New Song Preview: Bluezebub Bari Sax Demo

Autumn arrives. A week ago the kids were home visiting for the weekend, which was very nice. Michelle is doing well at college, having fun, making friends and enjoying her classes. Perhaps not surprisingly, she brought home a giant bag of laundry in lieu of luggage. Lizzy hung out with a bunch of her friends down here, and was good to see how they’re all doing too.

The weather has remained mostly mild, although we had a couple cool nights where we had to turn on the heat the next morning for a little bit. I’ve been resisting putting on the heat more than necessary, figuring this is a good time acclimatize myself to the cooler weather. Anyway we decided to take out the air conditioners this weekend, and then today got up close to 80 degrees.

Last Friday I got in a skate on my rollerblades, the third and maybe final time this season. Even though it’s been staying pretty warm, it’s getting dark earlier every day, which limits the time available to do things outside. Sunday I went for an epic bike ride thru the nature study woods, all the way to the far end and back. And I went up in weights in my workout like I’d planned. It’s been a a few weeks and feels good. So the next increase is in the offing.

I’ve been playing alot of bari sax recently. It’s been a while since the last time I took it out of the case, but I needed it for my new song Bluezebub. I spent a couple days practicing, getting my chops in shape on the horn, and then a couple sessions laying down the track. And it must say, it came out great. The horn has tone galore, and the action and intonation are better than I remember. Maybe cuz I’ve been playing more tenor then I used to before the plague times..

The bari is an old horn, a Conn 12M, which I brought from my brother years ago. He always considered it less than a pro-level horn, probably because Conn saxes were not particularly well regarded in the 1980s when we were students, and it is a big beast to manage. But I googled it, and the 12M is actually considered and all-time classic with a lineage dating back the 1930’s, the big sister of the legendary “Naked Lady” 8M tenor. The one I have was built in the 1960s, before production moved to Mexico, and has a giant fancy engraving on the bell that includes the words “Elkhart Indiana U.S.A.”. Everything about the horn, the pads and springs and all, are in great shape. My only real complaint this the thumbrest is not so comfortable. The mouthpiece is a hard rubber Otto Link btw, a great paring. So tone galore. And now it’s back in its case until next time I write a song with a baritone sax part. Unless maybe I can find a horn section band.

Meanwhile I really dig the way the bari part came out, so here’s a preview, without the other saxes and synthesizers, of the first half or so of the song. Enjoy!

https://zingman.com/music/mp3/bziv/Bluzebub27_bari_demo.mp3


What’s Going On

Things have been mellow lately. The kids are out of the house, and my main contract gig ended a little while back, so there’s less to do than usual while I line up a new gig. Last year at this time I was building a patio, but right now there’s no need for any big home improvement projects. We’re kinda in the middle of defragging the house, but that’s slow going. We’ve been thinking, mostly idly, about getting some new furniture. The world is still under a pandemic, so it’s not a great time for any epic travel adventures. We do have a few mini road trips coming up, but I’m hesitant to do anything that involves air travel nowadays.

I’ve bee updating my web site, including my online software projects portfolio (https://zingman.com/portfolio/). So far alot of it has been invisible, behind-the-scenes stuff, but there’s some new content too. More stuff is in the offing, so stay tuned for future updates.

Been working on the Global Jukebox (https://theglobaljukebox.org) too, and in fact we just did a push to live a couple weeks ago. There’s also another site for The Association for Cultural Equity called The Alan Lomax Digital Archive (https://archive.culturalequity.org/). The site is pretty much what the name implies with lots field recordings, films, radio shows, etc. plus a section of curated exhibits. The site is built in Drupal, and most of the work involves styling and skinning, plus a few UI widgets. The workflow is pretty convoluted, since the site is not under source control and there’s no dev instance nor any way to deploy a local version. A large part of the early phase of the project was setting up a pipeline were I could do chunks of work locally, rapidly deploy and test, and roll back if things didn’t look or behave as expected. Now things are pretty much humming along, but there’s gotchas at every turn.

Although the heat of summer is gone and suntanning season is over, the weather has remained quite mild and pleasant into mid-October. We’ve yet to turn on the heat or even take out the air conditioners, but the days are really getting shorter faster these days. I’ve been going for walks in the nearby field alot, and Jeannie and I even got in a good hike last weekend, up Mount Hook in the Palisades. I’ve also been biking about twice a week on average, once on the streets and once in the Nature Study Woods. I still want to get back on my rollerblades a third time before the end of the season. I went up in weights recently in me workout, and added back in tricep curls. I’m still 5 lbs. short of my goal for the year, and hope to go up one more time, but it gets harder when the weather turns cold, so I better do it soon.

