with Stars Fell on Alabama, and a surprising way-out jazz version of Hotel California. I’ve seen Joshua a few times at clubs in New York, but this performance was a whole ‘nuther level. There was also a really excellent light show in the theater, which enhanced the sound and mood alot.

After that we took more acts on the outdoor stages, including the Low Down Brass Band, whom we heard on our first trip to Montreal six years ago. Wow, how the time flies!

Next morning we took another walk around the city, looking for baked good to bring back to the States for our friends Mark and Kelly in the Adirondacks. I also picked up a nice-looking (and, it turned out, lovely-tasting) bottle of whiskey at the duty free shop. We arrived in the high peaks area mid-afternoon, and when for a hike at a place called High Falls Gorge on the Ausable River near Mount Whiteface.

The next day was the Fourth of July. Out main adventure in the morning was a bike ride up a rail trail from Saranac Lake to Lake Placid. It was twenty-two miles round trip, my best distance so far of the season, although we took a fairly leisurely pace, and stopped for a while at the turnaround point. This was Jeannie’s fifth or sixth big bike ride of the year. In the evening we went to a party hosted by Mark’s friend Cory, at a very nice summer cottage on a nearby lake. Cory happens to be a passionate cocktail mixologist, and has the best home-bar I’ve ever seen made in a former woodshed. He was very into mixing drinks for everyone using a whole array of bespoke elixirs, infusions, spirits and spices. Like a master chef for drinks. Huzzah!

Mark and I talked at length about improvisational music and the challenges of breaking out of genre boxes and other expectations to explore new frontiers. In addition to his main group Crackin’ Foxy, Mark has been exploring the world of looper jams using pedal and an electric guitar. He played me lots of interesting loop-based stuff from the classical world, including stuff featuring cello and clarinet.

After the party we headed back into to town to try and catch the fireworks show, but we were too late. We ended up at a local bar called the Watering Hole, which I hadn’t been to in many years, and used to be kinda run down but is now very nice indeed. They had a live band doing funk soul party music featuring a trombone player. Alot of fun.

Friday we went for a canoe ride on some nearby lakes. Not quite as epic as some canoe rides of seasons past, but we were out on the water for over two hours. That evening we drove out to a concert venue near Lake Champlain to see Nate Wood doing a project called Four. Nate is a one-man band and quite astounding. He plays drum with one hand and both feet, and also guitar or bass with his other hand (using mainly tap technique), all augmented with some keyboards played in interstitial free moments. The amazing thing is not just that he can do all this at once, but that it actually sounds musical and cool! The songs are basically structured improv jams with a sort of prog-rock-meets-jazz-fusion sound. My kind of weird!

Saturday we drove to a weekend of catching up on chores and things including doing yardwork in the ninety-degree heat. Jeannie and I did another bike ride Sunday morning. I did sixteen miles with an average pace of 14mph, a personal best for speed this season so far. Today Jeannie took off for an IT Admin conference in Pennsylvania; she’ll be back Friday.