On a roll


Well, today has been interesting.

My laptop gave the appearance of totally packing it in for a while, but apparently I don't need to use it desparately enough, so it has decided to hang on a while longer.

The morning orchestra run-through was really good and we did a piece of John Korsrud's called Iguana. I got the soprano sax part and I had doubts at first that I could handle it, but it sounded pretty good by the end of the day. It's a totally unique piece based on hiphop club music and super-fast cuts between different styles of music.

At lunchtime, I had a pleasant surprise when the in-house piano tech told me he had found a bunch of surplus piano tuning pins. These are the steel pegs that piano strings are wound onto. They also happen to make an exquisite percussion instrument when strung onto a short handle, like wind chimes. In fact, they are called pin chimes and have a unique tinkling sound. I have enough to make two sets of chimes. I'll give one to Dominique for her generousity with providing a marimba for the sound room gig.

After lunch, it was back to repertoire. Ken Hoffman scored big when he inquired with the Banff School of Music and found that we were able to borrow a bass clarinet, an alto flute and an Eb clarinet. The bass clarinet is in fact the one I played here in 2002 with Maria Schneider - an absolute top of the line professional instrument. I gave it a try and it's a lot less painful to play now that I have had one of my own for over a year. It has a great smooth classical sound, with a thundering low C, but actually, I'm quite happy with mine. Maybe it's a better instrument for the style of music I do.

I'm going to play the alto flute in one of Hugh's pieces. I gave it a try and this baby is SEXY. It has the sound of Kathleen Turner back in her Body Heat days. About 5 of us want to take this beauty home with us. The flute, not Kathleen Turner.

After the afternoon break, we divided into two smaller groups and I hit paydirt. My group is doing the first two movements of the VEJI arrangement of A Love Supreme, John Coltrane's monumental work. It features three tenor saxes, along with brass and a rhythm section. Hugh is on piano. I saw this arrangement performed by VEJI a few years ago at the Cellar during the Jazz Festival. Jon Bentley, Bill Runge and from New York, Patience Higgins played tenors. Oooooh, yeah, baby......

I am totally thrilled to be part of that group. It's also cool that the first movement was arranged by Robin Shier, who directs Urbana, a big band that I played in for many years.

I reworked my ideas for my new piece for the group and I am looking forward to getting a lot down on paper over the next 24 hours. I think I now have a more original working of my initial concepts. I'm going to forego a lot of the optional events this evening and tomorrow morning to get my score started and to work on these charts.

I did take a nice hike up Tunnel Mountain after dinner, and it looked like the weather was changing, and sure enough, it just started pouring for the first time since I arrived here.

Clara reports that things are going well at home, including on the financial side (finally!), so that is good. I'll need to focus my attentions here over the next few days.