In music, I’ve been working on a new song Bluezebub (The Devil You Don’t Know). This is the last song on my upcoming Computer Jazz record I’ve been working on since the start of the pandemic. It’s a sort of 60’s spy-jazz meets King Crimson vibe, in 5/4 time with a sort fugue-like riff structure for the first half, a crazy uptempo jam in the middle, and then an elaboration and recapitulation to end it all off. I have the whole arrangement worked out, and have tracked the drums, fender bass, synth bass, and fender rhodes piano, and have sketched midi tracks for the horns and lead synth. Yesterday I broke out my bari sax to attempt to lay down the part, only to realize that I better write it out first and practice it a few times, so that’s next.

I’ve been a bit of a Beatles phase lately, as I tend to do every few years. This time I created and printed out lead sheets for a whole bunch of their songs , as part of my ongoing songbook project. Most of the stuff from the first half of their career is to play on guitar. Turns out they’re mostly pretty easy and really fun to play, and full of little twists and tricks and tight arrangements. If only I knew someone who like to sing harmony. Their later songs are mainly to work up piano, with a focus on maximum psychedelia such as Strawberry Fields Forever and I Am the Walrus, plus some not-quite-rock Paul songs.

The jazz group is humming along, although I haven’t had any luck getting gigs, and admittedly I haven’t been trying very hard. Also keeping an eye out for the opportunity to form a new rock group, although there’s not much movement there either.

New Song: Lift Off

Here’s a pretty-close-to-finished mix of my song Lift Off. It’s the fifth of six songs on my forthcoming computer jazz album, and the most straight-ahead bebop number of the bunch.

https://zingman.com/music/mp3/bziv/LiftOff50.mp3


This song was originally developed for my pre-pandemic jazz group as a vehicle for some uptempo tenor sax shredding, inspired in part by John Coltrane’s Countdown and Steely Dan’s Bodhisattva. The changes are in the mode of standards like Have You Met Miss Jones? and A Foggy Day, but with a half-step modulation inside the ii-V’s, a streamlined version of the Giant Steps trick (i.e. ii-bii-bVi-V). It’s pretty challenging to solo over, but even with the constant modulation and implied dissonance, it’s pretty smooth to listen to.

Like other songs that I’ve previously played live, it’s hard to completely unwind the arrangement, so the live version was used as a starting point. It’s a tenor sax backed by a rhythm section of piano bass and drums. I introduced an organ in lieu of a guitar, and then the organ is sometimes doubled by a synth for emphasis.

There’s actually two bass parts. One is a bass guitar played fairly softly and EQ’d with much of the middle scooped out to make is sound more jazzier. The other is a synth bass, and the patch is layered with an organ to suggest the organ player is doing it with his left hand (which is actually true, I guess). They double for much of the song, but in the solos when it goes to a walking quarter note pattern the bass guitar just outlines the chords, and the synth takes over. I can’t walk on those changes on a bass guitar at 200 bpm!

I put alot of effort into the dynamics and the drums to make it swing. I’m using mainly sequenced drums here, again because of my limitations playing jazz drums at that tempo and doing it justice. So something resembling human feel and interaction was important. Alot of the song is carried on just the ride cymbal and hi-hat with the snare and kick drum doing accents. I practiced and developed a few patterns out of the bebop drumming book to really get what I wanted to program.

There’s a section where drums and sax are trading fours. I tried a few different ideas for this. I was inspired by Mahavishnu orchestra and their vocalized drum solos, and went with something kinda like that, but doubled on snare and toms and with a heavy flange effect. I think it sound cool and works pretty well.

Got a Drink in my Hand, Got my Toes in the Sand

We finished out our summer vacay this year with a trip to Ocean City, MD. We used to go there pretty much every year when the kids were little, but there’s been lots of other stuff to do the last few years, so it’s been a while. This is first time Jeannie and I went by ourselves. It was fun and relaxing, very mellow. We know the place pretty well and have a few favorites, also explored some new stuff. The weather was great the whole time and we were able to eat outdoors.

