A few years ago when I first started playing trumpet I met a drummer from
Chicago who shared a similar passion for music. We started out talking about how
awesome Donald Byrd was and eventually developed a friendship. We encourage each
other when the music (and life) doesn’t seem to come in on the downbeat. We have
also shared our successes. I wanted to take a moment to commend him on his
recent success. He had an article published on the All About
Jazz website about the Newport Jazz Festival 50th Anniversary tour. Congrats Sal! Remember
man – if I’m ever in Chicago or you’re in DC, we’re jamming together. Be sure to
give me that Philly Joe lick and I will leave you plenty of space to do your
thing! I already know what tune to do – Blues No. 2 from “Someday My Prince Will Come.”

This week I’ve been bitten by spring fever. I’ve had golf on the brain and
ended up indulging the warm weather a few days. I still got in some really good
practice but instead of 1.5 – 2 hours a day during the week, I only managed an hour. I
haven’t been doing much improvisation. Most of my work has been on fundamentals
and I’m very happy with the consistency I’ve developed over the past few weeks.
I think I may have lost some of that when I focused on improvisation. I have to
figure out a way to balance the two out – either by doing every other day or
alternating weeks. Regardless, I still believe that at this point playing the
trumpet well should be my priority over playing jazz. If my articulation, tone
and phrasing is horrible – who wants to hear what I’m trying to say?