Viewing: Encouragement - View all posts
The Frugal Flugel Recommends: The Portable Travel Kitchen!
Resolutions
Keeping Score
Carpe DM
Broaden Your Horizons
Disavowed
I Know This Sounds Crazy
CHOOSE WISELY
I know what you're thinking.
You're asking yourself, "Who should I go see on August 16th?
Chloë is at the Cineplex, but Clairdee is at Chandler Center for the Arts!"
Well friend, it's a no-brainer.
Movie houses are a dime-a-dozen, but Chandler's celebrated multi-use theater is a one-of-a-kind, elegant marvel of acoustical engineering.
Chloë & Aaron will be fake crime-fighting together for weeks. Clairdee & Dmitri are real life artist-warriors, appearing together for one-night-only.
Their show is overpriced. Our show is free, and we do ALL our own stunts!
Most importantly, San Francisco vocal sensation Clairdee is the Original "Hit Girl," singing and swinging Broadway and Hollywood hits like nobody's business.
And is there anything more Kick-Ass than The Great American Songbook?
We don't think so.
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
A few weeks ago, when I blogged about how our Pacific Northwest tour would coincide with the Marionberry harvest, a kind soul in Eugene, Oregon brought a freshly picked bushel of them backstage for us. Yum! We don't want to push our luck, but it so happens that the Dmitri Matheny Group will be performing at Moody's in Truckee tomorrow night, and I understand the California Heirloom Tomatoes are exceptional this year. Ahem. ~DM
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
A few weeks ago, when I blogged about how our Pacific Northwest tour would coincide with the Marionberry harvest, a kind soul in Eugene, Oregon brought a freshly picked bushel of them backstage for us. Yum! We don't want to push our luck, but it so happens that the Dmitri Matheny Group will be performing at Moody's in Truckee tomorrow night, and I understand the California Heirloom Tomatoes are exceptional this year. Ahem. ~DM
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
A few weeks ago, when I blogged about how our Pacific Northwest tour would coincide with the Marionberry harvest, a kind soul in Eugene, Oregon brought a freshly picked bushel of them backstage for us. Yum! We don't want to push our luck, but it so happens that the Dmitri Matheny Group will be performing at Moody's in Truckee tomorrow night, and I understand the California Heirloom Tomatoes are exceptional this year. Ahem. ~DM
COURSE CORRECTION
This week, Sassy and I have enjoyed the hospitality of some friends who've generously provided lodging for us in their home while I play a few gigs in the area.
Their son (let's call him Freddie) is a very talented young aspiring jazz trumpeter.
Although I regularly give master classes on the road, and have done my share of classroom teaching, spending time with Freddie and his family over the past week has been a powerful reminder to me of what it means to be a serious musician and what an industry jazz education has become.
At the age of 16, Freddie has already taken advantage of more specialized training and travel opportunities than I had in my college years, and he's already twice the player I was in high school.
Freddie's days are so full that I'm actually hesitant to call him an "aspiring" musician. Not yet a high school senior, he's already playing professional gigs, studying advanced concepts and techniques, taking and teaching private lessons, listening broadly and living a decidedly music-centered life.
Freddie studies privately with two teachers: one for trumpet, another for jazz.
He's a veteran of jazz camp, Jazzschool, the Grammy band, SFJAZZ All-Stars, J@LC Essentially Ellington and Monterey NextGen.
He participates in a summer music mentoring program and leads sectional brass rehearsals for his school jazz ensemble. He's won awards in all the regional and national honors programs you've heard of and several that you haven't. And he's already performed on the most prestigious jazz stages worldwide: New York, Monterey, Montreux, North Sea, Umbria.
I never practiced like this kid, not even at Interlochen. He hits it hard for hours every day. Each morning I awaken to the sound of Freddie's horn, methodically working its way through James Stamp warm-ups, Clarke etudes, Clifford Brown turnarounds, articulation and lip flexibility exercises and chord scale after chord scale. Every afternoon he has a rehearsal or two with this or that band. Every evening he practices again.
When I was Freddie's age, my bedroom was a shrine to Lindsay Wagner and Spencer's Gifts. I had only just begun to take private lessons and didn't take them very seriously. I loved to play but hated to practice.
Freddie's room is a hardcore crucible of brass: his chair, music stand and horn are at the center, surrounded by stacks of lead sheets and method books. His walls are festooned with festival posters and images of great jazzmen. On his desk a laptop computer is open to an overstuffed iTunes library. Two speakers face the practice chair.
I spent a couple of hours trading riffs with Freddie, and am astonished by his proficiency on the horn and his familiarity with the nuances of the jazz language. He's already familiar with every classic recording I mention, and he seems to own nearly all the available Aebersold and music-minus-one collections of standards. He has a remarkably sophisticated ear for modern harmony and can toss off bebop clichés over complex changes at bright tempos. He listens to all the same jazz heroes I do, plus the latest recordings by Alex Sipiagin, Ambrose Akinmusire and Billy Buss. He already knows the tunes, licks and lore that I learned in my five years at Berklee.
The other night I invited Freddie to sit-in with me and the band on "Invitation." The audience was knocked out. He played a mature solo, including some very creative motivic development. After the set, Freddie was appropriately gracious and grateful, pausing to individually thank each member of the rhythm section. He even possesses enough charm to balance all that swagger.
After 30 years in music, I'm now at an age when I think it's important to pay it forward. It's been my belief that I have a responsibility to share what I've learned over the course of my life and career, and to mentor and encourage the next generation of musicians.
But if they're at all like Freddie, I don't have the time.
I need to practice.
— D.M.
SAY ANYTHING
FORMULA
OATH
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
— J.R.R. Tolkien
THE ONLY THING TO SAY
A BEACON TO GUIDE YOU
"A mentor is someone who sees something in you that you don't see in yourself...a beacon to guide you on your path. If you're ready, a mentor is someone whose hindsight can become your foresight."
—Dr. Billy Taylor
WILL
"If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: hold on..."
—Rudyard Kipling
"Your will turns thought into reality.
You must learn to focus your will and
create what you see in your mind.
The limits are only what you can imagine."
—Tomar-Re
"The man who is to be great is the one who can be
the most solitary, the most hidden, the most deviant,
the man beyond good and evil, lord of his virtues,
a man lavishly endowed with will."
—Friedrich Nietzsche
TRUE IMPROVISATION
HAVE A PLAN
"There's a difference between knowing the path
and walking the path."
—Morpheus
"All plans don't go as planned.
But have a plan."
—Robert Glasper
"Everyone has a plan until they get
punched in the face."
—Mike Tyson
BETTER BUSINESS PLEDGE #5
I welcome and will respond to any cold calls or unsolicited emails I may receive from other music professionals. Getting back to you might be inconvenient, and there may be a delay during busy times, but I promise to make the effort. In the interest of mutual respect, I encourage others in our field to adopt this basic business practice as well.
ADAPT
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive,
nor the most intelligent, but the one
most responsive to change.”
—Charles Darwin
WHO ARE YOU
NOT ALL THOSE WHO WANDER ARE LOST
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
—J.R.R. Tolkien