Fun on eBay: That's a WHAT?!?!

A forum friend posted a link tonight to a current eBay auction for an "Excellent Baritone Saxophone." I was by now familiar with this particular breed of auctioneer, but morbid curiosity drove me to have a look. I wasn't disappointed.
(Note: font size and color edited in the interest of good taste.)

Hello! Welcome to my shop.
I am a musical instrument dealer, the management GuZhen, Saxophone, violin, ErHu, the bottle gourd silk, guitar, lute, Mandolin, flute, tuba, about several 100 species can provide you choice! Please first look the photos, Its texture is very well. Look at the pictures you can see the shape is very well . So wonderful item . please don't miss it ! It is most valued. It will bring good luck for you, I believe you are a very standout buyer. If you know the value of my item. Please bid my item. I have many other wonderful collect item on me store. Please view my other items . If you need please send E-mail to me.If you be music fancier, the chance to of the so better of the not miss of the please do get it. Enjoying your bidding!!!

The photo, of course, is the kicker. It's the tiniest baritone saxophone I've ever seen. In fact, I'd bet it's pitched in Bb looks/sounds every bit like a soprano, but you just never know about these eBay guys... perhaps this is the pocket bari we've all secretly been hoping for.

Not sure how (or if) one of these horns would play, but in the interest of fairness, I'll post a link to the seller's current auctions, just in case anyone wants to give one a try. Even if you don't want to shop, I'm sure they'll make for amusing reading.

Monterey Jazz Festival All-Stars

Saw these cats a couple of weeks ago, when they were about nine shows into a 50-city tour. The group is loosely headed-up by pianist Benny Green, but it represents a terrific mix of talent that spans at least three generations. With Green is James Moody on Sax and flute, Terence Blanchard on trumpet, Kendrick Scott on drums, and Derrick Hodge on bass. Nnenna Freelon joined the group on several vocal numbers, one of which was a duet of "Just Squeeze Me" with Moody (I must live in a cave, since I didn't know he sang), and the other a *very* hip reharmonized version of "Time After Time." The evening wasn't all standards, though... the band also played a couple selections from Terence Blanchard's recent release, "A Tale of God's Will (A requiem for Katrina)". Compositions by drummer Kendrick Scott and bassist Derrick Hodge were also prominently featured.

Catch this group if they come to your neck of the woods. Tickets and a complete list of dates are available at the MJF website here. You can also buy their live CD from Concord Music Group here.

On the road with the Troubs

Just finished a show with Antsy McClain and the Trailer Park Troubadours at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. The show was a blast--Antsy and his guys are all great musicians, and they've got a very loyal following of "Flamingo Heads" who were all very appreciative. "Loose" Bruce Wandmayer, who plays both tenor sax and slide guitar (how's that for doubling?) got in touch with us a few weeks ago about this show, and it was a lot of fun to play with the band once again. Horns seem to work really well on a lot of their tunes, and it seems like the band likes the added punch. Cool.

Came up I-5 today, and we (all the out-of-town band members) are staying at the Phoenix hotel, a campy little inn in the downtown area. Very hip little place, and a perfect fit for musicians. The Great American Music Hall, by the way, is gorgeous--definitely check it out if you're in town.

There's an after-show party a couple doors down, so I'm going to wake myself up long enough to hang out a bit. Pretty exhausting day...

Wow... is July gone already?

Not quite, but I think I see the end of it around the corner.

What's been happening? Got back from Switzerland (had a great last couple of days), got back into classes, was deluged with gigs, got a new scooter, and a massive head cold. That enough?

Where to start? Gigs. Wow. Normally, late July/early August are especially quiet for me, and I was kinda looking forward to lots of practice time. Not this year. Over the last week or so, I've gotten a ton of calls I wasn't expecting, and I'm as close to booked solid as I can get. Upcoming dates that are open to the public are listed in the right-hand column of this blog (hint, hint to music lovers), and those don't include the obligatory rehearsals before many of the gigs. It's fun, though... two musicals, a bunch of big band stuff, and a couple of R&B gigs with Chadwick Williams. On one of the musicals (Oliver), I'll be reading the woodwind IV book, which is a bassoon book. That would be no problem if I played bassoon, but since I don't I'm going to be transposing from bass/tenor clef (both in C), to play the parts on a Bb treble clef instrument. I'm sure I'll be kicking myself later for saying I'd do that, but it's a good skill to develop, so I've already started practicing. I'll have to post again on how it goes.