We drove up Friday afternoon. The drive was pretty relaxing, even though there was a good deal of traffic. We walked around Friday evening, dipped our toes in the ocean, and went to dinner at Mackie’s on the bay, one of our perennial favorites. Yummy frozen drinks and seafood dishes. Stopped by Anthony’s deli on the way back to the hotel. Saturday was a beautiful day and we lounged on the balcony taking in the ocean view over our morning coffee, then went swimming in the ocean for a good long while. In the late afternoon we walked down the boardwalk toward the amusement pier, stopping at Shenanigans, another favorite hangout, for drinks and snacks. The evening we went on a cruise around the harbor and out into the ocean along the beach and back, giving us wonderful views of the sunset. Afterwards was ate at Anglers place on the bay right downtown, very nice. Sunday we went out to Assateague Island and did a bunch of hikes, including the swamp walk and a dunes walk. We wanted to rent a canoe but it was too windy. We came back in the afternoon and went for a swim in the ocean, but it was too rough to stay out a long time. Ate dinner on the boardwalk at a place called the Taphouse, that had many kinds of beer. I had a huge burger with the works and an egg on top. Drove home Monday after breakfast at the Marlin Moon, in our old favorite hotel, just a couple blocks from our new hotel.

Now it’s back to school time, but there’s no kids to go back to school, so it’s more like getting our heads in gear to get stuff in the fall and to the end of the year. I’m looking forward to working more on music and origami, finishing my current computer jazz record and my third origami book, and possibly some new music and origami software development, in addition to the Global Jukebox and other consulting gigs. Also doing more hiking as the weather gets cool.

She’s Leaving Home

We just got back from another road trip. This one was up to Buffalo to drop Michelle off at college. Yep, she’s a freshman at SUNY at Buffalo, majoring in aerospace engineering. Jeannie and I are officially empty nesters.

The week before was a hectic one, full of Michelle packing and getting organized, and getting ready mentally for a big change in her life. She was mostly looking forward to it, but a little bit nervous too. Lizzy, on the other hand, was psyched to have her sister coming to town. Last Saturday and Sunday it rained all day, so we didn’t have a change to pre-load the car. Monday morning we got up early and the rain stopped just as we started to load in, so it all went pretty smoothly and everything fit.

Monday night Lizzy invited us to join her and her friends for trivia night at a local bar where they have a regular team, because I know all kinds of useless facts. I used to wonder about whether we’re turning into our parents, but she’s already turning into us. I recently asked her what new music I should listen to, and she said she’s listening to alot of classic rock these day cuz it’s always a topic for trivia. Anyway, it was a fun night and downtown Buffalo continues to be hip and trendy. We came in 3rd place, which is much better than they usually do, because I knew things like Alice Cooper’s real name, who the programming language PASCAL was named after, and the height of Mount Everest. We would have done better if they’d listened to Michelle when she correctly identified the Australian flag, instead of guessing New Zealand.

Tuesday we moved Michelle in. It went smoothly enough, except it was unusually hot the whole week we were up there, and her dorm does not have air conditioning. Her rooms is on the third floor, so it was alot of trips up and down the stairs. As we were moving in we met Michelle’s roommate and her family, who are from Long Island, and like Jeannie and me are UB graduates. After we unloaded everything we took Michelle shopping for all the stuff that we didn’t bring up with us. After that we went up to North Tonawanda to meet Lizzy at her work because Michelle was inheriting the fridge we bought for Lizzy when she lived in the dorms. Later that evening we all went out for dinner a burger place on Maple Road.

Wednesday Jeannie and I mostly hung around my parents’ house. We went for an epic walk in the morning, but by the time we returned it was already pretty hot. We had BLT sandwiches for lunch, with fresh tomatoes from their garden. It’s tomato and peaches season right now, and they’re having a bumper crop this year, so we ate lots of both every day. Brought some home too. Yum!

It seems like every time I go on vacation it aligns with a mini-crisis on the Global Jukebox, and this trip was no exception. There was a deadline with lots of last-minute design changes, so I ended up working that day and evening and doing a push to the live site the next morning. I had a chance to practice guitar too, and learned the Beatles song She’s Leaving Home, which Jeannie found very annoying for some reason.

