Girls from Ipanema, UFOs and a new CD

It's been a few months since I updated the "blob", as my wife Susan calls it, but life's been a happy whirlwind (be sure to pronounce the "h", as is "hwhirlwind"). In the interest of saving time while still offering a healthy diversion from the health care reform battle, I'll try to condense the last few months into a few pithy paragraphs of particular potency.

In June I made my first trip to Brazil with the amazing singer Dianne Reeves. (Dianne, I love working with you and will go with you anywhere, any time.) Nobody can touch her in terms of overall power, vibe, and soulfulness... she is a master of her art. Ironically, I arrived safely home from Brazil, proud of the fact that I didn't get mugged (having the drummer-defensive tackle Terreon "Tank" Gully as your bodyguard doesn't hurt), only to find out I had $3,000 of fraudulent credit card charges. I got got, internet-style!

The surprise phone call of my life came just before that trip, when I got hired at the last minute to fill in for Danilo Perez in Wayne Shorter's quartet for 3 concerts in Los Angeles, Ottawa and Montreal. Suffice to say I jumped through the roof of my small office. Ever since I was 15 (1985) when I bought Wayne's record "Atlantis", and all of Weather Report's records before that, Wayne's music has been so deeply woven into my DNA that it felt completely natural and at-home to be playing in his group, a dream come true. Was I nervous? No time for that... there was music to make, and being in Wayne's presence just brings out the best. And what an inspiring guy to hang out with, too.

August brought a couple of gigs with Denise Donatelli, a lovely singer from Los Angeles. We're working on arrangements for her third record and will be in the studio in November. We played the San Jose jazz festival (my first time performing in an Imax theatre... where were the sharks?) and the Douglas Beach House in Half Moon Bay, CA, possibly my favorite venue on Earth. The gig is right on the ocean, and you can watch the sun set over the waves through big glass windows while you play. The ocean theme continued last week in Hawaii, as I played 2 concerts with Hawaiian slack-key guitar legend Keola Beamer, continuing our association that started in 2003 with my CD "Falling Up". Keola's music is so gentle and relaxing, and I feel like I'm just starting to scratch the surface of understanding how to play it. Joining us was a lovely and talented young Hawaiian singer named Raiatea Helm.

This week marks the release of a long-awaited pet project, a full-fledged electronica CD made in collaboration with Vancouver keyboardist/producer Mary Ancheta. Our "band" is called Montre Echo, and the new CD is called "The Near Forever", available as a digital download here. The response has been very positive already - it's unlike anything I've done before but it's right where I want to be, fully enmeshed in these wonderful, swirling electronic beats and sounds. We collaborated with NYC video artist Benton C. Bainbridge on "Chrysoglott". Most of the song titles are names of obscure pipe organ stops. Hope you check it out!

Doing Japan - Keezer style

Been in Japan all week, performing in Tokyo and Osaka with legendary septuagenarian jazz guitarist Jim Hall, along with Ron Carter and Steve LaSpina on bass, Greg Osby on sax, Terry Clarke on drums and a string section of not-unattractive Japanese women with names like "Crusher" Kimura - naturally leading us to assign similar provocative nicknames to the other girls, which for the sake of decency I shall refrain from listing here. Annnnywayy, the Tokyo concerts were very nice and I'm looking forward to our third and final show here in Osaka tomorrow.

Today, I spent my day off in Osaka visiting my good friend Yasukatsu Oshima and his wife Miki. Yasukatsu and I made a recording a couple years ago of traditional Okinawan folk songs. Oshima lives in a lovely little town called Nishinomiya, nestled between the major centers of Osaka and Kobe. From his house, we hiked up a steeep (extra 'e' added for emphasis) mountain trail to a lush botanical garden, then caught a bus the rest of the way up the slope to Arima Onsen, a famous hot spring resort town. In case you don't know, I'm obsessed with hot springs, making a point to go to one (or more) anytime I'm within an eight hour train ride in any direction.