On the work front, things are going well this quarter. I'm teaching three strategic management classes, and although it's never easy to keep people focused in summer classes (and let's face it--who can blame them?), I've got a nice group and they seem to be enjoying the class. We're pilot-testing a new version of the learning management system (a web-based system that allows me to provide online content, making my class a "hybrid" format as opposed to strictly face-to-face), and although I'm starting to get the hang of it, either the interface isn't as intuitive as the one I'm used to, or I'm just getting brain damaged in my old age. Something simple as quiz feedback suddenly has more options, the flip side of which is having more ways to screw things up. I'll get it, though... eventually.

In the ongoing quest to be greener, we've been taking a harder look at transportation costs and energy use, and with all the driving I do, that's a pretty sobering thought. In an effort to address some of that and have a bit of fun in the process, I started looking around at scooters, and about a week ago we picked out a true geek rocket--a Yamaha Vino 125. This is one of those in-between sized scooters--it requires a motorcycle license, but isn't big enough to be freeway legal. But it's FUN to drive... should hit up to about 55 or so (I'll have to test that once it's broken in), and so far I've been getting around 80-85 MPG. The first time I filled up the tank, it cost a whole whopping $2.40, and it was everything I could do to not dance around the gas station, giggling and pointing at the other drivers. I don't get to ride it at night until I take the skill test for the full license, but for the time being I'm having an absolute ball, taking it to rehearsals (I can't carry anything bigger than the tenor sax, but that still covers a lot) and trying to get a little practice in every day.

Other than that, I'm getting over my latest cold (and this completely sucks in July--thanks A LOT to whomever gave it to me), and gearing up for class tomorrow. Midterm exams are in about a week, so things should be interesting.

Yawn. Off to bed. G'night!

Montreux Jazz Festival: Day two

Day two of the Montreux Jazz Festival, and we had a busy agenda. First stop was a workshop with one of the jazz greats, Quincy Jones. These workshops were free events put on by the festival, and since Quincy didn’t appear to have a particular outline planned for his session, it became more of a question and answer period, facilitated by Claude Nobs, the festival organizer. Audience questions tended to be all over the map; some having to do with breaking into the music (and particularly film scoring) business, and others concerning Jones’ experiences with the “who’s who” of jazz and pop music. Two things in particular resonated with me. The first was that jazz was really a musician’s genre (that is, musicians also make up the core of its audience), and that jazz was a “gumbo” that tended to consume—and be changed by—everything in its path. His other observation—something I need to take more to heart at this stage in my learning curve—was that there was nothing worse than an opportunity you aren’t prepared for. His prescription, of course, was to prepare like mad, and when you’re ready, the opportunities will come. I think I’m gonna write this out and tape it to my music stand at home.

After the workshop, we had a little time before the evening concert began. First up was a duo performance of Chick Corea and Gary Burton, and it would have been great had we not found out upon arriving to the auditorium that the seats we bought (pretty much all that was left at the time) were standing-room-only at the back of the auditorium. That is, behind all the stadium-style seats—and the only real view of the performers were glimpses of them on two large monitor screens up front. It was a big disappointment, mostly because although both Corea and Burton regularly tour in the U.S. and we can see them at home, the same couldn’t be said for the late show—the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band—who we had really made the trip to see. Fortunately, since the big band wasn’t nearly as familiar to the audience as Corea and Burton, at least a third of the people left and we were able to score fourth-row tickets from a sympathetic English couple who wasn’t staying (and if they ever read this, we just can’t thank them enough).

