Green light effect

I miss my camera. I started having problems with it just after ion Zoo played The Cellar in December. A friend of Carol's who is a professional photographer was there and he offerred to take a few shots of us. He also changed all of the basic settings on the camera and afterwards, I couldn't get it back to the way I was used to having it. Then it took longer and longer for the camera to switch into ready mode when I turned it on.

There is an LED indicator that blinks as the camera starts up and reads the memory card, usually just a few seconds. In a short time, this was the only thing the camera would do, just blink. So I took it to the Nikon repair depot, quite near to my home. I was told it was the dreaded "green light effect", a design flaw with this model of camera, and that the whole metering system would have to be replaced. As I was listening to the prognosis, I couldn't help but notice the posted repair rates, which appeared to start with a $300 minimum. I was very relieved to hear that this was a factory recall and it would be done at no charge.

That was almost a month ago, and I am anxious to get it back. I've missed shooting a few of the Monday night series at The Cellar. There have been some really great sets lately and a couple of times I've seen some situations that would have made for great photos.

Last night I really enjoyed Sketches, comprising of Gord Grdina, Dan Gaucher and Neal Dhillon. I was digging Neal's control of his horn, his time and soft tone, very unusual in freer improv situations. Normally this is where sax players really let their tone open upn - certainly I'm one of those who pushes it to extremes and continually working on getting an even wider range of sounds out of the horn. Neal chooses to work in a very limited tonal palette, more in the Lee Konitz range, and really digs into the possibilities. And since he is also a highly accomplished tabla player, his sense of time and rhythm is impeccable. He and Gord and Dan navigated effortlessly through some deadly wicked time signatures. Neal dressed quite sharply and I wish I could have gotten a good photo of him.

I really like it when music is in a so-called odd (to whom?) time signature and it all sounds very organic, as opposed to a bunch of guys as much as shouting "Hey we're cool, we're playing in 13!" That sort of stuff quickly bores me.

During my first year at Banff, Maria Schnieder presented a few pieces in uncommon time signatures, an arrangement of Giant Step in 5/4. It was fast and really hard, an earlier arrangement of hers. I was happy that we decided not to perform that one. Rather, we did Hang Gliding, which is one of the most sublime pieces I've ever played, which just happened to be in 11. One of my first entries of this blog details my experience with that piece. It was one of the major turning points of my life.

By coincidence, yesterday I finished doing a lift of a Jeannette Lindstrom song called Leaf, with her blessing. On Sunday, I was surprised to find out that it was in 5/4 with the odd bar of 6 thrown in for effect. I've listened to the tune dozens of times, but I hadn't picked up on the time, as it all sounded very natural. I've liked the lyrics to this song, the fact that she wrote in here in BC and its mention of Robson St.

I've really enjoyed listening to Jeanette's In the Middle of this Riddle cd since I saw her a couple of times at last year's Jazz Festival. I just liked the sometimes startling clear tone of her voice, been interested in her deliberate choices of diction, English being a second language for her, and particularly liked Staffan Svensson's always understated and interesting trumpet playing.

So it's with a bit of regret that I had to change gears and start listening critically to this song, figuring out all of the bits that made it sound so good. It's like figuring out a magic trick, and having that experience of wonder surgically removed.

We're going to rehearse it tonight with the Wanda Nowicki Group. If we can make the song flow, we'll keep it, maybe record it. If we make it sound like we're thumping our chests about playing in 5, then I'll yank it. And god help anyone who pounds out that Take Five lick tonight. Years back we did a wedding where the groom requested that tune. I wrote an arrangement in 6, just to see if anyone was actually listening.

Tomorrow, a full plate of VCMI!