Can’t Get No Fancy Notes on My Blue Guitar

Tonight’s gig at the street fair was rained out. Ah well. On the upside I have some unexpected free time, so here’s an update to my blog.

I picked up a new guitar not too long ago. This has been on my list for a long time but the stars never aligned. Every few month’s I’d go to the music store to see what they had but I never found one that felt right. I mainly play acoustic guitar, strictly rhythm, to accompany myself singing. I’ve written a few songs on guitar and I want to use it more in my recording.

I have a Strat that Martin lent me a long time ago but I could never really get the sound I was after. I wanted something with dual humbuckers, so I was looking at Les Pauls for a while, and finally figured I’d check out some hollowbody and semi-hollowbody guitars. I found a few new but I’m not such a good guitarist that it’s worth spending huge money, and there’s no point in getting a cheap guitar. So the strategy was to wait until the right used one went by.

This one was for sale at my rehearsal studio, in new condition and at less than half the original price, and right in my zone. It’s a hollowbody with the right pickups, an Epiphone Joe Pass signature model. It’s made in Korea, basically a knockoff of a Gibson (alot like the Chuck Berry one at the museum) that costs ten times the price, but you know, a well built instrument and a good value. It sounds great even unplugged, with excellent sustain and a smooth rich tone. The feel of the neck is great too, much more facile than any of my other guitars.

Gary was with me when I bought it and declared it an excellent jazz guitar (he’s a huge Joe Pass fan). Erik, the studio manager says there are two kinds of players who like a guitar like that: jazz guys, and punk/surf guys who crank it up and prize it for it’s nasty feedback. So perfect for me.

I came home and plugged it into my amp. Playing guitar thru an amp is the big missing piece in my sound, and it’s another thing you have to get used to. My amp is a Roland JC-120 which I use mainly as a keyboard amp since it has that built-in chorus and warm distortion, great for thickening up Fender Rhodes and organ sounds on stage. But it’s really made for guitars and pairs particularly well with a jazz guitar. Woah, totally awesome! So now I’m getting used to it and exploring the range of tones between smooth and chunky.

Next step is to hook it up to some effects. A long time ago Martin also lent me a Zoom multi-effects box, but for the life of me I can’t find it. Ah well, the main application is studio recording, and my method has always been to apply the effects in software. That’s still and option. I can come direct out of the guitar or out of the amp and it ought to sound better than before. But I’m unlikely to fire up my computer just to practice, and it’d be good to get together a bag of tones that I know and can use in various writing and arranging situations. So I might end up getting a new FX box anyway. But not until at least sometime in July.

Jazz at the Lodge and Rockin’ in the Street

Once again there’s so much going on. I bought a new guitar recently and have been getting to know it. Working on recording a new song Sun of the Son; up to the bass part now. The annual origami convention is coming up and I been working on designing new models, and I diagrammed my Flying Fish. Been jamming a ton of new work on the Global Jukebox. I got a new radiator for my Mustang, and washed and waxed it too. Been planning a trip to Europe and learning two new languages, and while I’m at researching Hungarian linguistics, mythology and ancient history. And of course my my day job: just finished a major milestone, now back in bug fixing mode. And there’s been lots and lots of rain. So there’s lots of things to write about for this blog, if I could, uh, find the time.

For tonight the topic is music. The Haven Street Jazz gig last Saturday night at the Elks Lodge in Ossining went really well. It turns out there’s a pretty cool little scene there, a concert series called Jazz at the Lodge. The guy who runs it is named John Codman, and he’s an Elk and huge jazz fan. He’s put together a room in the back with tables like a little jazz club, and has local jazz groups like ours come in and play. Up front they have a bar and food. He’s promoting it and selling tickets and making it into a thing. All in all it’s very cool and groovy and he made us feel very welcome.