In fact, the only two times I can recall ever being recognized in public were both at hot spring resorts, and both times I was stark naked. Once was in California - I was toweling off and a fan came up and said "You sounded great at Yoshi's last night." Uhhh... thanks. The other was even weirder. I was deep in the mountains of Yamagata, Japan, miles from civilization or underwear, and I was perched on a rock, my business boldly exposed and swinging like
A) the Count Basie band during a late-night set
B) Tarzan on his way to Jane's house
C) Babe Ruth's custom model R-43 in the 1928 World Series
D) "Yeah sure, honey, keep dreaming" (my wife)
I see a pair of eyes, alligator-like, slowly moving toward me through the murky, bubbling sulfuric water. Suddenly the man jumps up, points (at my face, thank you) and says "JEFU KEEZAA! JEFU KEEZAA!". eek. Turns out he was a trombone player I went to Berklee with.

After our brief dip in the onsen, we went to eat "takoyaki", which literally translates as "octopus balls". Mmmm. Actually they're quite good - little pieces of octopus surrounded by golf ball-sized dollops of gooey pancake batter that come steaming off the grill at 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit, the approximate surface temperature of the Sun. Word to the wise, have plenty of beer and/or an asbestos suit on hand.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. More road adventures to come, I'm sure....

Bringing the Road to you!

What I've been up to:

Last Friday, I filled in for guitarist Mark Whitfield (on keyboards) with Chris Botti in the lovely town of Great Barrington, MA in the Berkshires. The incredible Billy Childs is Chris' regular pianist (somehow he manages to squeeze Botti's endless world tour in between winning Guggenheim fellowships and writing awesome chamber, symphonic and choral music) a I occasionally sub for him in the band. So we had 2 keyboard players and no guitar. Chris liked the 2-keyboard sound so much that he hired me last minute to play in Chicago the next day, in a gorgeous concert hall called the Chicago Theatre, this time with Whitfield on guitar as well. It was lots of fun, my job was pretty easy (synth pads) and I got to mostly sit on stage and listen to one of the world's best jazz bands throw down hard! Not a bad way to make a living eh.

Then Monday I caught a 6 AM flight to New York to record a new album with my old friend Joe Locke, who graciously let me out of Sunday evening's rehearsal so I could make Botti's gig in Chicago. It's a working band, with Joe on vibes, Clarence Penn on drums, George Mraz on bass and a relatively unknown (not for long!) singer from San Francisco named Kenny Washington (NOT the drummer). Kenny's a true jazz musician, a real improviser and creative force. We've played together as a band several times, so the recording process went quickly and easily... just a great bunch of musicians doing what we do best. It felt like a live gig. It's been quite a long time since I've made a record this way - hit it and quit it. One take, two at most. Fine with me... if it ain't broke don't fix it! It was my first time recording with either Clarence or George. Hopefully not the last :)

This morning a creative video artist named Benton C. Bainbridge came over to the pad where I stay in Astoria, NY to shoot the inside of the piano - hammers hitting strings, etc - for visuals to accompany the song "Chrysoglott" from my upcoming electronica collaboration with Vancouver artist Mary Ancheta. Our project is called Montre Echo, and many of the song titles are names of obscure pipe organ stops (like "Kerophone", "Noli me Tangere" and "Montre Echo" itself). Stay tuned for 12-second video clips and updates via Twitter as the album progresses. No word yet on whether it will be self-released or on a label.

I'm home for 2 days then off to Japan to play with Jim Hall, Ron Carter, Greg Osby and a Japanese string section. Looking forward to the music, and glad Jim is in good health and able to tour again. He's a load of fun on the road, he hates all forms of technology (cell phones, computers, etc) but ironically loves to run his guitar through all kinds of effects pedals - which he places at waist level on a music stand so he doesn't have to bend over to trigger them. LOL.

See ya soon in blogsville!

Paris Drinks Lattes - News!

Did that get your attention? OK, so after almost 5 years in the making and many, MANY thousands of dollars spent on my latest CD "Aurea" (like the subtle link there?), with a handful of those K's from very kind and generous people who believe in and support me (thank you!!!), it's become painfully evident that it's hard as fuck (and that's a very hard substance, right up there with diamond, rhenium diboride and carbon nanotubes) to get people to actually buy my music. I'm tweeting, tribing, facebooking, youtubing, myspacing, iMixing, offering CDs for sale at my gigs, handing out business cards with the Aurea logo to inquisitive strangers, even velcroing them to passing animals, and it's resulting in just a handful of sales and a wristful of carpal tunnel issues! Double-you tee eff. I sincerely enjoy connecting with friends and fans on social networking sites... I'm not doing it only to sell records... but it would be nice if more of them would support the artist they're joking with, arguing with, showering with praise or reprimands. It's all good... just show me some love so I can put groceries on the table!