Thursday I went rollerblading in the morning. My parents’ neighborhood is nice and flat, with smooth streets and very little traffic, so it’s perfect. I did two whole laps of the neighborhood, and found one street that was unusually smooth, so I went back and forth on it three times. In the afternoon we visited the Buffalo Museum of Science, which I had not been to for at least thirty years, and had been heavily remodeled. It made a big impression on me as a kid, and I was happy that my three favorite artifacts were still around: the skeletons of a triceratops and and allosaurus, and a giant globe with the ocean floors shown in relief, although they’d all been moved to different halls. There was also a hall of taxidemified animals and anthological stuff, like a mini version of the New York Museum of Natural History. Some of the upper floors were filled with newer, interactive learning exhibits, but it’s really the artifacts that interest me. Oh, and a Mastodon skeleton that I’d forgotten all about. Western New York is one of the world’s premiere sites for mastodon fossils, and, unlike Wooly Mammoths, they’ve never found a preserved specimen with its skin, so they don’t know if it was furry like a mammoth or bare like an elephant. They also had a pretty cool exhibit about the history of guitars, with lots of historic examples including centuries-old proto-guitars of various kinds, and lots of modern acoustic and electric examples.

That evening Jeannie and I took my parents, Lizzy, and Michelle to the Buffalo Hofbrau Haus, a big new biergarten right downtown, brought to you by the Munich Hofbrau brewing company. Lizzy had been there a few times before and thought my parents might enjoy it, since they were members of the local German club for years before it closed. Michelle was beginning to settle into her new situation, doing orientation stuff, making friends and all, although the weather was still unusually hot. The Hofbrau Haus was a good time, and pretty authentic, with live music featuring accordion, clarinet, cowbells, and lots of polkas. The food was Wiener schnitzel and bratwurst, and of course beer. It was alot of fun. Apparently the place gets pretty packed and raucous on the weekends.

Friday we had lunch with Larry and Jackie at a pub in Hamburg, and just talked for hours. What’s going on with all the kids, camping and bear stories, drumming, music, everything. Everyone is encouraging me to move back to Buffalo now, but Larry says the jazz scene is pretty small and there aren’t alot of really good players. It got me thinking about my old musician friends from the area, if any of them are still around and into prog rock.

Friday night was the King Crimson concert, the reason we stuck around a couple extra days. They’d played SPAC in Saratoga near Albany on Monday. Martin saw them there, and so did Mark from the Adirondacks. They played Bethel Woods near Yasgur’s farm on Wednesday, but at the time we were planning our trip we expected Wednesday to be move-in day for Michelle, so that wouldn’t have worked either. Anyway it turned out be a the right move. The venue was Artpark, which is semi-open theatre with lawn seating behind it, right on the shores of the Niagara River, between the Falls and Lake Ontario. I think the last show I saw there was Monsters of Jazz featuring Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Jack DeJohnnette and (I think) Dave Holland in 1991 or so.

Unbeknownst to us until the day of the show, they’d closed the theater for the pandemic and built a new, smaller, all-outdoor venue on a hillside next to it, so we had to borrow some lawn chairs from my parents. It turned out to be a beautiful scene, a perfect summer evening with a view of the river, and idyllic ambient music of gamalan-like chimes and tones and the sweet smell of reefer wafting in the air as the venue filled up. We found a spot and Jeannie mentioned that there may well be someone we know was at the concert. A minute or so later I heard someone calling my name out of the blue.

It was my old friend Joe Q. At first I didn’t recognize him; it’s been twenty-nine years since I’d last seen Joe and he doesn’t look the same. But then I heard his laugh and it all came back to me. Joe was the bass player in the Cheshire Cat, probably the best band back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, when there was an incredible amount of talent on the local music scene. I fist met Joe when I was in tenth or eleventh grade, as part of the combined Kenmore East and West High Schools marching band, formed for the purpose of playing Buffalo Bills halftime shows, where we were both in the sax section. After high school, Joe and I were in a couple of bands together including Tafari, a mostly-reggae-with-some-Steely-Dan band with a horn section. I played the solo for Home at Last on the EWI. That band had half of Kenmore in it. Amazingly Joe is still playing music for a living. Rock on!

