Random thoughts

Good morning blogger world; sorry for the delay. I will try to be more conscious of checking in. Things have been busy, with teaching in particular. Also a big chunk of my time in February was taken up with writing for my birthday concert. We premiered "Portraits" and the response was nice. I was very gratified in the performances of all of the players who made the gig. Soon I will be checking out the live verite recordings and seeing what happened.

I check out a fair amount of new music in the jazz world and have been impressed with much of what is happening. The playing seems to be taking on another level technically, players are thoughtful and musical, and the writing goes into lots of interesting places. But sometimes I feel like the music is lacking in a spiritual center. So yesterday driving home from a long day ( and an interesting student concert) I put some Bill Evans solo playing from 1962 into my CD player and everything resolved. There is much to discuss and analyze about Bill's playing, but the musicality comes from a deep and spiritual place. My mind cleared, the psychic background conversation fell away, and the pure music enveloped my brain.

I have also been listening to Coltrane's European Tours box set again, and this powerful music is a palate cleanser, with strong playing by everyone, particularly Elvin. The concert I listened to the other day sounded like 1963 from the playing.

Tonight, weather willing, we play at Johnson Hall in Gardiner with Tony Gaboury, Rick Peckham and David Wells joining me in playing music from 'The Garden Above' and some of my tunes. Think spring-

SG