shows

the other night i saw Mulgrew Miller play a few tunes. he has great command of his musicallity and plays some very interesting harmonic things. more out than i would expect by looking at him. after that show we went to see the Fringe but instead of Garzone, it was a trombonist Jeff Galindo with John Lockwood and Bob Gulotti. pretty different than when garz is there, but some really fantastic, mature, musical, sometimes avant sometimes folk song-ish, music. i'm heading to my new ensemble now, we'll see how it is.

Noise

Today, I stood in a pool full of noise and meditated. When I opened my eyes, the pool was still.

session

I just played a pretty good session with and alto player and bass and drums. he's been studying with Garzone and working on alot of triadic stuff(just like every body else these days) so it was fun to bounce off some ideas on him. drummer's a little loud a little quick sometimes but he's not really too terribly insensitive. we played at a practice facility about 2 blocks away from my place, run by berklee. it's pretty amazing. all decked out with amps and drums and keyboards and everthing. amps are pretty nasty, though.

Sco's a Ho

I saw John Scofield Trio with Steve Swallow and Bill Stewart last night in Boston. Needless to say, i was beside myself and quite optimistic about the whole. Unfortunately, it was terrible. No, seriously. Really Bad. Very Boring. Depressing. Tear-Jerking. Evidently Sco does not feel the need to progress as a musician at all, staying not only within himself as a player, but also sticking to nauseatingly tradition format for all the tunes: guitar solo, bass solo, drum solo, trade 4s, head out. It was ridiculously unengaging on all levels. I think his playing has actually gone down in the last five or so years. He apparently has no idea what is going on harmonically and just plain improvisationally in the music these days. Most of his ideas(when not basically diatonic 8th notes) consist of some kind of Sco-cliche or even just guitar cliche. Last night he was nothing more than a guitarist(even if a guitarist who invented his sound). Steve Swallow. I don't get it. There's nothing special about is playing and the blowing he did was eye-wateringly boring. Bill Stewart sounded good but after seeing Jeff Ballard less than a week before, i was hardly moved by his drummeresque playing. I am sadly disillissioned.

Fly

I went to see Mark Turner's trio, Fly last sunday. it was an extremely profound demonstration of how mature jazz as an art form can be. they only played one swing tune, and everything was completely soaked with a huge array of musical influences and the highly developed language of Mark Turner combined with the couldn't-fuck-up-if-he-tried time feel of jeff ballard. and then there's Larry Grenadier who, in my mind, was made a superstar with his work on Mehldau's Art of the Trio 4 record. he delivered one of his trademark groove-like-maceo solos and played some ridiculous poly-things all over the place. it was a trully elevated listening experience for me, as if i wasn't listening to music so much as i was experiencing art on a purely vibrational level.
Tonight i'm going to see John Scofield with his en route band, steve swallow and bill stewart. pretty excited about that one, too.

Fly

Boston

I'm back in boston, now. Just finished my first week of school. Privates with Mick Goodrick is gonna be killing. i also have a lab with him. My ensemble at this point is just me and the instructor(we played some nice trombone/guitar duo) and hopefully will get a rythm section. I went to the MFA with Eric last night. Good to see him. I can get anywhere in town on my new old road bike, Helios. It's great. I'd like to go see Mark Turner Trio tomorrow night(Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard) but i'd also really like to eat next week. we'll see.