A few other people from Kenmore were three too. One was Mike M., the guitarist from Cheshire Cat. Apparently he got a bunch of free tickets because he and the drummer from the opening band were friends from Berklee School of Music. Another was Pete D., who was guitarist for the Automatic Man. Automatic Man were a jazz fusion band with Mike, Pat O. on drums, Jim W. on bass and myself on sax. We played every Monday night at Broadway Joe’s for about two years, unless there was a Bills game, and this group begat The Purple Connection which played every Sunday at the Inn on the River in North Tonawanda in the summertime. We did alot Mike Stern and Jeff Beck type stuff, plus the entire second side of the Abbey Road as an instrumental, although often the crowd would sing along to Carry That Weight.

Anyway, Pete was an excellent guitarist, one of the best in Buffalo. About halfway thru our stint he left the band and moved to New York City to try and make it on the music scene here. I moved to to NYC less than a year after that, and tried to find him but never connected. He told me he eventually returned to Bflo and hasn’t played guitar in many years. I thought that was too bad, since he was so good, so I told him about how I took a bunch of years of playing when my kids were little, but I’m really glad I returned to music. Then the show started, so our conversation was cut short.

The opening act was The Zappa Band. I’m not sure what connection they have to FZ, but they were at the least a flawless tribute band, possibly with some alumni from his groups. I thought I knew alot of Zappa songs, but I only recognized about a third of what they played.

King Crimson themselves were amazing. It’s the seven-headed monster lineup with three drummers in the front line, and back row consisting of Mel Collins on saxes, Tony Levin on bass and stick, Jacko on vocals and guitar, and Fripp on guitar and mellotron. It was pretty much the same act as four of five years ago when I last saw them: three songs off the first album, three off of Red, and smattering of songs from all the records in between, plus some later stuff too, and some epic drum solos. All very well done of course, often going well beyond what was on the original record, especially the stuff from the interregnum period. There were moments when the complexity of the various interlocking polyrhythms was just staggering. And I think the best Tony Levin is when he’s channeling Greg Lake.

Afterwards we went up the falls and walked around. Now we’re back home, making plans in our empty nest, hoping Michelle is doing well.

Life in a Northern Town

We just got back from a fun road trip, another mini-vacation. This time we went north instead of south, to the town of Saranac Lake, to visit our friends Mark and Kelly. Although we’ve been up to the Adirondacks plenty of times, we haven’t been up since before the pandemic, so it was great to see our friends and catch up. This trip was also a first in that Michelle stayed home cuz she had to work.

We drove up Friday night after work. It was a pretty easy and mellow drive, although the number of blatantly reckless drivers, as well as obnoxiously blaring extra-bright headlights, has definitely increased over the last few years. Still, that all tapered off as we got away from New York City. Once we arrived, we all stayed up late into the night talking.

Saturday we went hiking. In the morning we went up Mt. Baker, and in the afternoon some mellow walking around some ponds and lakes. Later got some local soft-serve ice cream, went out to dinner, then back to Mark’s place to build a fire and more hanging out. It’s interesting to see how the town has changed since last time we were up there. Some places have gone out of business, and some new ones have opened up.

Sunday we went for an epic canoe ride. Jeannie and I rented a canoe from a place right on the waterfront, a really nice kevlar boat, very light and fast. Mark has his own one-man canoe. The trip was about six hours, through a series of lakes and channels, and even a lock. It was a perfect day, warm and sunny, but not too hot, with very little wind. The journey was very scenic, with some shores dotted with cottages, others full of woods or swamps, all with the mountains in the background. We saw a couple of loons close up – surprisingly large birds – as well as a great blue heron, a bald eagle, and lots of other wildlife.

On the way, Jeannie accidentally capsized our canoe. We were crossing thru the wake of a motorboat, and as we rocked back and forth, she leaned too far the wrong way. When the boat rocked back the other way she was off balance and fell out, tipping the whole thing. We got wet, but it was a warm day, and our stuff was in a dry pack, so no real problem. We pushed the boat to a shallow spot near the shore, poured out the water in the bottom and were on our way. Believe or not, this is first time in 30 years of canoeing together that either one of us has tipped a boat.

Our destination was an island with a picnic area, where we had our lunch. The whole lake (and the greater area) is full of campsites and day use spots. We sunned ourselves on a rock and dried out or stuff for a while, then headed back. The way back was easier cuz it was downstream, but we were starting to get tired, and it didn’t help that a headwind came up as we were crossing a couple long expanses of deep, open water. That night we all went to bed early cuz we were tired from rowing all day.

