I’ve had a few emails from musicians who didn’t really know much about the tools and ideas I talked about in my last newsletter. I thought I was well behind in this new movement but it seems there are many musicians, especially in the jazz world, who aren’t sure what is going on. I’m going [...]
Archive for April, 2008
April 25, 2008
The passing of another master
It is with great sadness that I report the passing of Jimmy Giuffre. He died on April 24th, 2 days before his 87th birthday. Jimmy was one of the great individualists of the clarinet, always inventing and thinking outside the norm. His later, free playing unfortunately took him out of the mainstream jazz world but [...]
April 23, 2008
Good old showmanship
I’ve just read an interesting article in the New York Times today on Juan Diego Flórez’ performance at the Metropolitan Opera House on Monday. He performed a solo encore after a standing ovation – something not heard there since 1994. In fact, solo encores were common in the 19th century but as the opera grew [...]
April 20, 2008
Test
This is just a test post to check some behind the scenes fiddling I’ve been doing. While I’m here though I have to mention Dave Frishberg’s great site. Go to his Written Word section and have a look around. There are some lovely stories here, I particularly love the Ben Webster and Kenny Davern ones! [...]
April 17, 2008
Flickr test
Messing around with Flickr feeds and plugins. This one seems to work ok. I was on holiday last week up in Bahia. Mum came over with my Aunt as well, and spent 7 days sunning ourselves and playing with my daughter. What a great way to spend your holidays. Except for the small mishap when [...]
April 3, 2008
Mouthpieces and set-ups – Intro
Although I joked a bit in the last post, the subject of mouthpieces and set-ups has always created heated conversations between reed players. So I thought I would expand a bit on this subject and enter the debate. There are those who are never happy with what they have, always on the look out for [...]
