Da rules

Thanks to Brian Nation for the shout out today and for encouraging me to write my daily scree. The Vancouver Jazz website is fantastic and a great asset to our community. I lurked for a long time on the forum and started posting there more frequently this year. I always enjoy the blogs by Cory, Morgs, Brian, Josie (come back to town!) and my former bandmate Mr. Doheney. We've gotta get one of those N'awlins-type handles for John, say Étoufée or Warmdaddy. He's probably got one but won't tell any of us Yankees, because it's something like Flatass.

I figured my jaunt up to the Rockies would be a perfect excuse for a blog. I have a need to document my thoughts, but it will remain to be seen if anyone else finds them of interest.

It's my plan to load up on postings before I head out at that ungodly hour this Saturday morning. I want to deal with some of my history with the place beforehand so that I can be more in the moment with my missives up there. I hope to post daily, but I cannot guarantee that I will always be coherent or sober.

DISCLAIMER This blog is a work of fiction, rather, at the very least it's reality strongly filtered through through the semi-functional mind of one ertswhile musician. All characters and events portrayed in this work are fictional, but no names will be changed. Any similarity to what is about to transpire at the Banff Centre is purely coincidental, though cosmically preordained.

There, my ass is covered. I've been thinking about this whole blogging process, since I know some of this year's workshop participants regularly visit vancouverjazz.com. At this point I feel the only honest thing to do is to write what is on my mind and stay respectful of other peoples' own processes while they are here. If my blog has any negative effect on the proceedings up there, I will have to reconsider continuing with it. I guess I could have done it anonymously, but that's a copout.

I want to thank Patrick Dubois for his support. Patrick is an extraordinarily gifted pianist who did the Banff program with Chucho Valdes many years ago. He has written two very orignal and entertaining treatises on the topic of clave, stemming from that experience. He also lent me some Irakere cds, since just like Maria Schneider, I am not really familiar with Chucho's work. (I can hear Alan Johnston tsk-tsking...) The first one I listened to was "Live at Ronnie Scott's". As the cd played, I was thinking that this was killer stuff, but doable from a horn player's viewpoint, and thank God I don't have to play the piano part - bonne chance, Marianne!

Then I flipped on the next two cd's in the car. What the hell is that? That shit is IMPOSSIBLE!!! There was stuff that I initially thought was programmed synth because it was just too damn fast, but noooo, it's the saxophones playing this endless staccato line at breakneck speed, dead clean. And what about that flute soli? I'm really in for it. The soloist are dropping more jazz quotes than your basic Doheney solo. Ohmygawd. I guess I'll be tossed into the deep end whether I like it or not.

I'd have it no other way.