Monday we drove home, stopping for lunch at Lake George, where they have some restaurants with patios looking over the lake, and watched the scene. Very nice. I bought some new sunglasses, since I lost my old ones when our canue capsized. When we got home, Michelle was waiting to greet us with freshly baked cupcakes.

On with the Show

Another low key fun summer week. Jeannie and I went to the beach Saturday morning. I can’t remember the last time I got out to the beach more than once in a summer, so that was really nice. The waves and weather were quite moderate.

Sunday I took a bike ride in the local Nature Study Woods, and it started raining when I was out there. I didn’t notice it much under the trees, but got totally soaked the last few block coming home.

Saturday night we went out to see my friend’s band at a sort of street fest up in Hastings. It was the first time we we’ve gone out on a Saturday night in a long time. The scene was pretty empty, but at least there was a restaurant across the street where we could sit and have a drink while we listened. The group was a jazz quartet led by Erik P. from my old group Haven street. This was actually first live music I’d seen since my last gig before the pandemic, on February 28 of 2020. The group also featured Rich P. from my old group on piano, and Rich W. on alto sax. Rich W. is a friend who sits in from time to time in the Wednesday jazz circle, and is one of the best sax players I know. I used to think he was way better then me, but I’ve leveled up a couple times over the last few years, so it’s probably pretty close now. Anyway, an inspiring musician. A standup bass completed the lineup. The sound was traditional acoustic jazz, alot of it out of the real book, very well done, with well honed arrangements. Only problem with a group led by a drummer is every second song has a drum solo. 🙂

Before the gig I was feeling a little down, remembering how the old group broke up abruptly, and lamenting that my new group got off the ground too late to get any gigs this summer. Ah well, so it goes. The fault line in the old group was pretty much that Erik and Rich wanted to do more traditional jazz, and Gary and I were writing originals and exploring new sounds. My new group has electric bass and synthesizers, and funk fusion in the mix, and it lets me push my writing in the direction. Meanwhile they’re doing their thing and everyone is happy. Anyway it was great to see those guys and catch up, and shocking to realize it’s been a year and a half.

Lots going on with work, and hardware and software updates to support mobile dev and deploy. More on that in another post.

Let’s Go to the Mall

Just got back from a mini-vacation down to Washington, D.C. At one point we were planning on going to Ohio for the Centerfold origami convention, but those plans fell thru. Last time we were out in Ohio, six years ago, we stopped by the National Air Force Museum in Dayton, which is pretty cool to see. Michelle asked if we could we go see the Air and Space Museum instead, since we haven’t been there in even longer. Seeing as she’s going off to college for aerospace engineering in a few weeks, and this kind of trip is what inspired her in the first place, we all thought it was a good idea.

Of course with the resurgence of the pandemic things aren’t quite back to normal yet. The Smithsonian is just opening back up, and large parts are under renovation, and they’re only letting in a limited number of people at at time, and of course you have to wear a mask. And yet again we struck out trying to get tickets to go up into the Washington Monument.

Our first stop was the Udvar-Hazy annex to the Air and Space Museum, out at Dulles Airport. This is fact much larger than the main Air and Space Museum and features some of the most famous aircraft and spacecraft of all time, including a Space Shuttle, a Blackbird, a Concorde, and the Enola Gay. There’s tons of other stuff too, from all eras of flight going back over 100 years, balloon craft, gliders, commercial, military and experimental aircraft, paraphernalia, engines, etc.

Since we drove out that morning, that was the only stop for the day. In the evening we met up with my friend John M., who lives nearby and had dinner. John is an origami artist, so it was a little like having our own min-convention. Our hotel was in Silver Springs, which is cute little urban dot in the middle of the suburbs, kinda like White Plains but with friendlier architecture and street life.

Next day we took the train into the Mall. It was a beautiful day for walking around, and we did plenty of it. Our first stop was the American History Museum. A good chunk of it was closed for renovation, particularly the cultural stuff, but there was a gallery of inaugural gowns from all the first ladies, and a collection of jazz musical instruments. We spent most of our time in the transportation section, which goes from sailing ships and horse-drawn wagons thru steam locomotives and of course automobiles.