The music business is changed forever, and I can honestly say I have no idea how to convince someone that it's worth spending $15 (or less) for a valuable, rich, emotionally engaging and rewarding musical experience that can potentially grow and unfold subtler layers with repeated listening. Without an extra $20,000 to spend on a publicist, I can only really count on word-of-mouth. And then the word-of-mouthee still has to make the leap of faith and click the button, and not just wait for their friend to burn them a copy or email them a neatly packaged, gift-wrapped zip folder. People these days want something for nothing - the Paris Hilton phenomenon. They'll pay $4.50 for a grande nonfat soy mochaccino latte that comes out in the toilet 2 hours later, but can't see spending a few dollars more to own some great music that will last a lifetime.

World's shortest jazz piano lessons

Yesterday I got a wacky idea to start posting 12-second piano "microlessons" on Twitter. The aim is to provide students (or anyone else interested) with daily snippets of musical information, whatever happens to float across my brain's fuzzy radar screen, with the hopes of sharing something that might help your playing or give you an idea to build on - free of charge. There's so many people peddling online lessons these days, and I've considered it, but hey, I didn't invent jazz piano. I remember vividly being 18 years old in NYC, seeing Herbie Hancock at the Blue Note. As he descended from the stage after his amazing concert, I boldly walked up and asked him what the correct turnaround was on "Footprints" (it's F#-B-E-A) and to show me that nutball chord on "Eye of the Hurricane". He'd only been offstage for five minutes, the audience was still in their seats paying their tabs, and Herbie went right back up to the piano and answered my questions. In front of everybody. And I was a nobody then. That experience, and Herbie's selfless generosity, has stayed with me ever since.

Why only 12 seconds? Well, because it's a convenient Tweetdeck app, and because the people over at 12seconds.tv think anything longer is boring. And it's about all I have time for these days, with a toddler running amok in my house!

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

..."practice!" goes the old punch line. Jim Hall actually used that one on me a few years ago, when we performing at Avery Fisher Hall in NYC. I was lost downstairs somewhere and was literally asking how to get to the venue - he nailed me with it.

Anyway, I've been teaching music all week in California to a great bunch of kids, many of whom's futures could hold a successful jazz career (whatever that means...). Success in jazz isn't measured in money, it's in how clearly you're able to express what's inside you, and how well you connect with your (small but appreciative) audiences. Everyone deserves a chance to earn a living doing what they love, but I wonder how it's going to be for these kids - we're training more and more players for a business that has fewer opportunities than when I was in college.

There's a dude who keeps writing me on Facebook, asking me how to "get into the music business". I finally responded, saying "Basically, you practice your ass off, get out and meet people, and play as much as you can." Let me repeat... be excellent at what you do, and GET OUT AND MEET PEOPLE. That's it, kid. No short cuts that I'm aware of. And he wrote back a few minutes later and said "Thanks for the advice! So how did you get into the music business?" Argghhh... My next answer will be "How you get into the business is you stop bugging people on Facebook and start practicing!"

Playing music is hard work. I love my job, and can't imagine doing anything else. When musicians go on the road, it's not a vacation. Europe? Great! I've seen the airports, train stations, backstages and 3 AM roadside truck stops in 30 countries. Someday I may travel there on vacation, but you can be sure I ain't gonna show up at a jam session!

Rubik's Cubes and Maria Schneider charts...

There's nothing like a good arse-whupping once in a while to keep me humble and on my toes. Last weekend I was visiting my inlaws and my wife was cleaning out her childhood play house. She brought down a box of assorted goodies including those Strawberry Shortcake dolls, snap-together plastic blocks that my baby son Cameron would like, and a Rubik's Cube. I was planning to take a nap that afternoon ("Sleep when your baby sleeps" screeches the annoying, unrealistic mantra of parenting books... whoever wrote that must have a live-in nanny, cook, housecleaner and a trust fund), but instead I decided I could solve the Rubik's cube in, oh say, an hour tops. This was a real vintage Cube, you can tell because some of the stickers had been removed and replaced, the end game of a frustrated 80's teenager giving up and outsmarting the toy designers by simply moving the damn stickers. A week later, I'm still determined to beat this thing, this hideous piece of bubble economy engineering and spatial-orientation challenge, some nearly thirty years after it first reared its ugly square head. And I'm not going to cheat by moving the stickers... I'm much smarter, clever and patient than I was in junior high school. My wife might beg to differ.