At this point, everything changed for the better, because the George Gruntz band was spectacular. Gruntz is a Swedish composer who writes these unbelievably rich and textured arrangements of his own tunes, band members’ compositions, and a few standards. The band was made up of jazz heavyweights from all over the world; guys like Marvin Stamm and Jack Walrath on trumpet; Dave Bargeron and Earl McIntyre on trombone, Sal Giorgianni and Chris Hunter on sax, Howard Johnson on baritone sax/tuba, Danny Gottlieb on drums… all monsters. They played nearly two hours of the most intense big band jazz I think I’ve ever seen—right up there with the Mingus and Vanguard bands in New York. Some highlights: a killer alto solo from Chris Hunter on So: What (Serious Fun), great trombone solos by Gary Valente and Earl Mc Intyre, and a surprise sit-in by Adam Nussbaum, who happened to be in the audience.

We were so wound up afterward that it was a few hours before we were able to sleep—just a total, life-altering experience.

Just, wow.

At the Montreux Jazz Festival

Hello from Montreux!

It's a rather soggy city at the moment, but we're here and it's great. Took a cab into Geneva this morning, caught a tram from there back to the main train station, and took a train from there into Montreux, arriving at about 1pm. The hotel is great--right on the water--and includes FAST in-room Wifi access, so I can actually update my iPod and do a bit of rainy-weather web-surfing. Cool.

Spent a little time at the festival today, and I have to admit that I was a little taken aback by something that, apparently, everyone but us already knows: there is precious little Jazz to be heard at the Montreux Jazz Festival. A quick sample of the playbill includes The Chemical Brothers, Placebo, the Beastie Boys, Tori Amos, Jeff Beck, Ricky Lee Jones, the Wu Tang Clan, Sly and the Family Stone... etc., etc. The "surprise" jazz show, announced on the 6th, was Prince. Granted, I would have gone to see him if the show hadn't sold out within minutes, but it's still a little odd to have expected, well.... jazz... and then find out that nine out of ten acts are pop/rap/blues. Clearly this has been the case for years--I don't know why it took me so much by surprise.

Getting over this small prejudice, however, means I can accept the event on its own terms and get back to digging it. Today, we stopped by one of the outdoor venues to see a high school band from Apple Valley, Minnesota, as we had run into the parents of one of the players in the hotel lobby. The band played very well, and it was a kick to hear that their tour would also include performances in Paris and at the North Sea Jazz festival. Kudos to their director for being so ambitious, and to the parents of these kids who apparently served beer at innumerable Vikings games to raise the funds. Those kids are having an experience none of them are likely to forget.

After lunch of a doner kebab (food is shockingly expensive here, which makes fast food WAY more attractive than usual), we wandered around a bit and then came back to the hotel for a nap. Striking out again at about 9pm, we hit the Montreux Jazz Cafe, which is really a pop venue/bar. The lighting was cool, though, and they allowed cameras so I had a lot of fun taking pictures. Some of the early results are posted here; I'm going to have to give a few of these more post-processing attention, but I'll get to it when I'm home.

Tomorrow's agenda includes a workshop with Quincy Jones, the evening concert with Chick Corea and Gary Burton, and a midnight concert with the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band. Can't wait!

More later....

What's I'm listening to right now

Just downloaded "Flow" by trumpeter Terence Blanchard. Billed as one of Jazz's "young lions," Blanchard's CD is a lush suite reminiscent of one of my favorite Metheny CDs, "The Way Up." Check it out if you get the chance.

A belated concert report...

I've been so tied up with work/gigs/Punky these past couple of weeks that I never got around to reporting on the June 3rd concert out at Glendale College. So, without further ado... the show was a blast! For starters, the band performed my very first big-band vocal arrangement, an Afro-Cuban (well, sort of, anyway) interpretation of Henry Mancini's "Charade." Diane Wallace did a great job of singing it down, and while the chart certainly has room for improvement, I'm proud of this first effort and looking forward to doing more writing.

