Player's Journal

2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002

07/02/2009

Automated Upcoming

Until recently, I had been updating my Upcoming Performances page manually, using an HTML editor. I wrote a database application to keep track of my gigs, and for a while I've wanted to write code to update the upcoming performances page automatically whenever I inserted or updated a gig in the database. I finally managed to set aside the time to do that. Now, I just click the Publish button in my database app and the upcoming performances page on my website is updated.

07/02/2009

Music a Hit

A few weeks ago, Danny and I played at a fundraiser for Congressman John Tierney at the Powow River Grille. It was well-attended, and people seemed to enjoy the music. The congressman made it a point to get my name and address and sent me a very nice thank-you note. He even took the trouble to add a hand written note to say that "the music was a hit." Good politician.

06/20/2009

Rolling

On Tuesday, John Melisi and I will go into Fermata Studios to record our third CD. Fermata is run by my friend and former student Alex Case. I've recorded three albums with him prior to this, and I'm looking forward to this next one.

Here are some of the tunes we're thinking of recording:

Of course, we record to hard drive these days, not tape, but it's interesting that we still hear from the control room, "Rolling!"

06/13/2009

Solo in Bb

Today I was practicing "Solo in Bb" from William G. Leavitt's Modern Method for Guitar, Volume 3." My copy of Volume 3 dates back to the days when I first started teaching at Berklee, back in the 1970's, so it tends to bring back memories. Practicing this piece reminded me of a day in one of my guitar ensembles. Steve Vai was in the class. He had taken private lessons with a couple of semesters earlier. He was a great guy, and obviously a very dedicated guitar student, but he seldom practiced what I told him to practice. Anyway, on this day, as the students were settling in, Steve was talking to the guy next to him about "Solo in Bb,"" saying he'd been struggling with it for a while. Steve turned to me and said, "Steve, can you play that piece." I said I could -- though Idid not go on to add that I could not play it as well as I would have liked. Steve said, with all sincerity, "Well, you're a better guitar player than I am, because I can't play it." I said something like, "That doesn't mean I'm a better guitar player, it just means that I can play that piece." Well, now, more than 30 years later, I'm still working on it, trying to become a better guitar player.

I was flipping through the pages of Volume 3 and ran across another memory. I used to practice from that book a lot. At the time, my daughter Sheri was 2 or 3 years old. One day as I was practicing, she was busy with a little rubber stamp, stamping away merrily on any piece of paper she could fine. She interrupted my practicing to inform me that my book needed to be stamped.

Sheri said, "Now when you practice, the frog will remind you to be happy." To this day, I still does.

04/04/2009

Speak Low

Yesterday I replaced the speaker in my Peavey Studio Pro 112 with an Eminence Delta Pro 12A. The original speaker was sorely lacking in low frequency response. Today I did a two-hour solo gig, the first gig with the new speaker. It sounds great! The lows are rich and full without being boomy. The highs are clear, and there is a marked improvement in the sustain. The Peavey's still not as warm and sweet as my Ampeg B-15, but it is very good for solo guitar. The gig was background music for the open house for Blue Moon in Dover, celebrating the 5th anniversary of the store. I played some tunes from my Touching Light CD and some from Act One. The tunes from Touching Light feature modal voicings with lots of open strings, and they sounded crystal clear and rich. The tunes form Act One feature jazz voicings with strong bass lines, and the bass was supportive without overpowering the melody notes. My Aria guitar has a clear sound that allows each note of each voicing to be heard distinctly, and the Peavey now delivers that sound extremely well. Overall, I'm very pleased with the new speaker.

04/01/2009

Milling About

John Melisi and I had a very pleasant gig this afternoon at the old mill building in Dover. A local company was holding a private party to celebrate their 20th year in business, and they hired us to play some background music. Their offices are on the second floor of the mill, and their doors open onto the hallway. They asked us to set up in the hallway, in front of one of the doors, so the guests would hear the music as they came up the stairs, and the music would carry into the offices. The high ceiling, wooden beams and pillars, and carpeting in the hallway, which has an opening to the floor below, provided excellent acoustics. John and I were able to play very quietly and still hear each other perfectly.

We got a few really nice compliments. One guy came up to John and said, "When I walked in and heard the music I thought, 'Oh, I think I have that Stan Getz recording.'" A young woman said to John, "You get a beautiful sound out of that tenor sax." It turned out that she is a baritone sax player. Several other people commented that they enjoyed the music.