Which brings me to part two: I'm practicing for a concert this Thursday in Sacramento, with vocalists Julia Dollison and Kerry Marsh, and the three of us are doing a program of Maria Schneider's music in preparation for Julia and Kerry's upcoming album. They've worked out vocal arrangements of some of Maria's most challenging music, singing all of the horn parts, and somehow I'm supposed to play the rest of it on piano. So I get the solo on "The Pretty Road", which starts out simple enough as a nice little pop tune in D Flat. But by the time it gets into the solo changes, Maria has me jumping through harmonic hoops faster than a trained tiger in a Siegfried and Roy show. I'm getting my butt kicked, and it's leaving a mark. But it's good for my brain, they say... and the effect of actually getting to the end of that solo without major psychological damage is cathartic, kind of a chord scale sweat lodge with a movable "do" system.

I feel confident that as I get older, as long as there are Rubik's Cubes and Maria Schneider charts around to kick my butt, I won't go senile.

The McBride Band rides into the sunset...

After nine good years of bouncing around the globe, the Christian McBride Band ("The CMB") played our farewell gig last night to a small, but appreciative, audience in Gainesville, Florida. I have a lump in my throat when I say "farewell gig", because for me, playing in Christian's band has been consistently one of the best musical experiences of my life. We've become like family - a good, functional, loving family - and making music with these guys feels as easy as breathing and eating, just a great flow of creative music and positive life energy. Christian has decided to move forward with other projects for now, including his new acoustic band Inside Straight, as well as his duets project and other sideman comittments. So for now, keep an eye out for individual appearances and recordings of CMB members: sax/flute master Ron Blake, extraordinary drummer/percussionsist Terreon Gully, and of course yours truly :)

Thank you to all of our loyal CMB fans!!!! We'll be back!!!

Hip Hop... a doorway to Jazz?

Saratoga, NY
The Christian McBride Band has been in residence here for 2 days, teaching and performing. I had a piano student this morning who was relatively new to jazz, as many young musicians in college are. Usually I learn something from my students every time I teach, and this morning was no exception. He told me that he started out listening to hip hop, and that he was fascinated with some of the samples they used, so he would look up what the sample was on the CD credits, then go find the original album. Somebody sampled Ahmad Jamal apparently, so thanks to that hip hop record, he got into the REAL Ahmad Jamal and has been a jazz fan ever since.

It took me by surprise... I had never thought of hip hop as a possible doorway to appreciating jazz. I've played on a couple of hip hop records, the most well known being the keyboard hook on Slum Village's hit "Tainted" in 2002. That hook actually came from the chords in Billy Strayhorn's intro to "Star-Crossed Lovers" from the Such Sweet Thunder album. But overall I'm not really a fan of hip hop, because I don't like the violence, misogyny and general stupidity of the lyrics of MOST rappers... some obviously are above all that and do carry a positive message. But not many, in my opinion. Anyway... I can't say I'd say no to Jay-Z if he wanted to use a sample of mine, even if the lyrics were a drag!

Bring back the Groove! (in "jazz", that is...)

I recently was assigned the arduous task of picking finalists for a jazz piano contest of sorts, the winner of which gets the honor of joining an elite, high-profile band of students at a prestigious university next semester on full scholarship. I listed to close to thirty audition CDs, and it was indeed difficult to pick winners as all the pianists truly sounded very good. The only thing that bugged me...which brings me to the title of this post...is that with the exception of a couple pianists, they all sounded EXACTLY the same. What was the same-ness? The lack of groove. Good original compositions all around, chops galore, interesting harmonic and melodic devices... but no "pocket", not even a nod and wink to anything resembling blues, funk, or soul. Not even four quarter notes in a row played in a steady rhythm. It's the "new thing" apparently, the so-called "European" jazz style, which uses as it's jumping off point 1970's records made by a label called ECM. ECM recorded some famous artists such as Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea & Gary Burton and many others of that era, and that style - a kind of free-floating, improvised Classical music - caught on, especially with European jazz fans that found it easier to relate to music that had all vestiges of "African-ness" removed from it. Don't get me wrong - I grew up listening to a lot of those records and still love them.

