While I haven't had a chance to go out and hear any music this last week (with the exception of my regular jaunt to The Owl and Thistle on Tuesday), I had a couple of fun gigs this weekend. I really missed playing in more pop-oriented bands when I lived in New York -- mainly because it wasn't nearly as much fun when it was just a bunch of people I didn't know. Now that I am slowly finding my way back into being a true "Seattlite", I'm also finding my way into projects with a slightly-more commercial bent.
Friday night's gig was a loose, free-form hip-hop space odessey with The MC Project: Live at Waimea Brewery's "Get Lei'd" night. Featuring DJ Kamakaze and MC Matt Cavinta, plus myself on trombone and DJ Frank I adding some help on the turntables and percussion, we played off and on from about 9pm 'til midnight, with the DJ action going the whole evening. The concept of the group is slowly evolving, but the direction and voice is starting to find it's own as we interact more with the DJs. Not to mention that lots of cute Kirkland girls, dancing patrons, and accomdating staff were all present for the night.
Saturday night offered a slightly different vibe, in the form of the soul-groove cover band, Players Club. I subbed with these guys a while back, and playing for this holiday party on Saturday was an easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy kind of gig. With a solid book of charts from Michael Jackson to Donna Summers, these guys do a great job with dance music and still make it fun for the performers, too. I've been listening to this kind of music for years, and before I moved to NY I played a few gigs a week in this style, but I must say it sure feels good to play feel-good music with people that just wnat to do the same thing as you: give an audience what it needs to have a good time, and give the band what it needs to have a good time. Playing at the Rainier Club is always a pleasure, as well -- if you ever have the chance to attend an event here, by all means check it out: there's a kind of 19th century ambiance to the place that just makes you feel like old money!
Saturday night: Filipino Youth Empowerment Project (FYEP) Presents American Idol�s Finalist Jasmine Trias with special feature performances by PhyZiKal Graffi-T, Nate, CeCe Cabading and Project Live. Proceeds will go to �Bantay-Bata� Medical Assistance Fund, Filipino Community of Seattle Building Fund and WASL Test Prep Program, UW FASA�s Project Family and Anakbayan�s EYE Program (Empowering Youth through Education).
This gig was a ton of fun, and while we were the "warm-up band" to get the rest of the show rolling, it was a great afternoon of music-making on one of Seattle's greatest stages: Meany Hall. If you've never had the chance to play on that stage, it never ceases to amaze me how great any kind of music sounds out there; I've played in operas, jazz concerts, and everything in between in Meany, and I've never had a complaint about the sound (not to mention the University of Washington was my home for a few years). Project Live really is starting to find it's sound, and this gig really helped to solidify some of our newer arrangments and experiments. More from this band coming soon...
This was a really fun gig -- nice to play with Thomas again, and always a pleasure to play with Matt Jorgensen, John Hansen, and Phil Sparks. Tula's has such a laid-back, easy-going atmosphere, both for listeners and performers. I've enjoyed playing there for almost ten-years, and this particular night was no exception. Three sets of fun and games, from straight-ahead bebop like Hank Mobley's
This I Dig of You, to more progressive sounds like
Hand Jive from the second Miles Davis quintet and Kenny Kirkland's
Inner Peace. And I can't say enough about Matt, John and Phil -- consumate professionals, all three of them, who are always at the top of their game. I'm sure you'll be able to hear this group again in the future -- Tom and I both felt like this was the direction we want the quintet to go in. Thanks to all of you who joined us that night -- a great listening crowd of appreciative patrons.
A very different Project Live gig tonight -- TRIO! With just MC Matt, DJ Frank I, and myself, we managed to make a night of music for a great audience at Jillian's. From improvised tunes, to spoken word-and-trombone, to full-on pop covers, I was thankfully surprised to find that we could actually sound like a full band and do "our thing" without the benefit of our usual 7-or-8-man posse. Ever evolving, Project Live continues to open up my own ears musically, and gives me some hope that the concept of "jazz" -- be it a style, genre, approach, or just a vibe -- will not die out in the 21st century.
Friday night at Jillian's was fun, but slightly cut-down: we lost both our drummer and singer for the gig within two hours of starting the show. We made do with one of the drummers from another band, stretched the tunes out a bit, and filled our set with a nice mix of spoken word, improvised jazz, and hard-hitting hip-hop grooves. Not the best gig by Project Live, but a solid outing. However, I hesitate to say that our gig Saturday night WAS our best gig!
