Holiday Music Favorites (2009)

Yes, I realize that as I post this it is a bit on the early side. However, at least I did wait until after Halloween. I can blame the timing on my wife C., who is a piano teacher and begins working on holiday music with her students once November rolls around. In order for her to be ready, she typically orders new Christmas arrangements over the summer and reviews them in September and October. So the holiday music season starts pretty early around our house.

Pro Tools 2: Smooth Jazz Funk Trio

It’s been a while since I wrote and recorded anything, and I thought I’d get back into things with a simple trio tune. It’s called “Take a Seat”. I am continuing to stick to the guitar/bass/drums format which has been my focus for the past few years. However, I thought I’d try to adjust just a little back in the direction of “smooth jazz”, which was my my style for so long.

A Cool New Pickup

I have this L4-C that I bought in September, 2004. It’s very cool, and has a clean, well articulated tone that is yet a little darker than my Orchid archtop, though not as dark as my L4-CES. 1949 was the first year for the cutaway L-4. The standard construction for an L-4 (even today) is a carved spruce top, laminated maple back and sides, and a one-piece mahogany neck. This one seems to have mahogany sides, which is interesting.

Just the Three of Me

My latest release, Just the Three of Me, is now available on CD Baby.

This is the commercial version of the tunes I have been posting here over the past several months.

Pro Tools

I have finally gotten on the mainstream digital music production bandwagon. I am in the process of converting my home recording studio to Digidesign’s market-leading Pro Tools.

Rufous

This is the title of my latest tune and recording. As with all of my recent  material, it is a strict guitar, bass drums trio with no overdubs.

click to stream
click for mp3

My First Music Videos

The first three are tracks from my album, “Just the Three of Us”, which features all trio performances.  I have previously posted all of the tracks as audio here on the blog.

Fretless Bass

A couple of years ago I decided that it would be preferable for me to actually play the bass parts on my recordings instead of simply programming them and letting the computer play them. I purchased at that time a short scale P-Bass from Rondo Music in New Hampshire. This has worked out very well and I played all the bass tracks on my commercial release from last year, (could be) *LIVE* (but isn’t).

What Inspires You to Play?

A day or two ago, this question was posted on a listserve to which I subscribe. My response was so lengthy it reminded me of a blog post. So here it is:

More Trio Recordings

These are the tracks now in my current project.  Some are new, some are repurposed from previous uses, and some are older trio compositions. This is the current list:

Stream	MP3
Starfire Way Out Willie By the Time I Get to Phoenix Shredding Just The Three of Us My Down Time Bovanosa Hoppin’ Retro Rocket Don’t Say Double Nickels Pipeline Trio on a Riff Bright Size Life Red Current Jam	Starfire Way Out Willie By the Time I Get to Phoenix Shredding Just The Three of Us My Down Time Bovanosa Hoppin’ Retro Rocket Don’t Say Double Nickels Pipeline Trio on a Riff Bright Size Life Red Current Jam

• 4/23/2009 — updated “Bright Size Life”, “Bovanosa” & “Way Out Willie”
• 4/18/2009 — updated “Hoppin’”
• 3/30/2009 — added “Bovanosa”
• 3/22/2009 — added “Bright Size Life”
• 3/20/2009 — added “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”
• 3/16/2009 — updated version of “Double Nickels”
• 3/15/2009 — added “Way Out Willie”
• 3/8/2009 – added “Pipeline” (yes, the surf classic)
• 3/7/2009 – revised version of “Don’t Say” and “Hoppin’ “
  
• 3/5/2009 — revised versions of “Just the Three of Us” and “Trio on a Riff”
• 3/2/2009 — revised version on “My Down Time”
• 2/7/2009 — added “Hoppin’”
• 1/27/2009 — added “Double Nickels”
  

(I will keep adding songs here as I finish work on them rather than starting a new post for each)

New Guitar :: New Song

click to stream
click for mp3

I really want to get in a groove with a fusiony, rock-toned guitar in a jazz trio setting. Coming from a classical background, my guitar concept is such that I think I shouldn’t need a keyboard or rhythm guitar behind me to handle the harmony. I think my vintage instrumentals are a good illustration of this — doing Ventures and Shadows stuff (successfully I hope) without the rhythm guitar one might think is essential to that material.

I am trying to be both original and traditional at the same time — I’d hope it sounds a bit unlike anything you’ve heard while still sounding familiar. Perhaps that is too ambitious a goal.

The song is named “Starfire” after my latest guitar acquisition, and is the guitar used. The influences are many, but certainly Johnny A is a major inspiration for me here.

I actually played the bass and used edited drum loops.

I really am interested in how well you think this works.

A New Guitar — Guild Starfire III-90

The Guild Guitar Company is a USA-based guitar manufacturer founded in 1952. The first Guild workshop was located in New York City, but production was later moved to Westerly, Rhode Island. All Guild production was moved to a factory in Corona, California after Guild was purchased by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation in 1995. In 2004, FMIC acquired the assets of Washington-based Tacoma Guitar Company and all American Guild acoustic production has since been moved to Tacoma, Washington, while production of Guild electric guitars was discontinued.

More Holiday Music Favorites (2008)

This is a smooth jazz/swing waltz version of “We Three Kings”.

Click to Stream

Click for MP3

Holiday Music Favorites (2008)

Every year I try to make at least one new arrangement of a holiday/Christmas song. This year the first new arrangement is of “In the Bleak Midwinter”, which has music by British composer Gustav Holst of “The Planets” fame. This year is the first time I became aware of this hymn, so it seemed an appropriate choice.

The style is based on my “Vintage Instrumentals” approach — a guitar, bass drums trio with a rockabilly guitar sound and something of a reggae feel.

Click to stream “In the Bleak Midwinter”

Click for MP3 of “In the Bleak Midwinter”

The second arrangement is a flat-out rockabilly version of “Angels We Have Heard on High”. Instrumentation is also guitar, bass drums trio.

Click to stream “Angels We Have Heard on High”

Click for MP3 of “Angels We Have Heard on High”

Smooth Jazz Origins: George Benson’s Breezin’

In prior posts I have tangentially noted my increasing dislike of recent Smooth Jazz releases. They have seemed ever more mechanical, formulaic, and lacking in musical depth. This has been frustrating, as the genre has been one that I work in myself, and I have listened with much pleasure to many different artists that have helped define the genre over the past thirty years or so.

I therefore decided to revisit some of the albums in my vinyl collection and see if I still found them to be as compelling now as I did in the past. While this certainly cannot be an objective review – the music is in most cases far too ingrained in my long term memory – I still think this will be a worthwhile listening project.