What's being missed - and this is a major point - is that most of those original ECM artists, like Jarrett or Corea, had a solid foundation of more traditional jazz playing before branching off into the more floaty realms. I've heard from reliable sources that Keith Jarrett sounded just like the Wynton Kelly trio when he was a student at Berklee. Chick started out playing with Blue Mitchell in the 60's. Even today, great pianists who make the conscious choice to work in the "Euro" style, such as Brad Meldhau or Fred Hersch, have a solid background in blues, swing, and bebop. And they can pull that stuff out at any time and swing your ass into the ground, if they want to. Most students today can't, or aren't willing to. They seem to think that it's old-fashioned, or at worst irrelevant. It's sad, and annoying. I like all styles of music and have an open mind (for crying out loud, my last 2 records had almost nothing to do with jazz!), but if you're going to call yourself a jazz pianist and make a career out of it, do yourself a favor: drop the attitude that anything you're playing is "new" (it isn't), go back and listen to Count Basie and James Brown for about 6 months straight, figure out how to lock in your quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes, be able to really NAIL the changes on Confirmation or Countdown or Moment's Notice or Inner Urge (not just meander chromatically), and for God's sake play some blues once in a while. Then you can go do whatever ECM floaty "broken time" stuff you want.

Listen to Herbie Hancock's album "Maiden Voyage" with Ron Carter and Tony Williams. There's that "broken time" all over that record, yet on a dime those guys can break into the deepest groove you ever heard. It's all there, all the history, and the music is innovative and forward-thinking at the same time. Yes, that record is more than 40 years old. There's nothing new under the sun.

What's beautiful about NYC

Hi, welcome to my first "blog" post on an official blog site. I needed a venue for my thoughts, rants, and random free associations related to jazz music, humanity, and anything else I think might be valuable and maybe thought-provoking or motivational/inspirational, or possibly just merely antagonistic or irritating to people of similar interests... or maybe just a self-indulgent exercise... but anyway here's my blog. Enjoy. Feel free to "like" it or complain or whatever, or just read it and say "hmmm" or ignore it completely.

I'm in NYC tonight (Saturday), and have a night off in Manhattan for the first time in many years. That doesn't include the nights when I get in at 12AM from long day of flying from San Diego, CA, where I live with my wife Susan and toddler son Cameron, and just run to the nearest deli to grab a bottle of that suspicious "Deer Park" water and go to bed. I mean a REAL night off. So I went to my favorite secret restaurant Yakitori Totto on West 55th St., where my friends and I were the only non-Japanese people in there, and we threw down with some organic free-range chicken skewers and awesome vegetable kabobs, and good sake and draft beer. They're very busy so they kicked us out of our table as soon as someone mentioned the word "Facebook" in conversation... like they had a red alert sign... "Conversation has turned mundane.... talking about pop culture social networking sites.... boring. Get them out of here."

Then we went around the corner to a Cuban restaurant formerly known as Azucar, on 8th Ave. and 56th St., now called "Guantanamera" (glad they didn't name it "Guantanamo")... the great percussionist Pedro Martinez was playing there with his band, including a wonderful bassist named Panagiotis Andreou, originally from Greece but since he moved to NYC he's become an acknowledged expert on many musics of the world, including Afro-Cuban and Israeli traditional music. He's a badass... I hope to be able to get him on a gig with my band someday. Totally happening bass player - an excellent soloist but really a team player, creating inventive and supportive, melodic bass lines all the time.

Tomorrow Ron Blake (sax) and I rent a car and drive up to Saratoga, NY for some educational activities at Skidmore College and a concert Monday night with the Christian McBride Band, still my favorite band overall to play in. Literally the only band I've ever been in where I can do whatever I want, where every style of music I like to play, every whacky urge or whim, is not only tolerated but encouraged. I can go from Keezer to Chick Corea to Joe Zawinul to Black Sabbath, back to Keezer, within one tune and it's cool. Much fun.

See you soon here on the "blog"....!