Tommy Pederson Video- A Sneezing Bee

This is one of the best Tommy Pederson Videos I have seen:
This was uploaded by Rene Laanen at Trombone-Usa.com

Tommy Pederson

Big Sam's Funky Nation

I went down to the "Jack of the Wood" nightclub tonight and sat in with Big Sam's Funky Nation. They will definitely funk you out of your seat. Big Sam used to be the trombonist for the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and I can see why he went out on his own. Sam has good stage presence, a Big solid sound and a tight, well rehearsed group of musicians behind him. He puts on a good show and really knows how to keep the audience moving. It really is hard to stay in your seat while they are playing.
You can check out some of their music on the website at:
http://bigsamsfunkynation.com/
They have CDs and other collectibles available on the site along with their touring schedule and much more. Big Sam's Funky Nation recently played at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
and they will once again be touring with Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint this summer, hitting the Europe Festival circuit for the month of July.
Be sure to check them out.

George Roberts Album - Meet Mr. Roberts

[I found this over on Bongolong Land - http://bongolongland.blogspot.com/]

Here is the long out-of-print "Meet Mr. Roberts" by Mr. Bass Trombone, George Roberts. This rip is from a cassette tape of a vinyl copy given to me by George (my father-in-law) himself. Frank DeVol and his Orchestra accompany Mr. Roberts in some very interesting arrangements.

Download Meet Mr. Roberts Here

I hope to bring more of George's remarkable bass trombone music
to this blog in the near future, but for now...
enjoy "Meet Mr. Roberts"!

Comments:

Blog-a-roonie said...

Please give a BIG thank you to your Father-in-Law for all the wonderful music he has given us over the years. From Kenton to Nelson Riddle he is my man.

18/1/07 7:43 AM

David Federman said...

George Roberts is that guy you always see listed in the personnel for every important group of accompanists for singers like Sinatra and Fitzgerald. How nice it it to discover that he was finally given his own 40 minutes or so of fame. Thanks. DeVol's arrangements are superb.

Kai Winding Album Downloads

Kai Winding Verve V-8556
kaiwinding.zip
front cover
back cover
Kai handles the musical direction at New York's plush Playboy Club.


Kai Winding
The In Instrumentals
Verve V6-8639
ininstrumentals.zip
front cover
back cover
Can a jazz trombonist from a town in Denmark find happiness among the tunes of the "mods" and "rockers"?

Insight to the performance mindset of a professional trombonist

[This article has a classical perspective but the same principles apply to any musical or theatre performance]

State of Grace

By Eddie Silva
22 Dec 2006

St. Louis Symphony principal trombonist Tim Myers describes the performance mindset.

Tim Myers joined the orchestra in 1983 and it's safe to say that it has become a central part of his life since then. He met his wife, first violin Dana Edson Myers, here; they had their first conversation on an SLSO tour. The Myerses now have two sons who are both cellists: Peter attends the Colburn School in Los Angeles and Henry goes to a local middle school where he is also involved in the theater.

Tim Myers is an avid rock climber who spends his summers assaulting peaks in Colorado. And, interestingly enough, he's an asthmatic, which makes all of his accomplishments — especially being principal trombone of a major symphony orchestra — even more impressive and inspiring.

Recently, Playbill caught up with Myers to discuss the musician's experience — becoming one with an orchestral performance, the advantages of not being aware, and the nuts and bolts of playing Bolero.

Playbill: Describe what it feels like, as a musician onstage, when all the elements of a performance come together.

Tim Myers: There is a kind of a mental state — I would even say a physical state or a complete-being state — when you're not asking questions, you're making statements. You're just doing it. The fall Carnegie Hall concert last season was one performance where that happened.

Playbill: Do you get that feeling from the very start?

Myers: Pretty much. It has to start with "I'm ready to go." Then after a certain moment I realize I haven't been analyzing, I haven't been thinking about whether I'm together with the trumpets. I've just been doing it. It's actually pretty cool.

In general, composers use the trombones as a coloristic thing or as a special statement. We're very rarely the focus. There's a Schumann symphony, the Third, which has five movements, and in the first three we don't play anything. Then at the beginning of the fourth movement there's suddenly this big focus on the trombones: a musical picture of the cathedral in Cologne. It goes really high and we're really exposed. It requires a lot of concentration and a lot of not panicking before it comes in. You're sitting for 25 minutes and then you come in for the big event.

