America Should Read This Book

Quick Bells Update

Bro. Waldron, told me at last week's rehearsal that he wants me to play in the Christmas Concert with the Choir and Orchestra in December! So I guess I'm doing OK so far! Still lots to learn though...

Heaven's Bells!

Call me Moroni. One of my goals after I leave this earthly existence has been to be chosen to play a herald trumpet in an angel herald trumpet band. Yes, I'm serious - why should I restrict myself to earthly goals? I used to hang out with a lot of trumpet players in high school and college, and one of my trumpet playing pals, T.C., got the chance when he was younger to play one of 120 herald trumpets in a huge marching band for some kind of celebration in Washington D.C. I think it was for the anniversary of the Statue of Liberty or something? Anyway, I think that's what put the idea in my head - that combined with that pictures of Christ returning to earth with legions of angels around him that you see inside just about every LDS meetinghouse. Ever since then I've thought that if there are jobs in heaven, that's the job I would be applying for - bass trumpet herald.

Over the last few years I haven't done much with my musical talents. It's been tough to find time for it, with my career, and my family, and church responsibilities. However, recently I decided it was time to get involved with music again, mainly to get some more balance back into my life. I've got a couple of trumpter friends from Lagoon Band and UofU band days, Al and Kevin, who play with the Orchestra on Temple Square here in Salt Lake City. I was contemplating what it would take to get my trombone chops back into shape enough to audition for this group. I was looking at the website and there didn't seem to be any openings at the time for trombone players. I've often thought as well that eventually I'd like to audition for the choir, but it seems the Tabernacle Choir isn't having auditions this year at all. But something else caught my eye - I noticed on the same web site that the "Bells On Temple Square" was having auditions for male ringers. So I decided to audition. Not that I have much experience playing handbells, but the 4 or 5 times I've rung bells with choirs, I've really enjoyed it, and through these limited experiences, I learned a couple of things. The main thing being that the most important criteria for success in ringing bells is the ability to read music and physically play the bells in rhythm - neither of which is as easy as it looks or sounds! Well to make a long story short - my two-week-long audition has turned into a for-the-remainder-of-2008 audition! Brother Waldron, the conductor, seems to think I have enough potential to keep me coming back each week and learning, at least through Christmas, when he will decide if I am good enough to become a permanent member or not. After my first week I told my wife that if I made the group, it would be on potential, not on current ability, because I certainly didn't have enough current ability, so after tonight's rehearsal (audition week 2 of 2), when Brother Waldron said I showed a lot of potential, it was music to my ears! Ringing bells is a blast - I wish I could do it every day - or even practice at home - but you can't exactly take the bells home with you to practice, so I'll have to just mentally practice. I don't know yet if I'll be allowed to play with the group for the Christmas concert - I don't think Bro Waldron was ready to commit to that just yet - and I'm not even sure there's an actual opening - maybe just an opening for a substitute.

Call me Quasimodo. Even though I've played for just two weeks, the bells are already one of my favorite musical instruments. Maybe heaven will have a bell choir too? Maybe they'll let me play heavenly handbells AND heavenly herald trumpets? Oh, wait - first I have to manage to get to heaven somehow...minor detail. I guess I'd better get to work on that! I don't think being a Hell's Angel or playing Hell's Bells would be nearly as fun...

Wynton!

I saw Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra friday night at the Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre. I went with my wife and my good friend, Cory, who unfortunately was flying solo that night because his wife ended up staying home with a sick baby. The concert was sold out, but nobody seemed to be waiting at the gate to buy one ticket, so unfortunately Cory had to get two tickets-worth of enjoyment out of one set of ears.

Well I must say, Wynton is one cool cat! Every word out of his mouth, and every note out of his instrument just drips with style. Most of the stuff they played was stuff that couldn't even be attempted by 99% of college bands - it was that smokin' hot! The only thing I couldn't figure out is why they only need 3 trombones when every other big band in the world uses at least 4. I guess there weren't 4 good ones in the universe.

Anyway, highly recommended if you get the chance to hear these cats play live.

Speaking of Marsalises, next Saturday, I'm going to see the Police! Yeah, those Police! Sting and everybody! I don't think Branford will be there, but maybe? Can't wait!