The second half of the concert featured our guest artist, Roger Neumann. One of the veteran studio reedmen here in L.A., Roger has not only played with damn near everyone--he's written music for them all, too. His own band, the Roger Neumann Rather Large Band, is one of those bands that it seems everybody who is anybody has played in (check out his CD on Sea Breeze Records here) ...and on top of all this, he's an unbelievably cool guy.

Whenever we do one of these shows, we typically get the charts a week or two in advance of the concerts. We read them down, play through them with the soloist in our dress rehearsal, and then perform them later in the week. One of Roger's charts was a cool arrangement of Gerry Mulligan's "Cat Walk" that featured tenor and baritone saxes, and although *I* was digging it a whole lot, the show was threatening to go a little long and it seemed like that was the tune that would end up getting the axe. Nevertheless, we ran it at the dress rehearsal with both Roger and I on baritone, and Craig Kupka, the group's director, wanted to keep it in the show. That kinda put me on the hook to work up the changes, so I took them into my lesson and spent some time with them at home later that week. Of course this was right in the middle of finals-week-paper-grading-hell, but come Sunday I felt reasonably prepared, so I poured on the attitude and what do you know...? It actually worked.

Anyhow, a recording of that performance is here in mp3 format. We play the melody with Roger on the top line and me harmonizing below him. I take the first solo chorus, he takes the second (and I gotta cop a couple of his licks... they were great), and then we trade fours/twos on the third chorus with me leading off. Was it flawless? Hell no. But for the first time, I'm actually seeing progress in my playing... like, maybe the work is paying off. Yay me! By the way, the other soloists are (in order): Kendall Wallace, trumpet; Harry Smallenburg, trombone; Richard Tuttobene, piano.

Meanwhile, here's a few upcoming gigs:

Sunday, July 3rd
First Christian Chuch
221 S. 6th St., Burbank
(This is my first solo flute gig, and I'm accompanying the choir)

Tuesday, July 3rd
Big Bad Jazz Band at the M-Bar Hollywood
Corner of Vine and Fountain, 7:30pm
(I'll be playing bari sax)

Wednesday, July 4th
Multiple locations, TBA when I figure out where I'm supposed to be...

Okay... getting better....

I'm home from playing a gig at the elementary school a couple of blocks away. I remember being that age, and seeing a concert where they demonstrated the instruments, just like we did today. The rest, as they say, is history.

Busy weekend coming up. Saturday we're doing the yard sale fundraiser for Springer Rescue. Saturday night I'm playing a private party with the R&B band. And Sunday, the GCC band is playing a concert (4pm, Glendale College Auditorium) and featuring Roger Neumann as our guest artist. He's a great reed player, composer, and a very cool guy, so the concert should be a lot of fun.

Other than that, just trying to get papers graded and a jump on working out final grades. One more week to go in the quarter, then I'm off for a week. Whew!

Happy weekend to all you working folks, happy retirement to my mom (YEAH!), and a big "hang in there" to my teacher bretheren. Summer is almost here...

Where's the "pause" button?

I need one on my life.

Today was a drag. This is the part of the academic quarter when everything shifts into overdrive. The strategy classes turn in term papers and are doing three-a-day decisions, the Principles of Management class is getting ready for final exams and presentations, and everyone is wiped out from the combination of stress and exhaustion. My final exams are pretty much ready to go, but 2/3 of the term papers I've been expecting just landed on my desk, and it's freaking me out just to see the size of the pile sitting there, knowing that I'll be getting forty more tomorrow. And today is Monday, so I had the six-hour lecture gauntlet to run, which was made immeasurably worse by technological glitches. How can I possibly have tech problems in a classroom setting, you ask? Well, in a 21st-century college of business, it's assumed that we will teach our graduates to use (and stay abreast of) current technology, and as such we try to integrate it in our classes. Trouble is, there's a point at which technology is so much a part of your methods that it's indispensible, and then when you arrive at a classroom to find that the faculty workstation you use for lectures and/or simulation just bought the farm, it can be dammed difficult to improvise something on the spot. This happened to me not once, but TWICE today. It's especially maddening when you see evidence that the system is in the process of being worked on (like, it's in pieces), but nobody thought to warn the professors who were going to have to actually *teach a class* in that room today. Even with a heads-up it still would have sucked, but a few minutes' warning is still better than nothing.

