Viewing: Role Models/Mentors - View all posts
FROM THE ARCHIVES
On This Day
July 11, 1999
Dmitri Matheny Jazz Orchestra
with special guest James Moody
Stern Grove Festival
San Francisco, CA
Bill Bell piano Ruth Davies bass Jeff Eaton trumpet
Kenny Brooks tenor saxophone Javier Navarette percussion
Tim Price alto saxophone Khalil Shaheed flugelhorn
Eddie Marshall drums Mark Taylor french horn
Chuck Bennett trombone Jim Norton baritone saxophone
July 11, 1999
Dmitri Matheny Jazz Orchestra
with special guest James Moody
Stern Grove Festival
San Francisco, CA
Bill Bell piano Ruth Davies bass Jeff Eaton trumpet
Kenny Brooks tenor saxophone Javier Navarette percussion
Tim Price alto saxophone Khalil Shaheed flugelhorn
Eddie Marshall drums Mark Taylor french horn
Chuck Bennett trombone Jim Norton baritone saxophone
FROM THE ARCHIVES
On This Day
July 5, 1996
Palo Alto Weekly
Monarch Artists Fly High
Small West Coast record label has some giants of jazz,
and they're coming to the Stanford Jazz Workshop
By Jim Harrington
July 5, 1996
Palo Alto Weekly
Monarch Artists Fly High
Small West Coast record label has some giants of jazz,
and they're coming to the Stanford Jazz Workshop
By Jim Harrington
Monarch Records will be well represented at the 24th annual Stanford Jazz Workshop festivities. The small, San Francisco-based label was co-founded about two years ago by Palo Alto resident Steve Hall. It's a specialty operation that focuses on the recordings of West Coast jazz artists.
"We believe that there is a real wealth of jazz artists, particularly in Northern California," said Dmitri Matheny...[more]
"We believe that there is a real wealth of jazz artists, particularly in Northern California," said Dmitri Matheny...[more]
HEROES
When I begin to feel frustrated by encroaching banality and mediocrity,
it often helps to contemplate those heroic figures who inspire.
Here are some of them:
William Adama
Douglas Adams
Josef Albers
Muhammad Ali
Louis Armstrong
Paul Atreides
Johann Sebastian Bach
Burt Bacharach
Chet Baker
Maria Bamford
Basho
The Batman
Ludwig van Beethoven
Bill Bell
Irving Berlin
Leonard Bernstein
Wendell Berry
Brian Blade
Eubie Blake
James Bond
Anthony Bourdain
Lester Bowie
Ray Bradbury
Johannes Brahms
Clifford Brown
James Brown
Joseph Campbell
George Carlin
Hoagy Carmichael
Carmine Caruso
Johnny Cash
Tony Cennamo
Marc Chagall
Raymond Chandler
Don Cheadle
Doc Cheatham
Louis CK
Patsy Cline
Jimmy Cobb
Leonard Cohen
Ornette Coleman
John Coltrane
Frank Columbo
Sarah Connor
Paolo Conte
Silvio Dante
Dave the Philosopher
Miles Davis
Philip K. Dick
Emily Dickinson
Eihei Dogen
Nick Drake
Tyler Durden
Lawrence Durrell
Clint Eastwood
Eeyore
Harry "Sweets" Edison
T. S. Eliot
Duke Ellington
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bill Evans
Art Farmer
Felix the Cat
Boba Fett
Atticus Finch
Ella Fitzgerald
Aretha Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Lester Freamon
Morgan Freeman
Robert Frost
Hal Galper
Mohandas Gandhi
Paul Gauguin
Marvin Gaye
Theodor Seuss Geisel
Stan Getz
Kahlil Gibran
Raylan Givens
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Darrell Grant
Green Lantern
Christopher Guest
Charlie Haden
Hafiz
Herbie Hancock
Harold (& The Purple Crayon)
Tom Harrell
Robert A. Heinlein
Ernest Hemingway
Joe Henderson
Jimi Hendrix
Bernard Herrmann
Bill Hicks
Alfred Hitchcock
Hit Girl
Billie Holiday
Lena Horne
Aldous Huxley
Icarus
William James
Keith Jarrett
Quincy Jones
James Joyce
Will Kane
Orrin Keepnews
John F. Kennedy
Jack Kerouac
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Evel Knievel
Ray Kurzweil
Tyrion Lannister
Bruce Lee
Stan Lee
John Lennon
Abbey Lincoln
Booker Little
David Lynch
Joseph Maddy
Gustav Mahler
Louis Malle
Nelson Mandela
Thomas Mann
Frank Marocco
Marc Maron
Abraham Maslow
Bill Matheny
Henri Matisse
Carson McCullers
Mr. McFeely
Marian McPartland
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Arthur Miller
Henry Miller
Bryan Mills
Joni Mitchell
Thelonious Monk
James Moody
Morpheus
Eddie Muller
Gerry Mulligan
Will Munny
Anne-Sophie Mutter
Willie Nelson
Pablo Neruda
Mary Oliver
Charlie Parker
Sam Pate
Nicholas Payton
Astor Piazolla
Pablo Picasso
Herb Pomeroy
Alexander Pushkin
Prometheus
Samuel Ramey
