The coldest day of the year has found me in front of the computer wrestling with Finale most of the day, racing against time to finish some music and get some copies of some pieces in the mail.

I haven't had that much time to listen to music lately, but I have enjoyed some Kenny Wheeler (a hard to find nonet CD on Ah Um from '92) and a Vanguard Orchestra CD featuring the music of Jim McNeely. Also I've been revisiting Neil Young, whose early period songs show a balanced blend of simplicity and color.

The unexpected passing of Alice Coltrane took me to her most recent music on 'Translinear Light', and a 1970 favorite of mine 'Universal Consciousness'. Her music has a special vibe, a luminous maelstrom of sound. Lenny Breau dug her- he copped one of the scales Alice used and frequently paid reference to it when he improvised modally.

Mike Brecker by all accounts was a great guy. It is amazing how long his sound has been a part of my life- his solo on Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight on James Taylor's One Man Dog was a pop music revelation in the early '70s, and I was a fan of Dreams (I owned both albums at one time). His jazz CDs starting with the Impulses in the late '80s were exhilarating and intelligent, with great tunes by Brecker, Mike Stern, and especially Don Grolnick, whose music had a lot of heart. And of course Mike had such a penetrating, soulful presence. I suppose I should own up to my interest over the last three decades in other tenor players like Lovano and Garzone, but Mike Brecker was one of the greats in every way- his playing and humanity will be missed.

Unsung drummer #1: Roy McCurdy w/ Cannonball 'The Black Messiah', 'Inside Straight'
Unsung Drummer #2: Jeff Williams w/ Russ Lossing 'Phrase 6'

Welcome to my blog

Hi everyone:

Welcome to my blog. I will be posting about most matters musical- jazz and otherwise- and a few other things on my mind. I hope you will also check out my web site www.stevegrover.com.

I'm in the process of working on a bunch of new music to play at my annual Birthday Bash weekend on Feb 23-24 at Starbird Performance Hall in Portland ME. The gig should be fun- a septet, something kind of new for me. There are some great players on the gig, and I'm hoping this music comes out right. It is a suite entitled "Portraits". The title is used more in an abstract, musical way - although you also can think of the term as referring to the players in the band being featured in the individual pieces.

The music works from an introductory 13 measure theme. Much of the supporting harmonic material is mutated in various ways. Additionally, other material is introduced and developed along the way. Most of the relationships are tangential and subtle. The effect I was looking for was of a series of pieces that have an integrated mood, with intervals, harmonic colors and melodic gestures all co-existing, like a visual art object, rather than a more obvious musical narrative. That said, the music is very melodic and is dense harmonically, like a lot of my music. I hope to have some of it up on my web site in notated form soon. Recording to follow? We shall see-

I am also proof listening to the master of a new CD recording that I hope to have available by the February gig. It is a quintet session with David Wells, tenor; Tim Sessions, trombone; Tony Gaboury, guitar; Chris Van Voorst Van Beest, bass; and myself on drums. The music is all original. This time around I will do a limited edition short run CD-R of 100 copies. I will be dealing with the art work and so forth in the next few days. I dig everybody's playing, but was particularly glad to get Tim Sessions on the date. Tim is BAD- one of the under rated artists in the music. His dexterity and non-cliched imagination are on full display on this record. What a great melodic concept, and he takes all kinds of chances. He also plays on my CD "Consideration". Currently Tim is doing The Producers on Broadway.

By the way, I have a number of CDs available and you can go to my web site or www.cdbaby.com .

Later!

Steve