I'm sure anyone who teaches in a K-12 classroom probably rolls their eyes when I rant about stuff like this. And there used to be a time (in my previous life as a corporate drone) when I would have had backups at the ready in case something like this happened. But there's a big difference between putting on a few presentations a year and doing several longer ones each week... I just don't have the time to plan for every contingency like this. Especially when I'm in the last part of the academic term, where there's no room for schedule adjustments. Argh.

I wish I could say that music was going swimmingly by contrast, but it seems that the overload just seems to screw that up, too. This became apparent at last week's lesson, when I just couldn't demonstrate any noticeable progress on some of the things I was working on. Clearly, I just haven't had the kind of practice time I had in previous months, and although the results were certainly predictable, that doesn't make me any less frustrated about the situation. Put simply, I'm burned out, and it's spilling over into EVERYTHING.

But enough of the self-pity, since it's just an unproductive use of even more time I can't spare. There was a Twilight Zone episode once where a guy had a stopwatch that would stop time when he pressed the right button. I used to wonder what I'd do if I had a watch like that. Now I just wonder if I'd have the energy to do anything at all...

Wow... what a week.

There are weeks when you conquer, and others in which you are happy to survive. This turned out to be the latter, but it's Thursday night with a weekend of playing lined up, so all is well. Tomorrow night Chadwick Williams (my R&B group) is playing at the Derby, then Saturday and Sunday I'm playing in the San Diego area with the LAPD Concert Band. That's legit stuff, but it's fun and a good workout for the flute and piccolo chops.

Had a great lesson this morning--went over a couple of uptempo tunes, trying now to apply some of the altered and extended chords I've been working on. It was good to get back to playing tunes--the drills are very useful, but sometimes you just gotta blow. I've also been working a bit on some Bob Mintzer funk etudes--they're challenging, but a lot of fun to play. After getting my tenor worked on and finding a setup that plays well for me I'm starting to get some mojo happening on that horn, so I've been practicing it more these days. It's really cool that all of a sudden, these other things are falling into place so readily. It makes me think the practicing is paying off.

Work is exhausting, but I'm done for the week and in too good a mood to worry much about it. I've been contacted about classes for next quarter, so it would seem that things are going well. If they don't, it won't be for lack of effort on my part...

For now, though, I'm fading fast and need some sleep. Rehearsal tomorrow morning for the shows this weekend... not a bad way to kick 'em off.

:-)

And speaking of changes...

...I just gutted my personal website. I've always hated the outdated debris you find scattered around the 'net, and I was getting to be one of the biggest contributors of said detritus. It's kind of sad in a way--kind of like taking a match to a collection of personal mementos--but now I have a fresh canvas to work with when I'm ready to do it.

For the time being, though, I'm busy with working and creating other stuff. This is "Hell Week: Part I" for me in the sense that my ridiculous Monday-Tuesday schedule gets repeated on Wednesday and Thursday--one of three times this quarter. Yeah, I know that normal people (of which I was one once) have to work *five* days a week in some God-forsaken cubicle, and to that I can only reply that two days on my current schedule kick my ass FAR worse than my 9-to-5 ever did. Between those back-to-back classes on Mondays, getting back to campus Tuesday mornings, and creating podcasts/writing exams and assignments/grading papers/revising my classes for summer, I'm whipped come mid-week. Zzzz....

On other fronts, my very first big band arrangement--an afro-cuban interpretation of Henry Mancini's "Charade," seems to be enough of a success that the Big Bad Jazz band will be performing it next week. w00t! If anyone wants to see its debut, come on out!

