Update for April 2008

Hi, again (a week late, too... must be spring fever, or could it be the curse of the website update deadline?)

Anyway, welcome back. Lots of news to tell, so I'll get right down to it.

The Works (that's Henry Small, Tina Moore and me) will be performing at the Sagebrush Theatre on Saturday evening, April 12. We'll be doing a 45-set as part of Kamfest which is a fundraiser for the Canadian Mental Health Association. Should be a great evening, with other special guests as well as the comedy duo Bowser and Blue. Tickets are $15 and are available through the normal Kamloops ticket outlets.

The Commodore Jazz Band is now a regular thing for me, and the group has now expanded to six-piece, to include the talented Kris Ruston on guitar. We're beginning work on some hip, groove-oriented material along with our own versions of some interesting standards. It's a ton of fun and our regular Friday evening gig at the Commodore Grand Lounge on Victoria Street is going over great with the dinner and jazz crowd

I've also begun working on an exciting trio project with Grant Porter on upright bass and Buddy Rodgers on percussion. Right now, I'm focusing on playing guitar with that project, but will also include piano as well, depending on the requirements of the gig. Our plan is to work as a trio, doing a wide variety of music including jazz, swing and other genres, with interesting arrangements. We also want to generally get to know each other as players and become a tight enough unit that can serve as a backup group for out-of-town jazz and swing solo artists that are playing here, through our relationship with Entertainment Management Associates and the Kamloops Jazz Society.

And besides music, there's gardening, tree planting (we've planted 66 trees so far - including fruit trees and ornamentals - with more planting on the way, including shrubbery around a lot of the property), painting all the rooms inside the house, and pretty well anything else you can think of when it comes to maintaining a fairly large property. We were fortunate in that we moved into a house that was quite well kept up, but of course it didn't take long before we wanted to make a few changes (such as painting over that dark purple paint on the living room and dining room walls, which is now thankfully a thing of the past).

Heard any good music lately? Here's what I recommend: Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. I heard one reviewer describe the CD as superb psychedelic roots music. Yeah, that sounds about right. I also recommend just about anything by Ron Sexsmith. I've also found Paul Simon's Surprise, a very cool album, what with the sonic landscapes provided by Brian Eno. It's a couple of years old, but really worth getting. I also loved Dylanesque, Brian Ferry's album of Dylan covers from last year. Oh, and there's Lyle Lovett and His Large Band's It's Not Big, It's Large, and John Hiatt's Crossing Muddy Waters (from a couple of years back), Jackson Browne's Solo Acoustic Vol. 1, Herbie Hancock's River - The Joni Letters, featuring guest artists such as Norah Jones and Tina Turner (Tina's never sounded better), Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint's The River In Reverse, and There Will Be A Light, by Ben Harper and The Blind Boys Of Alabama. There... that'll keep you busy for awhile.

Until next month, all the best!

NEW UPDATE FOR MARCH, 2008 - revised on March 10

Welcome back... spring is here! (Or at least it surely feels like it.) Most of our snow is gone, the weather is mild and folks (including us) are starting to turn our minds toward gardening.

On the music front, the next month or so promises to be a busy and very interesting period. Last week I began as Music Director with the Two River Junctionmusic revue. TRJ (as all the cast members call it) is the production put on in conjunction with Rocky Mountaineer Railtours. The show opens on April 17 and I'll be working with the cast, crew and director up to then to get the show musically in shape. The cast (which is almost entirely new this year) are a great bunch of folks and great singers as well. Most of the cast are professional actors.

February was also a great month for music... and in fact every month since I've been here has been offering more and more opportunities. Had some great shows at the Commodore Lounge and at Tango Tapas Restaurant, but the big show of the month was the two-night To Armstrong And Bach engagement at The Pavilion Theatre on February 18 and 19. Hats off to local players Grant Porter (bass), Buddy Rogers (drums) and Vancouver's Leigh Grant (trumpet) for making it such a memorable and enjoyable set of gigs. It involved lots of "woodshedding" on my part, with getting some fleet-fingered intros and solos put together. But what a great opportunity to delve a little deeper into some wonderful music, Louis Armstrong's style of Dixieland-Swing. (And how could you not have fun playing tunes with titles like "Big Butter And Egg Man" and "Struttin' With Some Barbecue." You just know these are songs meant for having fun with.) We had a great turnout both nights, the crowd totally enjoyed themselves (with encores all 'round). Thanks also to Ray Nyuli from Entertainment Management Associates, Kamloops Jazz Society and Alan Corbishley of BC Living Arts for organizing what turned out to be a very successful event.

This month I'll be playing with the local jazz group "Mo Jazz" on Tuesday March 4, and then with the Commodore Jazz group on March 7, 21 (Commodore Lounge on Victoria Street) and 22 (private event). This group is really starting to cook! Then The Works performs at Forster's Best Western for the Kamloops Wine Festival on Friday, March 28 and the following evening I'll be playing jazz piano at the Kamloops Art Gallery for the official opening of the Gary Pearson show.

If you're in the area, please drop in to one or many of the gigs mentioned above. It's all good music, and I'd love to see you there! Bye for now.

UPDATE FOR FEBRUARY, 2008

Welcome back. January was a great month, with lots of music and SNOW! Been doing a fair amount of cross-country skiing. The snow in the Kamloops area is nice and dry, and the terrain is perfect (not too hilly, not too flat... just right).

