Get Smart, slit wrists and other musical musings

I've been reflecting on the amount of time I've been spending on music-related things - photos, going out to see gigs, working on setting up gigs, composing or arranging, tweaking my instruments, internet time especially vancouverjazz.com, burning my groups' cds and printing covers, doing cd cover artwork, and so on, not to mention blogging. Part of that is just necessary to move ahead as a performer, but I wonder how much is avoidance on my part. I love practicing and don't want to stop once I get in a groove, but getting started every day is a challenge. If I actually spent all of that time seriously practicing, I might be dangerous. OK, maybe menacing. Would you believe devil-may-care?

(I hear rumors of a Get Smart movie in the works - how can they ever replicate the comic genius of Mel Brooks, Buck Henry and Don Adams? And don't get me started on Barbara Feldon!)

Back to my original thoughts, I see this tendency mirrored in my daily battles with my daughter to stick to her piano practice. Maybe it's just payback time.


The Monday evening series at The Cellar is proving yet again that Vancouver is chock full of fine improvisors. Coat Cooke has done a great job of pulling this together and highlighting new groupings and musicians deserving of greater exposure. There could be a whole 'nother series featuring the established groups and musicians. I've cleared my Monday evening slate in order to be there weekly.

<- Clyde Reed, Bill Clark, Coat Cooke and Kenton Loewen at The Cellar on September 25th.

This week's gig by the Coat Cooke Trio was exceptionally good. Though not an unestablished group, Coat certainly deserves the monthly spot for all of his efforts in creating this series. He has lined up a series of guest artists each month and trumpeter Bill Clark was a fine fit. He and Coat and Clyde Reed have had decades of experience together in the NOW Orchestra and the group explored a lot of new and compelling sonic territory that night. The trio's cd on the Cellar Live label is getting fabulous reviews, and a guy like Bill could seamlessly turn this group into a killer quartet.

My contribution is to photograph the groups. Too often there is not enough documentation of one's gigs, and with Raymon Torchinsky recording almost every night, photos are a nice complement. I finally figured out the best combination of lighting levels and camera settings and was quite pleased with my results. I'm quite flattered that Brian Nation saw fit to make one of my shots Pic of the Moment on vancouverjazz.com. Now I just need to get myself set up on something like Flicker to post more of my pictures. As an added bonus for the performers, on some nights I'll bring my photo printer along and give them a shot or two of the gig before they pack up. Polaroids for the 21st century...


On another note, in my last post, I made reference to some of the indifferent managers that I deal with at certain local venues. Two of the people that do not fit that generalization are Cory Weeds and Cem Zafir, of The Cellar and Zula Productions respectively. Cory mentioned in his latest blog post that The Cellar is celebrating its 6th anniversary. I for one now feel like The Cellar has been there forever, always keeping its commitment to presenting the finest jazz has to offer. It is hands down the only place to really listen to jazz in the city. The Monday evening improv series presented by the New Orchestra Workshop Society is certainly well beyond the usual stylistic leanings of the club, but I think it's a good fit. As for Cem, he had a teriffic run at Rime and now is aiming to turn the WISE Hall into a great venue. I have a lot of respect for these guys. They could turn their considerable talents elsewhere, and the artistic fabric of this city would be the worse for it.


Tuesday saw ion Zoo do a short but sweet gig at the Western Front. We were providing music for a book launch and poetry reading presented by the literary magazine Capilano Review.

Some time ago on the vancouverjazz forum, I mentioned one of my worst all-time gigs, which was at a poetry reading. For those of you who don't hang on my every word (namely, everybody) I'll recount that infamous evening. About a dozen years ago I was playing with a saxophone quartet called The Four Neat Guys. We had a repertoire of light classical music and swingy sax quartet tunes. We got hired to provided light interval music for an author's night at the Harrison Festival of the Arts. The night was going along fine until we heard from a young angst-filled poet who used the evening to spill her guts in the most vivid way she could, going into great and gory detail about losing her virginity and a subsequent abortion. Good times. The whole room was ready to slit their wrists. OK guys, Pink Panther theme, 2, 3, 4...

Fortunately last night couldn't have been more different. We had two very, very short sets to play, for which we were very nicely compensated. Carol improvised a song using a poem written by the featured author of the evening. The second improv, she went on this very entertaining jag about being daunted to perform in front of a room full of writers, so she'd do it in Esperanto so nobody would know what she was saying. After a break for the reading by the featured writer (which was right on schedule as opposed to Kaslo, and not gut-spilling as opposed to Harrison) our third and final improv was also based on a poem. It was all very together and entertaining and very well received by the audience. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Carol doesn't realize how good she is, despite what we tell her. Clyde was totally bang-on with his bass playing, despite some last-minute manipulations of his bridge backstage. I played soprano sax, bass clarinet and debuted my just-refurbished alto clarinet. I was quite pleased with my results. One of these days, I'll go just with clarinets alone, but for now a saxophone on the side is my security blanket.

In a very recent posting, I wrote how sometimes I don't know if a gig was good or bad. There was no guesswork here, it was a keeper.

Just like Kaslo, I forgot to arrange for someone to take pictures of the performance with my camera. There's always next time.