Saturday night at the Boundary Bay Brewery in Bellingham -- who'da thunk that this would be the party center of the universe? The guys from Below Average Produtions and Space Band brought us up to do a quadruple bill, with Cast of Characters finishing out the night. It was a long afternoon getting up there, and even an longer night getting back to Seattle (5am), but the gig and brew environment was well worth the effort. Project Live is really starting to find a new voice and direction with the addition of Brian Hillman from BAP as our new vocalist. Brian can do it all -- I have yet to be disappointed or left wanting more whenever I hear Brian. Be sure to check out our next show to hear him do his thing!
After playing a function at Benaroya Hall for the Mayor's office, our quartet with Ryan Burns on organ and Matt Jorgensen on drums headed across the street to play at the Musicquarium at the Triple Door. If you've been reading this blog, you know I've come down many times to hear music in this venue, but this was my first chance to play here. We played a nice mix of jazz classics and originals by guys in the band -- standard procedure for the Musicquarium. The audience is always fairly balanced between listeners and non-listeners, but thankfully the listeners tend to sit toward the front! I had a great time playing here, especially in the organ group idiom -- this really tends to work at this club, the funky groovy thing. I look forward to playing here again because, as I said to Paul deBarros this summer, "This is my favorite new venue in Seattle!"
Wow! This was a fun gig tonight -- while I won't comment on my hang at The Owl and Thistle (just hanging and drinking), this gig deserves more than just a few sentences.
First off, the band was loaded with killer soloists: Travis Ranney, Steve Tressler, Vanessa and Vern Seilert, Thomas Marriott, and Reuel Lubag, to name a few. With Greg "Bam Bam" Williamson and Chuck Kistler rounding out the rhythm section, I can only say that this band is certainly ripening with age. Add a whole bunch of power charts from our own Matso Limtiaco and elsewhere across the country and you've got one helluva great night of music. I'll go ahead and give you the sets, too, so you can see what you missed:
First Set:
- Come Rain or Come Shine - arr Matso Limtiaco
- Speak No Evil - arr Matso Limtiaco
- Stella by Starlight - arr Matso Limtiaco
- You Stepped Out Of A Dream - arr Matso Limtiaco
- Blues #4 - comp/arr Matso Limtiaco
- On The Up and Up - comp Jim McNeely, arr Matso Limtiaco
- Jumpin� At The Woodside - arr Matso Limtiaco
Second Set:
Manteca - arr Matso Limtiaco- All Blues - arr Matso Limtiaco
- Giant Steps - arr Matso Limtiaco
- Pieces of Dreams - comp Michel LeGrand, arr Dick Lieb
- Tell Me A Story - comp/arr Matso Limtiaco
- Claudettes Way - comp Pepper Adams, arr Matso Limtiaco
- Cherokee - arr Matso Limtiaco
Third Set:- Honeysuckle Rose - arr Matso Limtiaco
- Blues #2 - comp/arr Matso Limtiaco
- Hi Fly - arr Matso Limtiaco
- Inner Urge - arr Matso Limtiaco
- In A Mellow Tone - arr Matso Limtiaco
The momentum of this band is back and, as the title of our first CD describes, alive and swingin! Be sure to stay tuned for the new ECJO
website -- launching soon -- and the new CD,
Come Rain or Come Shine. The Emerald City Jazz Orchestra performs at Tula's the second Tuesday of every month -- see you there!
Saturday was another full day of music making, this time with longtime friend and musical compatriot, Marc Fendel. I first met Marc at the Port Townsend Jazz Workshop back in the early 90s when we were still in high school, and since his move to Seattle after graduating from Berklee, he's been on the scene with such bands as Bebop and Destruction, Big Bang Band, and his newest solo project, Swampdweller.
Marc had called me a few weeks ago to play a benefit gig for Books to Prisoners, a non-profit organization based in Seattle that gets books and other reading materials to prisoners across the country. While we were ably supported by Eric Bell on drums and Jon Batisti on guitar, we were without our bassplayer Lamar Lofton the whole first set, which certainly made things a bit tough, but kept a nice open sound for the event. Lamar made it for the second set, but we lost Jon (who had to split to another gig). We wrapped up the second set, and Fendel and I headed directly to Jack Straw Studios for the second-half of our double-header.