February is shaping up to be a pretty busy month musically, with some interesting gigs coming up. I'll be at The Commodore Lounge on Friday Feb 8 and at Tango Tapas Restaurant the following evening. These are fun gigs and very intimate. All the players get to stretch out a bit, and the listeners really get into the music. Later on the month (Mon and Tues, Feb 18 and 19), I'll be performing at the Pavilion Theatre for the "To Armstrong and Bach" concert, a presentation of the BC Living Arts Series and the Kamloops Jazz Society. The evening is divided into two parts, with classical music for the first half (the Bach part) and then Dixieland jazz the second part (the Armstrong part, as in Louis). Vancouver trombonist Leigh Smith will be the featured player in the second half. Yours truly will be on piano and we'll also be joined by the rhythm section from the local band "Mo Jazz." I think it will be a really interesting and enjoyable evening!

It's official: THE WORKS is the name that Henry Small, Tina Moore and I have chosen for our trio. As I mentioned in the January update, we'll be heading into the studio with a few other players to begin recording songs. We're pretty excited to get some sessions in. We have a few gigs coming up in the next few months, one of which is at the Sagebrush Theatre in April. For that gig, we're planning to bring in a few support players, including drums, bass and possibly electric guitar and/or sax.

On more of a literary than musical note, I'm reading a fascinating biography these days: "I Celebrate Myself - The Somewhat Private Life Of Allen Ginsberg" by Bill Morgan. Very interesting from many perspectives but the one that would resonate for anyone who tries to live the "artist's life" is the description of his search for meaning through poetry and his uncompromising approach to his art. He apparently refused (in most cases at least) to accept payment for any readings he did. (And he was phenomenally popular for his readings and much in demand). When he did accept payment, it was usually so that he could use the funds generated to donate to worthwhile causes, such as helping friends who were being hauled into court to face charges for their own controversial writings. That took a lot of guts... he is quoted as saying that he didn't feel he should accept money for his readings as he was afraid it would compromise his art and force him into writing what he thoughts others wanted to read (and consequently would pay to hear). Like many biographies, it's sometimes difficult at first to keep up with all the friends and acquaintances mentioned in the book, but after awhile you get to know and feel for the secondary characters as well. (And I do mean characters... those were interesting times. Folks like William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac are both significant players in the book). It's definitely worth taking the time to read, and to understand not just Ginsberg's achievements but also to get a better understanding for the period in which he worked. (And I can't resist recommending another bio I read a couple of years ago, called "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone - A Biography Of The Carter Family" by Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg. I highly recommend it!

Well, since this update is sounding almost like a bookclub evening, I'll sign off for now and get back to the Ginsberg book! Bye for now, and see you next month.

UPDATE FOR JANUARY, 2008

Hi, everyone and welcome to 2008. I figured it was high time to get some sort of update together and let you know how things have been going in the dry country, at our place in Kamloops. (Local singer and radio personality Henry Small calls it "the ranch," and the first time he came out to visit us, he joked that our place looked like J.R.'s estate on the TV show "Dallas." That's a mighty big stretch, but we do really like it here.)

Musically, things are really moving quickly for me. Right away, I made some interesting and talented contacts, including Henry and also Tina Moore (we have a great - as yet unnamed - vocal trio, which some of you have already heard when we travelled down to Vancouver for our gig in October with Keith Bennett). We head into the studio in early February if all goes well and we'll start recording some of the music we've been working on. (Wait until you hear our slinky, funked up version of Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." We played that and a few other new numbers at a couple of gigs here in town just before Christmas. There were more than a few heads turned at that one!

Aside from the vocal trio, I've started playing some jazz gigs (mostly piano, but some guitar as well) with some very, very talented players, doing everything from Miles Davis to Coltrane as well as our own arrangements of standards... what fun that is, and oh my, does it swing!

One of the most enjoyable gigs I've done in a while was on New Year's Eve at the Sunpeaks Ski Resort, where the Delta Hotel brought me up to play solo piano for their end-of-year celebration. What a nice bunch of people to work for, and the audience was wonderful. That, and a great room at the Delta overlooking the ski runs and snowshoeing the next day made for a pretty sweet way to spend New Year's.

...And now that the New Year is here, I'm starting to plan some teaching projects. I conducted a couple of workshops in October in Vancouver and in November with the Sweet Harmony Choir in Quesnel as well as an "ecumenical" workshop with members of several church choirs in Quesnel. I must say I've enjoyed taking some time out from teaching, but now I'm starting to feel that it's probably time to get going again. Once I have specific information, I'll be posting the offerings on this site, in the INSTRUCTION section.

And about the homestead: we're on a two-acre piece of property, in a nice big house. (Now all we have to do is fill it with furniture.) Anyone who was at our last (tiny) house in Vancouver will know that the deck on our new place is as big as the entire house we moved out of.

We love the area, the neighbours are great (and we threw a big neighbourhood party just before Christmas and invited lots of folks for an evening of good food, laughs and of course music). The stars are beautiful at night, it's crisp and cold these days, the coyotes are really close by and we often hear them yelping through the night. That, and the distant train we hear down in the valley every evening makes it all feel rather idyllic.

Until next time... all the best!

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