The people working for the catering service, Galley Hatch Catering, we're very pleasant, and they took the time to thank us for the music. When we had finished playing and were packing up, the guy in charge of the catering crew asked if we'd had anything to eat. We said we had not, because we hadn't really wanted to take a long break. He had already packed up all the remaining food and taken it out to his truck. He said that while we packed up he'd put something together for us. He went out to his truck, and as we were milling about waiting to load our equipment into the elevator, he stepped off the elevator with two covered plastic plates. "I've got some fish, rice, and a roll here for each of you," he said, handing us the plates. We stood in the hallway and enjoyed the food, which was quite exceptional. He said,"My stepfather is a jazz musician, so I know how it is." Very thoughtful!

03/03/2009

Latin Night

Last Saturday night was slow at Jonathan's. Larry, the manager, says that it's always slow this time of year. There were about a dozen customers in the dining room, but only two people in the bar. We started the night with "O Grande Amor," a tune by Antonio Carlos Jobim. Then John called another Jobim tune, "Triste." I sort of chuckled, because we seldom open with two Jobim tunes in a row. John laughed and said,"Let's do them all. Let's do a whole night of Latin tunes. We've never done that before." And that's what we did. Two and a half hours of Latin tunes. Tunes composed by Brazilian composers Antonio Carlso Jobim, Louis Bonfa, and the lesser-known Roberto Menescal ("My Little Boat"), along with Benny Carter's "Only Trust Your Heart." There was only one tune that we played that night that was not originally a Latin tune; we do "It Might As Well Be Spring" as a samba.

Mal often meets friends at Jonathan's, but on Saturday she wasn't expecting any of her friends to come in, so she went to the gym at the Windemere Resort, next door. The two people at the bar left after a few tunes, a few diners lingered. There weren't many there to hear our first-ever all-Latin night, but we had fun!

02/10/2009

Economic Stimulus

As I mentioned in a previous post, some restaurants are cutting back on services, due to the economic slowdown. But some business owners see things differently; they feel that in order to get people out, in this tough economic climate -- especially in this snowbound winter -- they need to provide something extra. Phil Philbrick, the owner of Philbrick's Fresh Market has hired me and Danny to play two Saturday afternoons this month. Phil said, "People have been in their holes long enough. Let's give them something to come out for!"

Francis and Mark, the owners of the Powow River Grille have continued the Thursday night live jazz dinner. Last week Danny was busy, so John Melisi played the gig. At the end of the night, Francis asked John Melisi if he'd be interested in playing solo on Thursday nights at the Plum Island Grille. So now on Thursday nights, Danny and will be at the Powow, while John is at Plum Island. Three musicians are working, and customers at two restaurants are getting good live jazz.

Now that's what I call economic stimulus!

02/06/2009

A Little Voodoo'll Do

Last week, on the Powow River Grille gig, Danny mentioned that he'd jammed his finger in a file drawer, and it was bothering him. At the end of the night, Mal gave him Reiki on that finger. A few days later Danny called and left a message on our answering machine to thank her, saying, "I woke up the next morning and my finger was 90% better. I don't know what Voodoo you did, but it worked. You RULE!"

Mal's "Vooddoo" works for me. Whenever she gives me a Reiki session before a gig, I always play better. I guess it's no crazier to think you can affect people's bodies by waving your hands over them than to think you can affect people's hearts and souls by striking metal strings with a little piece of plastic.

01/02/2009

Sqeeze Play

With the economy in such rough shape, the restaurants are being squeezed a bit, which means I'm being squeezed out of some gigs. The Travelin' Light Duo had been doing Thursday nights at Christopher's Third Street Grille in Dover, but that's on hold for a while. Christopher is thinking of Sunday Jazz Brunch in January, but that's still up in the air.

The Travelin' Light Duo was also playing every Friday night and Saturday night at Jonathan's Restaurant in Ogunquit, ME, but for January that has been cut back to Saturday nights.

My steady gig with Danny Harrington at the Powow River Grille in Amesbury, MA, is still on, but has been moved from Wednesday nights to Thursday nights.

Recently I was reading a book on the history of jazz, and I read a comment by Cab Calloway, who was playing during the depression in the 1930's, and Cab said that music usually does pretty well through tough financial times. (I had the opportunity to play a show with Cab many years ago -- a memorable experience.) I'm just going to play the best I can at each of my gigs, and hope that Cab was right.