I find for a piece like that especially, I have to be part of the entire performance. When the downbeat comes I have to be there, participating in the music even though I don't have any notes to play, so when it comes time to play I've been with it the whole time. Most of the time that really works.

Playbill: It was once said of the great jazz trombonist J. J. Johnson that he knew everything there was to know about the trombone, and when he played, he forgot everything he knew.

Tim Myers
photo by Scott Ferguson/FK Photo

Myers: If I graph my performance life, from my earliest days of performing there wasn't that much self-awareness. I just did it. It must have been okay. But then I figured out there were things I needed to work on and I became very self-aware. And sometimes that mental state of being aware would affect my confidence. Then I would have to return to the just-doing-it state by assimilating the skills and issues — most of which were psychological — to the point where it was reflexive enough.

That's not to say there's no thoughtfulness or awareness. For example, Bolero is one of those career-busters for a first trombonist. If you can't do it, you probably shouldn't be there. I've talked to people about measuring my career in Boleros: How many more Boleros can I do? When I play Bolero I have to do it a certain way. I have to start blowing air through my horn when the tenor sax is playing to get my horn warmed up. Then, ten bars before I play, I start getting the instrument ready. Two measures before — with the snare-drum interlude — I have to start taking the breath — a very long, slow breath. I slowly form the embouchure so I'm really set. I have to make it a habit. At this point it's almost a ritual. And, once I start, it's like a really good batter — when he sees the ball coming it's this big. I have to look at all those notes as if they're whole notes and I'm going right at the middle of them. I can even miss a little bit and still have a good grip on it.

Playbill: What is the feeling when it's over?

Myers: It's hard to let go of the state. The piece is done, but it continues. It doesn't dissipate immediately. The best performances happen once all the verbal stuff goes away. The most simple instructions — "count," "watch" — are all that matter. There's no analyzing. If I'm trying to describe it then I'm not in the right place. It's a non-verbal place. And sometimes if it's really good the feeling is that I'm stunned. It's a very long diminuendo from the end of the performance to an everyday state.

Eddie Silva is the publications manager for the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.

My 2007 New Year's Resolution

BY JUDY ROBERTS
[This article appeared in the Chicago Jazz Magazine Jan/Feb 2007]
I hope that 2007 will be the year when jazz musicians and jazz fans decide that they've had enough and won't take it anymore. The corporate dictatorship currently controlling the music we get to hear needs to be overthrown.
The fact that we are being deprived of one of the greatest radio shows of all time, Piano Jazz, is reason enough for some kind of revolution. Because the corporate bean-counters have been allowed to infiltrate Public Radio, we are no longer allowed to have Marian McPartland.
Music is being used as both a weapon and hostage by those in power. WBEZ jazz-turned-talk radio is just a recent high profile example. The anti-art, logic-defying corporate attacks are continually making sneaky inroads into our daily lives. Executives who run pharmacies and supermarkets have come up with the notion that revenues will increase if they blast inescapable rock music overhead while we innocently try to shop for gro­ceries or pick up our prescriptions.
A few weeks before Christmas, I went to my local suburban Pier One store for some holiday browsing. The minute I got inside, I was bombarded by the usual unavoidable "background" music. This is annoying all year long, but during the Christmas shopping season, I was at least hoping to get a little relief with some mood-enhancing seasonal fare.
But instead of the feel-good, sales-inducing Ella or Frank or Armstrong tunes that would have put me into the sing-along mode, I was stunned into a grumpy silence by the blaring sounds of a garage-band-in-a-box version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." As I stood there in disbelief while the assault of the ruined holiday classics continued, I looked around and saw that every cus­tomer in the place was in my "demo­graphic." In other words, no Generation X-ers, no backward caps, no teens, no kids.
So why blast these perverted techno­pop destroyers of "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" at adult shoppers, instead of offering the much more appro­priate (and of course totally superior) Bing Crosby/Nat Cole originals? Because somewhere, in some office, some corpo­rate whiz-kid has once again exerted his influence in a situation for which he is not the least bit qualified.
The fact that a spastic two-chord ver­sion of "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" is all wrong for a Mel Torme-loving clientele like those in my demographic group will never be addressed. The corpo­rate "suit" in charge (much like the ubiq­uitous hotel Food & Beverage Director and the young, arrogant bistro manager) will soon move on to some other job, where he/she will be involved in foisting more inappropriate musical choices onto the public.
Then there's the disparity between the kind of live music people want to hear and the kind of music they're getting. This hits me the hardest where I live as a performing jazz artist with fans I care about. Since I play many nights a week in a variety of settings and am in personal contact with a good cross-section of active listeners, I continually hear the ongoing concerns of a very disappointed jazz pub­lic. These people are expressing real sad­ness and dismay over the limited and inappropriate music that is now being tossed their way, not just via the media, but even at some of our local clubs, and at our city festivals. There is a growing pas­sion to reclaim the classy, sophisticated music that used to be ours.
While everything wasn't perfect back in the sixties and seventies(as our memories sometimes trick us into believing) the fact
remains that there was a high level of quality that was expected by the music loving public. But these days, just like at Pier One,
the listener is at the mercy of decisions being made by the uninitiated, the uniformed, and the unin­spired.
Short of boycotting all stores, award shows and public music events, something has to be done to curtail the power of the people currently in charge. It's easy enough to avoid the Jane Monheit-wannabes at local winebars or the college jazz majors reading out of Realbooks at suburban steakhouses. But as adults who would like to participate and invest our energies in worthwhile music on a broader scale, we are tired of being force-fed inferior goods. As con­sumers and providers and enjoyers of the arts, we do not want to have our grocery shopping infiltrated by earsplitting rock, and we don't want to see the Grammy go to a disgustingly violent non-song. And if we can't control those things, then we would at least like to have our city jazz festivals not be compromised by the too often out-of touch people currently book­ing our public events. Their periodic sus­ceptibilities to jazz hoaxes are forcing increasing numbers of real jazz fans to run for the exits. The Revolution can start here.
On the keep-thinking-positive side of 2007, let's stay vigilant that the corporate body snatchers don't "get to" WDCB; and let's fervently hope that Joe Segal finds (or has already found) a new location for the Jazz Showcase, truly one of Chicago's great musical treasures.
Judy Roberts, named "Chicago's Favorite Jazz Woman" by the Chicago Tribune, is a Grammy-nominated pianist/vocalist/recording artist who has been serving the Chicago jazz scene for many years. For more information please go to www.judyroberts.com.