Doug Haire has been running the Sonarchy radio program for years, and it's always a pleasure to work with him. He's easy going, super-experienced, and generally seems at home among musicians, especially when it's music that fits his own tastes. Instead of doing the show live like it used to be, we just played for a solid hour and taped it direct -- it still feels like we played a full, straight set, and even though it isn't broadcast live, there are no edits or fixes or second takes. This is the way to record music!
Fendel's Swampdweller (at least for this session) is: Marc Fendel, Jay Roulston, Ari Zucker, Joe Doria, Andy Sells, Farko Dosimov, and Mune Yamakawa on turntables. I basically told Fendel after hearing the first CD that I wanted to be on the new one - period! And what a fun session it was -- a great mix of groove, jazz, turntablism, and more mixed with original compositions by Fendel and Zucker. Be sure to look out for this program on Sonarchy -- it should also be available as a podcast as some point in time.
Here we are at the finals of the Seattle Jillian's Band Battle III, and it was certainly a fun night of music making. Project Live is still a relatively new band, and is going through its growing pains, but the energy and vibe of what this group is doing makes me feel like the possibilities are endless.
There were four bands in the finals tonight, and they were (in the order they performed):
- Below Average Productions
- Alter Ego
- Doxology
- Project Live
I can honestly say that the first three bands were all great, and any one of them could have won the favor of the judges. Our set, while certainly representative of what we do as a band, didn't have the polish and spark that the rest of the groups did. I think a few of the cats in the group got a little case of the nerves that affected their natural flow to function. But that's part of a new band's character -- it builds it's identity over time, and can only grow with more performance.
When all was said and done with the judges and their deliberation, the winner was...
DOXOLOGY
If you'd like to hear this band or learn more about them, be sure to visit their
website. All of us with Project Live offer our congratulations -- represent Seattle for us, Doxology!
Be sure to stay tuned for more information about Project Live. We will be playing at Jillian's coming up in a few weeks as they begin to host live music on Thursday nights on the regular -- I'll be posting more about it coming up. Thanks to all who came out last night, and once again, congratulations to Doxology!
More playing on Tuesday night with Jay Thomas and the Usual Suspects Big Band -- although he's threatening to change it to the Circular Firing Squad Big Band. As always, this band is a ton of fun to play with and listen to on Tuesday nights. I thought for tonight I'd give our set lists:
First Set:
- And That's That, comp/arr Dennis Mackrel
- Blues in Hoss' Flat - Basie classic
- Pensativa - beautiful flute feature
- I'm Getting Sentimental Over You - Greg Schroeder does the Dorsey thing
- Ahunk Ahunk, comp/arr Thad Jones - Stuart MacDonald's alto solo was beyond words (you had to be there)
- Duke's Choice, arr Bob Hammer - a Mingus gem in all its glory
- A Night in Tunisia, arr. Mike Mossman - had fun blowing on this one; as Jay says, "I love this arrangement because it sounds just like Machito!"
Second Set:- Summer Serenade, arr Milt Kleeb - flugelhorn feature for Jay, but I think Jim Sisko played it
- Star Eyes, arr Shuhei Mizuno - from the library of the Continued in the Ungerground Orchestra
- It's Only a Paper Moon - lifted by Jon Wikan from a live recording of a Bill Ramsay arrangement for Count Basie
- Moten Swing - another Basie classic
- Elvin's Mambo, comp/arr Bob Mintzer
- I Thought About You, arr Vern Seilert
- Perceptive Hindsight, comp/arr Herb Phillips
- Miss Fine, comp/arr Oliver Nelson
As usual, many of the band members made their way to The Owl and Thistle for the Bebop and Destruction jam session, including myself and Stuart MacDonald. We arrived to hear the classic jam session
faux pas: a trumpet player playing WAY too long on a tune he obviously didn't know, and wasn't sounding better with each passing chorus. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even tell if he knew anything about harmony or theory... or anything! I felt bad for the other trumpet player playing with him --
Aham -- who sounded great. Fendel and I jumped up and played
Solar and
This I Dig of You to try and get things back on track, but as I said to Fendel: this is one of those times where you invoke the "two tune" rule, where you just politely ask the cat after he's played his two tunes to take a seat and let some other people play.
All in all, a fun night of music and socializing -- I'll probably have a repeat performance next week with the ECJO...