Tuesday, May 2nd
Big Bad Jazz Band at the M-Bar Hollywood
Corner of Vine and Fountain, 7:30pm
(I'll be playing bari sax)

Which reminds me, I had a *blast* subbing on Boyd Cannon's big band last week. This group plays every third Thursday at the Border's Books and Music in Thousand Oaks, and my buddy Jennifer Hall recommended me to the leader. I'd heard it was a good band (a rehearsal band for a lot of studio guys, I guess) so I was pretty intimidated--especially since I was to play tenor sax, which isn't my main axe. But my pal Jim Mettler, the bestest instrument repair guy in just about the entire world, did some work on my tenor and it was playing SWEEEET that night--all I had to do was push buttons and blow. Anyhow, Boyd said he'd have me back, so I guess it must have sounded okay. Cool.

Much as I'd like to launch into the diatribe about corporate strategy that I've been mulling over for several days now, I'm gonna hold off for the moment and get to bed. It just occurred to me that I'm functioning on only a few hours' sleep from last night, and I think I've finally reached the stage in my life when no sleep=horriffic cold every time I turn around.

Sucks to be old, I guess. But it's better than the alternative.

Sniff, sniff...

I'm fighting a bit of a cold today, so 'scuze me while I go get a tissue.

Classes start next week, and I'm now one term over the one-year mark at Cal Poly. This upcoming quarter, my schedule will include overload for the first time, so I'm fully expecting my life to completely suck at the midterm point when the paper grading kicks in. I won't turn my nose up at the extra money, but don't think I'm not gonna be earning it.

Subbed on a friend's big band last night, and we backed up the jazz legend Ernie Andrews. That dude is a MONSTER... nobody sings like him. Toward the end of the evening he got this monologue sort of thing going... kind of a "I've been doing this for sixty years" stroll down memory land, then out of nowhere, he turned on the afterburners and belted out a magnificent line from the bridge to start off the tune "You Are So Beautiful." I was so blown away I barely made my own entrance a few bars later. Very cool.

Speaking of subbing, though (which I've been doing a lot of lately), I'm filling in on a recording session tomorrow so I'd better go have a look at the music. But first... a few upcoming gigs of note:

Tuesday, April 3rd
Big Bad Jazz Band at the M-Bar Hollywood
Corner of Vine and Fountain, 7:30pm
(My regular bari sax gig)

Thursday, April 5th
Evening dance with Clyde Reasinger's Big Band
Joselyn Center, Burbank CA
(I think I'm on alto that night)

Sunday, April 8th
Hollywood Bowl Sunrise Service
LAPD Concert Band
(My flute gig)

Saturday, May 19th
Chadwick Williams Band at Paladino's
(R&B bari sax... whooyah!)

Sunday June 3rd
Big Bad Jazz Band in concert
with special guest, pianist Shelly Berg
Glendale College Auditorium
(bari sax again)

Feel free to e-mail me for details on any of these shows...
-Leanne

The cat on the piano...

Now we just need to teach her the ii-V-I progression...


Nora the piano-playing cat

An exhausting few weeks

I don't know for sure why I'm blogging about it at almost 4am, but maybe I'm still too wound up to sleep.

Classes are pretty much finished for the quarter--all that's left is to get grades worked out and submitted. Then it's prep for next quarter's classes... one of which is getting a total overhaul. Getting a full night's sleep seems like a distant memory.

On the music front, I'm really busy. Had two R&B gigs this weekend with Chadwick Williams, one at 14 Below in Santa Monica and the other at the Derby on Los Feliz. I keep thinking we're such dinosaurs that people will throw us out of these places, but it seems like this classic R&B stuff really connects with people. Go figure. I'm still doing a fair bit of legit playing--both on clarinet and flute. Jazz is happening, but the bar is being raised in lessons now so I'm spending as much time as possible working on it all. Last but not least, I've been trying my hand at arranging for a couple of the ensembles I'm in, and I'm having some early successes. Two tunes (one significantly better than the other) for the nonet, a couple for Chadwick Williams, and one jazz interpretation of "Amazing Grace" for the clarinet ensemble. It's challenging, but a lot of fun.

Stress on the homefront. Kinda ugly, and I hate being conflicted like this. I guess one of life's harsher lessons is that even with the best of intentions, sometimes everyone loses.

Actually, maybe I always knew that.