Why Americans Don't Like Jazz

By Dyske Suematsu

The current market share of Jazz in America is mere 3 percent. That includes all the great ones like John Coltrane and the terrible ones like Kenny G (OK, this is just my own opinion). There are many organizations and individuals like Wynton Marsalis who are tirelessly trying to revive the genre, but it does not seem to be working. Why is this? Is there some sort of bad chemistry between the American culture and Jazz? As ironic as it may be, I happen to believe so.

One day, I was talking to my wife about the TV commercial for eBay where a chubby lady sings and dances to an appropriated version of “My Way” by Frank Sinatra. The lyrics were entirely re-written, and “my way” was transformed into “eBay”. I told her that they did a good job in adapting the original song. Then she said: “Ah, that’s why I like it so much!” She actually did not realize that it was adapted from Sinatra’s song.

My wife and I have always known how differently we listen to music. I tend to entirely ignore lyrics, while she tends to entirely ignore music. We are the two opposite ends of the spectrum in this sense, and it appears that my wife’s side is more common. Many of my friends think that I have a peculiar, or plain bad, taste for music. Whenever I say I like this song or that song, they look at me like I am crazy. Then they go on to explain why it is bad, and I realize that they are referring to the lyrics, not to the music. I then pay attention to the lyrics for the first time, and realize that they are right. The opposite happens often too where many of my friends love a particular song, and I can’t understand what’s good about it until I pay attention to the lyrics.

The eBay example is an extreme case where my wife could not recognize the original once the lyrics were swapped. To her, if you change the lyrics, it is an entirely different song. It is the other way around for me; in most cases, I would not notice any change in the lyrics. The eBay song was an exception; I only noticed it because it is a famous song used for a TV commercial.

I believe my wife’s way of listening to music is typically American, and my way of listening to music, typically Japanese. If you don’t speak English, any songs written in English are instrumental music. Singers turn into just another musical instrument. These days, no matter where you live, you cannot get away from the dominance of the American music. This means that most non-English speakers grow up listening to a lot of instrumental music. In Japan, I would say, it constitutes about half of what people listen to. When they are listening to Madonna, Michael Jackson, or Britney Spears, they have very little understanding of what their songs are about. In this sense, their ears are trained to listen to and enjoy instrumental music, which explains why Jazz is still so popular in Japan.