The gig itself went quite well. The set list was:

Bye-Ya (T. Monk)
Buzzy Blue (J. Szinger)
Un Gato Gordo (R. Paganello)
Fever Dream (J. Militscher)
Nana’s Song G. (Bruce)
Lift Off (J. Szinger)
Close the Distance (G. Bruce)
Oleo (S. Rollins)

D-Bop (G. Bruce)
Mobility (J. Szinger)
Samba Astor (G. Bruce)
West Coast Blues (W. Montgomery)
King’s Hex (J. Szinger)
A Minor Event (G. Bruce)
All the Things You Are (J. Kern)

A couple of the songs sped up a bit, and there were a few minor clams, but overall the band was really on and having fun, and the audience was digging it. In particular I played a really good solo on West Coast Blues. I also have been woodshedding Lift Off, which is a real mofo to play at tempo (I know, I wrote it), which paid off in the melody being good and tight.

My next gig is with the rock band G Force, at the St Teresa’s Street Fair in the Bronx, this Thursday. For this gig our regular bass player Ken couldn’t make it, so we had to get a sub. For our last gig we were also sans Ken, so Vinny our guitarist played bass, and we brought in his friend Eddie on guitar. Vinny is a good bassist but not at Ken’s level, and Eddy is good but didn’t really know the tunes. Between having two subs and Adrian still learning the set on the drums, it was not our best gig. Which was too bad too cuz it was a nice venue, a bar on City Island with an octopus motif. One of the drunks there really loved the saxophone.

After that I had to insist we can’t do gigs anymore with two subs, at least not until Adrian can hold it together if there’s someone else who doesn’t know what’s going on. So this time we got my friend Jay from the jazz group to sit in on bass. We did a rehearsal last night and went really well. I’d never really heard Jay on electric bass doing rock, but he’s just great. And he memorized 30 songs in a week and a half. We were all very impressed. So all systems go for the Fest.

Unfortunately it’s an outdoor gig and it looks like it may be rained out. Ah well, we have two gigs coming up after that on June 28 and 29. So stay tuned for more.

Haven Street – Jazz at the Lodge

The weather has gotten really nice the last couple weeks. Most days are sunny in the mid 70’s and into the 80’s. Our flowering tree is in bloom. Still very busy, lots of things in motion. More updates soon.

Right now I’m just here to say my jazz group Haven Street has a gig coming up. Saturday June 15 at The Lodge in Ossining. 8 o’clock start time. Should be lots of fun, so come check it out.

Nice Weather If You’re a Duck

Spring progresses, the dude abides. It’s been unusually cold and rainy the last few weeks. Haven’t had 24 hours without rain since sometime last month. It’s pouring down again right now. We had one nice day last weekend and I did manage to get some yardwork in and take the Mustang for a drive. I ordered a new battery for my lawnmower and a mini chainsaw on a stick to take care of some high branches from a neighbor’s tree that’s been been growing into our yard. I also marked out the territory to expand my patio. Yesterday the guy came to hook up the transfer box for a generator to our house electric. This was the last piece of the solar power project. Glad to have that done with so we can move on to other things.

Michelle’s had a birthday. Rather than doing a big sweet sixteen party like her sister, she opted for Jeannie and I taking her for an evening out with a few friends. It’s interesting to see her interacting with her school friends. I hadn’t met them before but they seem like very nice kids, smart and sharp and fun. Plotting their takeover of the robotics team next fall. Now she’s taking her AP exams and Lizzy is already done with school and home for the summer. My how the time flies.

We had a jazz gig last weekend at the Green Growler in Croton. It’s a fun and cozy venue and the people there are into this kind of music. We had a couple guests sit in for a few standards at the end of each set. Ben on trumpet and Lisa on flute, friends of the drummer and the guitarist. Musically the band keeps getting better. I have some video clips which I’ll post soon. Gina from the rock band came out to see us, which I appreciate. She and Jeannie were talking loudly the whole time right in front of the camcorder. Ah well, we have another jazz gig coming up in a few weeks. Nice that the group is gigging out.

We had a gig with the rock band a couple weeks ago too. This was our first gig with the new drummer Adrian, and the first gig with my new keyboard. Unfortunately, it was a large place and not alot of people turned out. Also we’ve been adding more dance tunes lately and I think this place was more of a rock crowd. Gonna hafta swing back in that direction for the next batch of new songs. And since the drummer was still learning the set we had problems with tempos and with dead time between songs. On the plus side the new keyboard has lots of great sounds and I’m learning my way around it. Ah well, no time for adding new material just yet. We’ve been drilling on the fundamentals so the next show should be stronger. Coming this Saturday at Victor’s in Hawthorne, which a place we know well. Should be a good time.