Book Review: A Whole New Mind

Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future

Wow! It's been a while since I've posted anything! Well, here's a book review for your reading pleasure. I picked this one up where I pick up a lot of books - at the airport - it's one of the few places I seem to find any "free time".

First, I must admit - I almost didn't buy this book. The subtitle seemed almost laughable. But something caught my eye. Maybe it was the recommendation by Thomas Friedman (author of 'The World is Flat') that I found on the inside cover. But whatever it was, I'm glad I picked it up. I really enjoyed this book, much to my surprise. After all, I'm very left-brained. Why on earth would I want to read a book about how I might not have the skills and aptitudes to rule the future?

I think the biggest reason I liked this book is because it attempts to do something that I like to do a lot - which is try to envision the future. I often look back a few years, or ten or twenty, and say to myself "boy, if I had told the people back then what was going to happen in the future, they wouldn't have believed it!" So when I hear people making crazy claims about the future, don't just write them off without at least giving the ideas some thought. Actually, to be honest, I think about this kind of thing far too much for my own good, whether or not I'm prompted by someone's outrageous predictions.

As I've watched the world flatten over the last 8 years or so, with so many technical and support jobs going overseas, I've pondered often on what the next 20 years would bring. After reading this book, I have a good idea. The author makes the point that any job that can be outsourced will be outsourced. OK, not every job - we'll still have a few call centers in the US of course. But it's surprising to see just how many jobs are being outsourced - and when you look around you, just how many jobs you see that also could be outsourced, given a nice fiber connection across the Pacific (for which we owe a great deal of thanks to the Internet Bubble - if there's one 'good' thing that came from the Internet Bubble, it was dirt-cheap fiber connections across the oceans). So what's next? If my order at the drive-through can be easily taken by an English-speaking Indian, or my brain surgeon can operate on me remotely from Singapore, or my software developers be stationed in Bangkok, what jobs are going to be left over? What jobs CAN'T be easily outsourced? The answer, according to Daniel Pink, is all in your brain. Mainly in your right brain, but that's only because, for most of us, we haven't been using it that much. Oh sure, we all use it a little bit, but not a lot in traditional business settings. He points out that the MFA (Master of Fine Arts) is growing like mad, and goes so far as to call the MFA the "new MBA". He talks about how the new high-paying, onshore jobs will be those that combine technical skill with right-brain skills, in ways that offshore workers can't easily duplicate.

The book is structured in two parts: The first, called "Right Brain Rising", gives the background arguments as to how and why the right brain is becoming more important in modern society. The second part, entitled "Introducing the Six Senses" is a group of short sections about six new senses, or skills, that will be highly needed in the future: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning. I'll leave it to you to read the details of each, but there are some real gems in here. I highly recommend this book to anyone who cares about their future, and doesn't want to be caught wondering what happened to their fancy, high-paying job in 10 years from now.

It turns out this book isn't so much about how the future will only have artists and painters and dancers running around singing and dramatizing all day, but rather, it's about how your WHOLE MIND will need to be involved, to succeed in the future business world. So it's not that we need to shut off our left brains, but rather, we just need to awaken the other side of our brains, and make sure both sides are working together. The subtitle, therefore, was misleading - it's not the right-brainers that will rule the future, it's the whole-brainers. But I guess the subtitle did what it was supposed to - it caused a negative reaction that made me curious - and I picked up the book and ended up buying it. Pretty good marketing ploy I think - the right-brainers pick up the book because they want someone to tell them they'll rule the world, and the left-brainers pick up the book because of the audacity of the claim that those artsy-fartsy types are going to steal the world out from under them. I hate marketing - it rarely tells the truth. But in this case, that was OK, because the truth was inside the book - so I guess the end justified the means in this case. If only I could say as much for all deceptive marketing schemes...

Whether you're currently right-brained, left-brained, or a little of both - you'll find this book interesting.

Look Mom! I’m a Blogger!

 

My NBA.com blog is live!

http://my.nba.com/forum.jspa?forumID=400032740

Their editor is completely primitive. It's like using Microsoft Notepad. Actually it's worse. If I cut and paste from Notepad into this little NBA editor thingy, it messes up the formatting. It takes HTML, but with a few twists – so you can't just write in an HTML editor and then cut and paste from it either. It's gonna take some getting used to…

But anyway, I'm live! I'm bloggin' like Gilbert Arenas!