To be able to enjoy instrumental music, you must be able to appreciate abstract art, and that requires a certain amount of effort. Just mindlessly drinking wine, for instance, would not make you a wine connoisseur. Mindlessly looking at colors (which we all do every day) would not make you a color expert either. Great art demands much more from the audience than the popular art does.

In this sense, the American ears are getting lazier and lazier. It wasn’t so long ago that most people knew how to play a musical instrument or two. Now the vast majority of Americans couldn’t tell the difference between a saxophone and a trumpet. Thanks partially to music videos, music is now a form of visual art. The American culture is so visually dominant that a piece of music without visuals cannot command full attention of the audience. For Americans, music is a background element, a mere side dish to be served with the main course. If they are forced to listen to a piece of instrumental music without any visuals, they don’t know what to do with their eyes, much like the way a nervous speaker standing in front of a large audience struggles to figure out what to do with his hands. Eventually something visual that has nothing to do with the music grabs their attention and the music is push to the background.

If you have written your own music, you have probably experienced this before: You play it for your friends to get their opinions. For about 10 seconds, everyone is silent. After 20 seconds, their eyes start to wander around. After 30 seconds, someone says something, which triggers everyone else to speak up. After 40 seconds, no one is actually listening to your music. I grew up sitting in front of the stereo with my father, closing our eyes, listening only to what came out of the speakers. This would go on for an hour or two as if we were watching a movie. It wasn’t just me; many of my friends did the same. Who does that anymore? In today’s living rooms, stereos are treated as accessories to television sets.

Visual dominancy isn’t the only problem. The bigger problem is the dominance of our thought. Most Americans do not know what to do with abstraction in general. To be able to fully appreciate abstraction, you must be able to turn off your thought, or at least be able to put your thought into the background. This is not as easy as it might seem. In modern art museums, most people’s minds are dominated by thoughts like: “Even I could do this.” Or, “Why is this in a museum?” Or, “This looks like my bed sheet.” Etc.. They are unable to let the abstraction affect their emotions directly; their experience must be filtered through interpretations. In a way, this is a defense mechanism. It is a way to deal with fears like, “If I admit that I don’t understand this, I’ll look unsophisticated.” This type of fear fills their minds with noise, and they become unable to see, hear, or taste.

This is why songs with lyrics in your own language and paintings with recognizable objects are easier for most people to appreciate. They give their minds something to do. It is like holding a pen in your hand when you are speaking in front of a large audience; you become less nervous because your hands have something to do.

Aesthetically, the paintings of Mark Rothko and those of Monet are quite similar, but the former is utterly unacceptable for many people even though they consider the latter to be a master. The difference is that in Monet’s paintings, you can still see things represented in them: rivers, trees, mountains, houses, and so forth. The audience interprets these objects, and projects their own beautiful memories onto the paintings, which makes the whole process much easier. In Mark Rothko’s paintings, there is nothing they can mentally grab on to. What you see is what you get; there is nothing to interpret. So, the audience is left without a pen to hold on to.

The same happens to instrumental music. If there are no lyrics, that is, if there is nothing for the minds to interpret, projecting of any emotional values becomes rather difficult. As soon as the lyrics speak of love, sex, racism, evil corporations, loneliness, cops, etc., all sorts of emotions swell up. Jazz to most people is like a color on a wall; unless you hung something on it, they don’t even notice it.

This rather unfortunate trend in the American culture seems to be irreversible. The popularity of Rap music seems to be a clear sign of this trend. I can appreciate Rap music for what it is, and I see nothing wrong with it, but it does not promote the full development of musical ears. If the song has any musical substance, it can be played on a piano alone (without a singer or any other instruments), and we would still enjoy it. The lack of musical substance becomes clearly visible if you would take many of today’s popular songs, and play them on a piano alone. Many of them would utilize hardly more than a few keys. Perhaps this trend would promote the appreciation of poetry, but it certainly would not promote the appreciation of music as an abstract form of art.

If we were to reverse this trend, we would need to make a conscious effort in promoting the abstract aspect of music. For instance, play more instrumental music in schools or teach how to play an instrument instead of how to sing. We could go as far as to teach kids in school instrumental music only, because their musical exposure outside of school would be dominated by non-instrumental music anyway. It would be a good way to balance things out.

This problem extends far beyond the American disinterest for Jazz; it is a problem for music in general. The dominance of words and visuals in the American culture has lead people to believe that listening to Rap or watching music videos is the full extent of what music has to offer. If this goes on, they’ll be missing a huge chunk of what life has to offer.