Christopher Reeve
Rainer Maria Rilke
James Rockford
Gene Roddenberry
Will Rogers
Sonny Rollins
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Mark Rothko
Bertrand Russell
Ryōkan
Lisbeth Salander
May Sarton
Lalo Schifrin
Maurice Sendak
Rod Serling
Woody Shaw
Jack Sheldon
Wayne Shorter
Frank Sinatra
Derek Sivers
Allen Smith
Mr. Spock
Mary Stallings
Wallace Stevens
Detective Mike Stone
Igor Stravinsky
Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III
Shunryu Suzuki
Andrei Tarkovsky
Donna Tartt
Clark Terry
Henry David Thoreau
J. R. R. Tolkien
Leo Tolstoy
Desmond Tutu
Mark Twain
Lao Tzu
Morihei Ueshiba
Ultraman
John Updike
Vincent Van Gogh
Ack Van Rooyen
Kurt Vonnegut
Tom Waits
Ben Webster
Simone Weil
Orson Welles
Kenny Werner
Kenny Wheeler
Walt Whitman
Oscar Wilde
Nancy Wilson
Stevie Wonder
Lester Young
GETTING IT RIGHT
Today I'm grateful to all those wonderful concert promoters and talent buyers who, over the years, have engaged us based on our professional reputations and the quality of our music.
Thank you for making our careers possible.
When you loved our performances and promised to have us back again, thank you for following through.
When you chose not to engage us, whatever the reason, thank you for having the courage to say so directly, rather than wasting our time with vague reassurances. Thank you for understanding that interminable delay is truly the deadliest form of denial.
Thank you for getting to know us. Thank you for listening to our demo tapes and CDs, checking out our shows at other venues, watching our video clips, reviewing our biographical and promotional materials, and following our artistic evolution.
Thank you for understanding that it is, in fact, your job to know about us, and when you aren't familiar, to learn about us. Thank you for acknowledging that it's our job to keep you updated. Thank you for recognizing that both our roles are necessary, and for begrudging neither necessity.
Thank you for promptly returning our phone calls and answering our emails.
Thank you for treating us with respect and common decency.
Thank you for negotiating with us and our agents in good faith, and for abiding by the terms of our agreements.
Thank you for taking care of all the extra-musical details so that we may do our best work on stage.
Thank you for getting it right.
And most of all, thank you for teaching this very important skill set to the next generation of concert promoters and talent buyers, just as we take it upon ourselves to mentor the next generation of aspiring musicians.
—DM
Thank you for making our careers possible.
When you loved our performances and promised to have us back again, thank you for following through.
When you chose not to engage us, whatever the reason, thank you for having the courage to say so directly, rather than wasting our time with vague reassurances. Thank you for understanding that interminable delay is truly the deadliest form of denial.
Thank you for getting to know us. Thank you for listening to our demo tapes and CDs, checking out our shows at other venues, watching our video clips, reviewing our biographical and promotional materials, and following our artistic evolution.
Thank you for understanding that it is, in fact, your job to know about us, and when you aren't familiar, to learn about us. Thank you for acknowledging that it's our job to keep you updated. Thank you for recognizing that both our roles are necessary, and for begrudging neither necessity.
Thank you for promptly returning our phone calls and answering our emails.
Thank you for treating us with respect and common decency.
Thank you for negotiating with us and our agents in good faith, and for abiding by the terms of our agreements.
Thank you for taking care of all the extra-musical details so that we may do our best work on stage.
Thank you for getting it right.
And most of all, thank you for teaching this very important skill set to the next generation of concert promoters and talent buyers, just as we take it upon ourselves to mentor the next generation of aspiring musicians.
—DM
SILENCE ~ Charlie Haden & Chet Baker
LEGACY
"We all die. The goal isn't to live forever.
The goal is to create something that will."