I just can't tell if anybody is reading it or not…what do you think? Yeah, you're right, I shouldn't quit my day job. At least not yet…

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

My New Found Fame (Or Infamy???)

Psst! I've got a secret. I have a new job - sort of. OK, maybe it's just a hobby. Yeah, definitely a hobby, since I still have my day job, and this new thing doesn't exactly pay what you'd call, "cash compensation". But who cares? (Other than my wife and kids?)

The bad news is, it's going to get tougher for me to find time to blog - well, on this site anyway...

The good news is, my readership is going up, up, up!!!!!

OK, I can't help it - I'm gonna spill the beans...here it is!!!

http://my.nba.com/thread.jspa?threadID=300013507

That's right, I auditioned for 8 weeks and was selected to be one of two NBA Fantasy Fan Bloggers on NBA.com this season! Me and some other kid named Trevor. I think he's a kid anyway - you never really know online - he could be an 87 year old grandma posing as a young kid...but he mentioned school being back in session in one of his blogs, so I'm thinking High School or College...

Anyway, I think it's exciting. Even if they aren't paying me. Fame doesn't always equal Fortune, does it? And Fortune sometimes comes later, right? Maybe by the end of the season, all the readers will be demanding I come back for a second season?

Worst case, I'll be slightly more famous than I was before - maybe 0.01 on a scale of 0 to 10, instead of 0.00.

I never thought I was (Tall/Fast/Athletic) enough to work for the NBA?!?! Guess I was wrong!

My new blog will commence in a few days...stay tuned!

Manilow and Colbert?

Who knew this guy could sing?

You Gotta Really Like Jazz To Like This Guy!

Michael Brecker, jazz saxophonist and bandleader, was born on March 29, 1949. He died on January 13, 2007, aged 57

RIP Micheal...

Real Jazz, Or How to Tell If Someone Is A Jazz Lover or a Poser

If you ever want to know if someone likes jazz, don't ask them if they like jazz. Ask them if they like Kenny G. That's all you need to know.

I am a DirecTV subscriber. One of the benefits is you get a bunch of XM music channels. One of my favorites is "Real Jazz". In between sets they sometimes do a quick little promo for the channel. Last night I heard a little promo that said "If you Like Kenny G, this is not your channel...this is Real Jazz"

Kenny G is not Jazz. I don't care if he won a Grammy for Jazz. It's not even remotely Jazz. Kenny G's cacophonous productions are a crime against all Jazz musicians, past, present and future.

Why, you ask?

Pat Metheny (a real jazz artist), has some strong opinions which help to explain why...

Pat Metheny on Kenny G

Question:

"Pat, could you tell us your opinion about Kenny G - it appears you were quoted as being less than enthusiastic about him and his music. I would say that most of the serious music listeners in the world would not find your opinion surprising or unlikely - but you were vocal about it for the first time. You are generally supportive of other musicians it seems."

Pat's Answer:

"Kenny G is not a musician I really had much of an opinion about at all until recently. There was not much about the way he played that interested me one way or the other either live or on records.

I first heard him a number of years ago playing as a sideman with Jeff Lorber when they opened a concert for my band. My impression was that he was someone who had spent a fair amount of time listening to the more pop oriented sax players of that time, like Grover Washington or David Sanborn, but was not really an advanced player, even in that style. He had major rhythmic problems and his harmonic and melodic vocabulary was extremely limited, mostly to pentatonic based and blues-lick derived patterns, and he basically exhibited only a rudimentary understanding of how to function as a professional soloist in an ensemble - Lorber was basically playing him off the bandstand in terms of actual music.

But he did show a knack for connecting to the basest impulses of the large crowd by deploying his two or three most effective licks (holding long notes and playing fast runs - never mind that there were lots of harmonic clams in them) at the key moments to elicit a powerful crowd reaction (over and over again). The other main thing I noticed was that he also, as he does to this day, played horribly out of tune - consistently sharp.

