Work is finally starting to settle down and I can tell by the intensity and
quality of my last few practice sessions. I've been able to do some
improvisation and even started doing some transposition. I can't really
transpose entire songs right now. Once the player I'm listening to gets above
that old G on top of the staff… I'm toast. I will usually pick out a long
phrase that I like and write down the notes (no rhythms) and then I try to play
along with the recording. It is actually quite fun AND difficult. Writing down
the notes is easy — matching an artist's tone and articulation is a completely
different story. Still, it is a nice reward after sloshing through my technical
studies. As my first trumpet teacher always told me… you gotta throw yourself
a bone every now and then.
Inspiration is always a CD or article away. I can thank my lucky stars for
some of the CDs that I've had the pleasure of listening to these past few weeks.
Wayning Moments, Bounce, Little Red's Fantasy and The Complete Donald Byrd and
Pepper Adams have really helped me maintain my focus on what I'm trying to do —
even when work was driving me nuts. As far as articles go — I found three
really good interviews that I would like to share with you from the All
About Jazz website. If you haven't checked this site out — add it to your
favorites. Lots of great interviews, general jazz articles and CD reviews.
The three interviews are listed below… Enjoy!
Project
O: Pushing Creativity, Hoping for Longevity