—Chuck Palahniuk
"If you take the time and your
talent is real...it will last."
—Bill Evans
"Death is powerless against you if you
leave a legacy of good behind."
—The Batman
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TOM HARRELL
FATHER'S DAY
"A father has to be a provider, a teacher, a role model,
but most importantly, a distant authority figure
who can never be pleased."
—Stephen Colbert
"What was silent in the father speaks in the son,
and often I found in the son the unveiled secret of the father."
—Friedrich Nietzsche
"It doesn't matter who my father was;
it matters who I remember he was."
—Anne Sexton
DON'T TRY
"When you try to make the changes, you lose momentum.
Don't try. Don't think. Just listen and play what you hear."
—Art Farmer
"Don't think you are, know you are!
Stop trying to hit me and hit me!"
—Morpheus
"Do or do not.
There is no try."
—Yoda
THE SINCEREST FORM
"Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the
imitation of those who we cannot resemble."
—Samuel Johnson
"Be yourself.
Everyone else is already taken."
—Oscar Wilde
"If I could play like Wynton,
I wouldn't play like Wynton."
—Chet Baker
GO DEEPER
"Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool
or you go out in the ocean."
—Christopher Reeve
"Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper. Down deep the fish are more powerful and more pure. They're huge and abstract. And they're very beautiful."
—David Lynch
"Why is it that Americans need to hear their happiness major and their tragedy minor, and as jazzy as they can handle is a seventh chord? Are they not experiencing complex emotions?"
—Joni Mitchell
SHINE ONE CORNER
“We say to 'shine one corner of the world.' That is enough.
Not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are.”
—Shunryu Suzuki
Not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are.”
—Shunryu Suzuki
BLUE MOON ~ Ben Webster
REMEMBERING KHALIL SHAHEED (1949-2012)
REMEMBERING FRANK MAROCCO (1931 – 2012)
AN IMMORTALITY FORMULA
“When we are young we are often puzzled by the fact that each person we admire seems to have a different version of what life ought to be, what a good man is, how to live, and so on. If we are especially sensitive it seems more than puzzling, it is disheartening. What most people usually do is to follow one person's ideas and then another's depending on who looms largest on one's horizon at the time. The one with the deepest voice, the strongest appearance, the most authority and success, is usually the one who gets our momentary allegiance; and we try to pattern our ideals after him. But as life goes on we get a perspective on this and all these different versions of truth become a little pathetic. Each person thinks that he has the formula for triumphing over life's limitations and knows with authority what it means to be a man, and he usually tries to win a following for his particular patent. Today we know that people try so hard to win converts for their point of view because it is more than merely an outlook on life: it is an immortality formula.”
—Ernest Becker
A PERSONAL VOICE — Art Farmer on the Jazz Life
"Enjoyment is not such a constant in music as some people think. It's not that I actually enjoy what I do every night, or every set, or every song. I enjoy the quest — but the attainment is a very fleeting thing, and it happens rarely."
"There's no reason for people to stop listening to jazz or to stop playing jazz. Or to stop playing jazz the way they want to play it. I think we should play exactly what we want to play, and do it the best way we can. That's all that we are obliged to do."
"It's not just about the flugelhorn. The players that I love the most are the ones who transcend the instrument. The instrument is just an instrument. It's what the person is playing that counts the most. Of course, that calls for a very deep personal commitment. To be thought of, not just as a horn player, but primarily as a musician — that's the greatest thing to me. A personal voice is what it's all about. It takes some people more time than others to find this voice. And once you find it, you still have to work at it."
"Sometimes it seems so easy, like the music is just flowing through you. It's not coming from you but through you. It's just there. And you can't make these times happen, so you just have to enjoy them when they do. You can't wait for them to happen, either, you know. You have to go ahead and play your horn. You have to put yourself in a position for these miracles to happen. And when they don't, there's no need to cry about it. Because you never know...it just might happen the next day."
—Art Farmer
(Photos by Lee Tanner)
AN EDDIE MARSHALL MEMORY
On this day in 2001, Ruth Davies and I had the honor of joining Eddie Marshall as guest soloists with the San Francisco Symphony, in a jazz plus orchestra program at Davies Symphony Hall.
As the three of us took our places on stage among the sea of tuxedos, Eddie looked around at all the serious faces, then turned and smiled at us in that sly, conspiratorial way that only Eddie could smile.
"Well, it looks like they've got us surrounded," he said, sotto voce.
Ruth and I busted up laughing like kids in church.
Man, I miss that guy.