The Free State Project's 2009 Porcupine Freedom Festival has come to a close. It was another record shattering event. The last incomplete data I had indicated right at 500 registrations. I saw a number of people walking around without name tags (likely unregistered), and talked to several who said they never registered. Maybe there were 600 ( Read more... )

Tonight was a musical blast from the past. I received an email a few days ago announcing a jazz concert here in little old Keene, NH. The featured artist was Richie Cole. Richie is a rather famous Alto Saxophonist whose professional included stints with big bands led by Buddy Rich, Lionel Hampton, Doc Severinsen, and numerous others. I knew I'd ( Read more... )

Just a quick note to pass along these videos of Taku performing with A.R. Rahman on the Tonight Show and Oprah. He's playing Taiko in both...

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The jazz music world has lost another giant.  Louie Bellson passed away February 14, 2009.  More detailed information can be found on his website which is updated by his loving wife.

There were many great big band drummers, but only a handful whose names were repeatedly mentioned as being the all-time best in the world.  Louie was one of those.  I ( Read more... )

Due to a totally unexpected string of circumstances, I wound up going to Bette Midler's show in Las Vegas this past week and reconnecting (in person) with a musician friend of mine I who I haven't seen since high school. It all started with a travel agent convention and Facebook ( Read more... )

After a headline like that, I would expect to read, "there isn't any." In fact, I was subconsciously so convinced that there wouldn't be jazz in Bishkek that it never even occurred to me to go looking for it. That's okay, though, the jazz found me this time ( Read more... )

The Weekend of September 27th and 28th was the second big weekend of Northwest Church's 50th anniversary. That was the church that I grew up in and Edi and I were married in. I obviously have many memories that go way back there and it was significantly influential in my growing up years ( Read more... )

Not quite a week later, I'm finally catching up on last weekend. A full weekend of Monterey Jazz Festival activities is clearly not enough jazz (hah!), so we decided to get in on some more ( Read more... )

Sometimes it's hard to figure out what day of the Monterey Jazz Festival is my favorite. Often, though, it's day 3, and this year was no exception. Hearing the band formerly known as the Monterey Jazz Festival High School All Star Big Band (which I played in for two years) with the artist in residence is always a lot of fun. It seems like they ( Read more... )

We broke with tradition for day 2 of the Monterey Jazz Festival. We normally skip the Saturday afternoon show and do something recreational, but this year we decided to catch the whole day. We wound up distracted by sushi so we didn't quite make the beginning of the show, but we did get there in time to catch Ledisi (rhymes with lettuce-E) on the ( Read more... )