Bunny Hop and Duck Walk

Happy Easter everyone! Been busy as usual. Lots going on. Busy at work writing lots and lots of code. April came and is almost gone in a flash. Spring is here.

We didn’t have much of a spring break this year, just a couple days off. Lizzy came home for a long weekend, and we all went out to Queens for Easter Sunday with the family. Mary’s were there and Denis and his whole family were in town too. Very nice time.

Today we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I haven’t been there in four years and they had a special exhibit on rock’n’ roll musical instruments. Very cool. The first thing you see is Chuck Berry’s guitar from Johnny B. Goode. A couple rooms later you’re in a room with Jimmy Page’s Les Paul that he used on all the Led Zeppelin songs, Jimi Hendrix’s Flying V, and Eddie Van Halen’s original Frankenstrat. A couple rooms after that it’s Keith Emerson’s live rig with the Hammond organs complete with knives stuck in the keys, and his original monster Moog. I’d seen that rig close up once before when I saw Keith Emerson Band and you could go up to stage at intermission. It’s nice to see it even more up close and check out all the customization. Lot and lots of other famous historical instruments: Clarence Cleomon’s sax, the Born to Run semi-Telecaster, the synth and echoplex used on Fly Like and Eagle, a mellotron, the Stairway to Heaven Gibson doublenck, the Theremin from Whole Lotta Love, Ringo’s drums and George’s 12-string Rick, and on and on. So many iconic instruments I recognized. Totally amazing.

While we were there we took in a bunch of other halls of the museum, including the historical musical instruments collection, the arms and armor, the Greco Roman, Mid-Eastern and East Asian art, and even a bit of modern and classical paintings. Lots and lots of cool stuff. Good to take a break from the day-to-day and expand your consciousness and creativity a bit.

With my little rock band it’s all drama these days. After one rehearsal our new drummer decided not to join after all, and so we had to arrange another round of auditions in a hurry. We got a new new drummer now, Adrian, who seems like a nice guy and is a very good player. Which is a good thing, because we have one more rehearsal before the start of a string of ten or so gigs that run thru July. The first one is at Rudy’s in Hartsdale on Friday night, May 3. So come out if you can.

We have a few jazz gigs coming up too. The first is Saturday May 10 at the Green Growler in Croton, and it should be really good. We’ll be debuting three new originals.

A couple weeks ago I went to the music store to get new reeds, and while I was there I picked up a copy of the John Coltrane Omnibook. If you’re a sax player you know the original Charlie Parker Omnibook is an all-time classic music text; it’s a transcription of lot and lots of Charlie Parker solos. I studied in high school, it took maybe two years to work my thru from start to finish. Now they’ve expanded the series and made a bunch of books out of the solos of a bunch of great players.

Compared to Bird, Trane’s work is just astoundingly diverse in terms of mood, style and what kind of ideas he was into with harmonic development at any given time. The book is also about twice as thick as Bird’s. Still a common thread runs thru it all from his early bluesy stuff, his work with Miles, the sheets of sound era and the later, really out-there stuff.

There’s something really magical about sight reading. The first song in the book is Acknowledgment, the opening movement to A Love Supreme, which is basically a concept album built out of a 3-note riff. It’s a record I’ve listened to a million times but never tried to figure out by ear. So it was really something to read it down and let it flow thru you, straight from your eyes to your fingers without much mind in between, just being a channel. Then it comes back to you thru your ears and it hits you; you’re just floored hearing the whole thing exactly as is sounds. I never knew I could play that! You can look at it and all his secrets are right there. And then with a bit of practice you can pick them out and work them into your playing. Which is nice because as I said we have a few jazz gigs coming up, and will be heading into the studio sometime soon.