The line for the Natural History Museum was around the block, so we skipped that and went on the National Art Gallery. Spent most of our time looking at sculptures, and paintings by Rembrandt, El Greco, and others. The last stop was the National Air and Space Museum in the mall. This of course has the Apollo 11 command module, a Lunar Lander, the Spirit of St. Louis, among others. The hall had just reopened, and more than half of it is under renovation, so it was a pretty quick visit. I was reminiscing about the first time I visited that museum as a kid, with my parents and brothers, only a month or so after it first opened in the summer of 1976. We all thought it was to coolest thing ever; I’d never imagined anything like it. Now space exploration seems to have largely fallen out of fashion, even as private space travel is becoming a real thing. Strange.

That evening we met up with John again, at a Mexican restaurant near or hotel with a large patio area like a beer garden. The food was great and after dinner John and I stayed talking late into the night. As always, he has alot of fascinating new origami stuff. He has some really innovative snakes with strips and some new polyhedra. John has gotten into making books styles as “symphonies”, with four movements, each a set or related models on a theme. This latest one, his Fifth Symphony, has tropical fish, tropical birds, some tetrahedron- and octahedron-based single-sheet polyhedra, and the last movement is complex sea creatures such as a crab, squid and nautilus. John is also to music and playing piano, so we had alot to catch up on.

Everything You Did

Summertime is going by fast. We had wanted to go the the beach this weekend, but Saturday when we woke up Jeannie and were both really tired from the work week, and decided to bag it. I ended up doing a ton a yardwork on Saturday, trimming hedges and my neighbor’s willow tree that hangs into my yard. Then Sunday we woke up and we were all ready but it was cold and rainy. Last night we had a fairly epic torrential downpour. So yesterday I had some found time, and I decided to get on my skates for the first time this season. My street used to be really bumpy and then one day the paved it and it was really smooth, perfect for rollerblading. But that was many years ago now it’s all bumpy again, as are many streets in the ‘hood. Plus there are alot of hills, and the busy streets with traffic lights all tend to be at the bottom of the hills. So the quest has been on for some time to find better skating territory nearby.

Last summer I found a local street, a dead-end behind the fire station and local playground, which is nice and smooth. It’s only a block a way, but to get there you have to cross a busy street with traffic, a pretty good downward slope, and some rough pavement, all in all not great for skating. This time I decided just to walk down to the playground and put on my skates there. Turned out to be a great move. The street itself is a good long block, about a half a kilometer long, smooth pavement and a gentle grade down the way out and up on the way back. You can go as slow or fast as you want in the downward direction and stay in control, and back up is not too steep but long enough to make it a good climb. I did four round trips, which is just about four kilometers. Next time I’ll see if I can go five.

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One of my little projects during the pandemic was to organize the lead sheets for hundreds of songs I’ve printed out to learn, mainly to play in rock bands, over the last few years. I compiled them all into a tree-ring binder and began working my thru them around Xmastime, practicing three to five every time I played piano. Mostly these are songs I can sing and accompany myself on piano, and they sound good like that. The idea is to work up a large repertoire, and keep the songs in rotation enough to get to know them, kinda like your knowledge of jazz standards builds up over years of playing out of the real book.

Of course the songbook is somewhat idiosyncratic to my taste, but hopefully with broad appeal. Some songs were more interesting to play and I got into it a little deeper, working on voicings and arrangements, coming back to them for several practices. Others I played once and moved on, or skipped entirely, and some I ripped out of the book because if I never play them again it will still be too soon. And, some it turns out, are better suited for guitar. And along the way I noted a bunch of songs I know and want to add to the book.

So I just hit then end of the book and started again at the top. It took a little over six months. This time thru I’ll be pulling out the guitar songs and put them in a different notebook, and add in the missing songs as I get to them (alphabetically by group, although maybe I should alphabetically by song to break up big blocks of songs by groups like The Beatles or Steely Dan.) Hopefully the thing will evolve of time to be better and better.

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I had a fun little side project at work this week. My company makes a little electric musical instrument called the Orba, and we’re putting together a “vinyl” (apparently that’s what the kids these are calling a record album) featuring songs played on the Orba and using tones from the Orba. One side is music from fans and customers, and the other is form people at the company. So they asked anyone who wanted to to contribute a piece, with a focus on an ambient vibe. I must it was fun and interesting. The Orba is a flexible and powerful instrument, with drum, bass, lead, chord and looping capability, but it’s pretty different from anything else you might have played. I’ve fooled around with mine a bunch but never really got deep in trying to express anything specific or master much technique. So this was a good opportunity for that. I came up with something called Orba Jam Five, mainly because it’s in 5/8 time and made up of five-bar phrases. I copped this idea from a song I’m currently recording called Bluezebub (The Devil You Don’t Know). But other than sharing a click track the Orba Jam is completely different. Anyway, here it is, enjoy!