Of course, I am aware of what he has played since, the success it has had, and the controversy that has surrounded him among musicians and serious listeners. This controversy seems to be largely fueled by the fact that he sells an enormous amount of records while not being anywhere near a really great player in relation to the standards that have been set on his instrument over the past sixty or seventy years. And honestly, there is no small amount of envy involved from musicians who see one of their fellow players doing so well financially, especially when so many of them who are far superior as improvisors and musicians in general have trouble just making a living. There must be hundreds, if not thousands of sax players around the world who are simply better improvising musicians than Kenny G on his chosen instruments. It would really surprise me if even he disagreed with that statement.

Having said that, it has gotten me to thinking lately why so many jazz musicians (myself included, given the right "bait" of a question, as I will explain later) and audiences have gone so far as to say that what he is playing is not even jazz at all. Stepping back for a minute, if we examine the way he plays, especially if one can remove the actual improvising from the often mundane background environment that it is delivered in, we see that his saxophone style is in fact clearly in the tradition of the kind of playing that most reasonably objective listeners WOULD normally quantify as being jazz. It's just that as jazz or even as music in a general sense, with these standards in mind, it is simply not up to the level of playing that we historically associate with professional improvising musicians. So, lately I have been advocating that we go ahead and just include it under the word jazz - since pretty much of the rest of the world OUTSIDE of the jazz community does anyway - and let the chips fall where they may.

And after all, why he should be judged by any other standard, why he should be exempt from that that all other serious musicians on his instrument are judged by if they attempt to use their abilities in an improvisational context playing with a rhythm section as he does? He SHOULD be compared to John Coltrane or Wayne Shorter, for instance, on his abilities (or lack thereof) to play the soprano saxophone and his success (or lack thereof) at finding a way to deploy that instrument in an ensemble in order to accurately gauge his abilities and put them in the context of his instrument's legacy and potential.

As a composer of even eighth note based music, he SHOULD be compared to Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver or even Grover Washington. Suffice it to say, on all above counts, at this point in his development, he wouldn't fare well.

But, like I said at the top, this relatively benign view was all "until recently".

Not long ago, Kenny G put out a recording where he overdubbed himself on top of a 30+ year old Louis Armstrong record, the track "What a Wonderful World". With this single move, Kenny G became one of the few people on earth I can say that I really can't use at all - as a man, for his incredible arrogance to even consider such a thing, and as a musician, for presuming to share the stage with the single most important figure in our music.

This type of musical necrophilia - the technique of overdubbing on the preexisting tracks of already dead performers - was weird when Natalie Cole did it with her dad on "Unforgettable" a few years ago, but it was her dad. When Tony Bennett did it with Billie Holiday it was bizarre, but we are talking about two of the greatest singers of the 20th century who were on roughly the same level of artistic accomplishment. When Larry Coryell presumed to overdub himself on top of a Wes Montgomery track, I lost a lot of the respect that I ever had for him - and I have to seriously question the fact that I did have respect for someone who could turn out to have such unbelievably bad taste and be that disrespectful to one of my personal heroes.

But when Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, *screwed* up playing all over one of the great Louis's tracks (even one of his lesser ones), he did something that I would not have imagined possible. He, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, *crapped* all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years developing their own music inspired by the standards of grace that Louis Armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician. By disrespecting Louis, his legacy and by default, everyone who has ever tried to do something positive with improvised music and what it can be, Kenny G has created a new low point in modern culture - something that we all should be totally embarrassed about - and afraid of. We ignore this, "let it slide", at our own peril.

His callous disregard for the larger issues of what this crass gesture implies is exacerbated by the fact that the only reason he possibly have for doing something this inherently wrong (on both human and musical terms) was for the record sales and the money it would bring.

Since that record came out - in protest, as insignificant as it may be, I encourage everyone to boycott Kenny G recordings, concerts and anything he is associated with. If asked about Kenny G, I will diss him and his music with the same passion that is in evidence in this little essay.

Normally, I feel that musicians all have a hard enough time, regardless of their level, just trying to play good and don't really benefit from public criticism, particularly from their fellow players. but, this is different.

There ARE some things that are sacred - and amongst any musician that has ever attempted to address jazz at even the most basic of levels, Louis Armstrong and his music is hallowed ground. To ignore this trespass is to agree that NOTHING any musician has attempted to do with their life in music has any intrinsic value - and I refuse to do that."

AMEN.