Here Comes the Sun Machine

It looks like spring is finally arriving in earnest. Everything feels warmer and coming alive. The big news here is we got solar panels installed on our new roof. The company that did the work was Apex, and I must say they did a great job. Like the roof they came and installed everything in one day. Of course before all that they spec’d the system and did the engineering and got the permits from the town and all that. A few random tasks remain. We’re adding a hookup so we can power the house off a generator more directly. Also the city needs to do an inspection and the electric company to come and install a two-way meter. Then we’ll be all set to let the sun shine in and face it with a grin.

I’ve been practicing sax more lately, trying to level up my playing. Been woodshedding alot of standards as well as our originals. Working on heads and melodies as well as being able to run the changes and put good ideas over them with fluidity. There’s just so many tunes out there, many of which I haven’t played in quite a few years. Some songs I haven’t played since college, when I played alto, so the key and the layout is all different. Been working on Take Five and A Night In Tunisia in particular.

I saw Joshua Redman at the Blue Note in NYC the other night. I never realized it before but he’s Dewey Redman’s son. Joshua is one of my favorite modern tenor players. Such a high level of virtuosity and technical facility. He has an unbelievable altissimo range, and not just for blasting out the occasional high note, but with dexterity and dynamics, like a whole third register on the horn. But you don’t even pay attention to his chops because his musical ideas are at the forefront and very compelling. The band was a quartet and the set was mostly originals and a few standards including the Dexter Gordon classic I Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry. Excellent piano player too.

In the rock world, G! Force played our last gig with our drummer Pete last Saturday night. It was our best gig yet and musically the group keeps getting better and sounding tighter. He’s a good guy and will be missed.

Luckily we auditioned a new drummer tonight. He’s even better, with a super solid sense of time and everything sounds a bit more snappy and energetic. Just lifts everybody’s playing a notch. Plus he already knows alot of the tunes. So hopefully this will work out. We have a few weeks before our next gigs, and then there’s ten shows in May, June and July. Onwards and upwards.

Da Roof

Well spring is getting closer. We’ve begun work on the yard, clearing out the winter debris, putting down dirt to fill in some low spots, and some grass seed and fertilizer. Yesterday was the first genuinely nice warm day, where you could enjoy being outside with just a light jacket. Today it’s rainy but temperate.

We got a new roof put on the house a few days ago. I was super impressed: the crew came around 8:30 in the morning and were done by 3. Pulled off the old roof and everything. It looks great, very attractive color and pattern on the shingles. In the photos it looks kinda greyish, but there’s a good amount of red and brown mixed in. I’ll have to take some more pics on a day when the sun is out.

Next up: solar panels!!!

Origami Dual Color Stellated Octahedron Revisited

A few years back I published a crease pattern for my Origami Dual Color Stellated Octahedron on this very blog. Being a single sheet polyhedron with a color change, the layout is kinda complicated, with two superimposed grids. In order to make the folding easier I slightly fudged the relationship between the two, so one could start by folding a 13×13 grid and develop the other grid in the middle at on offset angle.

The other day I got an email from Akira Terao. He not only developed a method for folding a mathematically perfect layout, but he also published an article about it on the origamidraw blog. Very cool. His method is developed from first principles very elegant, and his article is very clear and explains it well. You can read it here:

origamidraw.wordpress.com/2019/03/20/drawing-a-cp-with-unknown-references-part-3

I hadn’t heard of Origami Draw before. It’s an app for making crease patterns. It has a lot of origami geometric logic embedded in it. From their web site (origamidraw.wordpress.com):

With Origami Draw, you can:
– Perform all folds possible with the 7 Huzita-Hatori/Justin axioms
– Divide segments and angles in any number from 2 to 8
– Compose with building blocks from rabbit ear to frog base
– Propagate new folds across existing folds, alternating mountain and valley folds (or not)
– Instantly find the missing fold to flatten the paper around a node
– Find and retain all references needed to replicate your model exactly
– Verify its flat-foldability, with clear indications if anything is missing
– Keep all your CPs in one place
– Create different versions as your design evolves or to show a folding sequence
– E-mail your CP to your desktop computer as an Oripa file

Very cool!