The Man with the Horn

I had to put my old horn in the shop. It got knocked over at a gig a while back and the main tube was bent. It’s an old Selmer Mark VII tenor from the early 1970’s, a pure classic and in excellent shape, the damage notwithstanding. Around that time I acquired a used (but much, much newer) Selmer Reference 54, and that became my main horn. But the time had come to get the old horn back in shape.

My new repair guy is Chuck Pomeroy and he’s out in New Milford, Connecticut, famous for it’s new milfs. Chuck was recommended to me by Rich, the alto player in my Wednesday group, and Charlie Lagond, the owner of the studio where we rehearse. Charlie has on old Selmer Balanced Action tenor from the 1930’s, the first modern designed horn, almost ninety years old, virtually priceless. He got it completely rebuilt, and Chuck did the work. New silver plating and everything. It’s totally beautiful, totally amazing. So I was inspired to get off my lazy ass and get my own vintage Selmer fixed up.

Chuck, as it turns out, is a really nice guy, and not too surprisingly really into saxophones. He’s also an excellent guitar player in the Joe Pass style. We, uh, talked shop for a little while, after I told him used to work repairing saxes and other band instruments when I was a teenager. I learned the basics and turned around the school rentals at my local music store. I can spot a leak, replace a pad or cork or piece of felt, and that kind of thing, and have generally maintained my own horns. But there’s lots more advanced work I never touched. Like, for example, straightening out a bent body.

So Chuck showed me some amazing vintage horns he was working on, including a very old curved soprano. And he had pics of Charlie’s horn all taken apart. He told me an amazing thing, that this is the second time he’s rebuilt that horn. The first time was in the 1970’s almost 50 years ago!

Anyway, a few days went by and I drove back to New Milford to pick up my horn. In addition to straightening it out, he put new pads and corks on pretty much the whole upper stack, and replaced a few choice pads on the big low notes around the bow too. I gave the horn a quick toot, thanked him and was on my way. I must say, he gave me a great price for all that work. In fact, it was so low he asked me not the tell anyone how much he charged me!

After that I drove upstate to visit my brother Martin. I hadn’t been up to his place in almost a year, and it was great to see him. He has a new pool but right around the time we started talking about taking a swim, the weather turned cloudy and soon it was pouring rain. Anyway it was a great hang. We talked music and played a really fun board game called Labyrinth. His kids are all very smart and good-natured, with a sharp sense of humor. Lots of fun. Drove home in a rainstorm, which was … let’s say it was an adventure.

So this week I played my horn at the rehearsal band Wednesday and with my own group on Thursday. And, wow! Not only did Chuck fix it, but it plays better than ever. The action is adjusted, and everything is tight, and it’s literally faster. You can blow softly and easily and get a huge sound, and especially on the low notes. And the tone! The sound is a bit less edgy than my 54, especially in the upper register, but overall more focused, with a particular warmth in the lower register. One of the songs we did Wednesday was ‘Round Midnight, and well, let’s just say I’m gonna use this as my main horn for a little while.

Now that I have two excellent working tenor saxes, I think I should get a second mouthpiece so I can have one for each horn. My current main mouthpiece is a Dukoff D9, a big bore metal for a huge, edgy tone good for rock or jazz. Think Clarence Clemons meets John Coltrane. I’ve also played am Otto Link, Berg Larson and some others. I wonder what the cool kids are playing these days. Someone at my studio mentioned a Jodi Jazz. Might check that one out.

Meanwhile my Thursday quartet continues to improve, both expanding and focusing our sound. I’ve started to reach out to some local jazz joints to try and get a gig, although we’re probably too late for the summer, and once the weather gets cold it’s not clear if these places will be able to continue doing music indoors. In any event, we’re working up some of our set to the point where we can record a rehearsal and have a really good performance. Tonight I was fooling around on some blues riffs between songs, and this led to a spontaneous rendition of Led Zeppelin’s Moby Dick, played in a funk jazz style reminiscent of The Dream of the Blue Turtles. It was really cool, and instantly became part of our repertoire.