The Big Whatever

The Standards Project

Great night at Spazio last night.  Thanks to Kirk and Dave for their intuitive and slammin' playing, and to Judy, Dario and Denny for all their help at the club.  And to all of you who joined us.  We'll be back on July 14th.

Working on the remake of "The Poseidon Adventure" at WB.  More on this later, but it should be an interesting gig.

Talk to me. And I'll tell you. What's goin' on, what's goin' on, what's goin' on...

Well it hardly seems like THREE FUCKING MONTHS (and that was just a note), but who's counting?  Suzi says I must be overloaded...that's not far from true.  It all came down... with me coming down with a deep cold/light flu last week.  Could've used that time to blog, I suppose, but I stayed in bed and did bloody nothing for two days and that seemed to fix things right up.  It's just been busy; what can I say:  If you know my life, you know what that means; if you don't then it probably seems like a threadbare alibi. .

But when you put together being a dad, being a free-lance musician trying to have both a creative and a commercial life, being a brother, trying to have a decent marriage; wanting to cook, do home maintenance, take care of my dog (she'd drink my bath water and I hadn't walked her in a week), plant the garden (bought plants and seeds, not planting yet and it's April); finding time to excercise, read something that isn't written in HTML, stay current with "DiGrassi," and "Deadwood," read the trades, practice, write, make travel arrangements for road gigs, and who knows what else, it's amazing that anything at all gets done. 

It mostly comes down to having a lot of work bunch up--late nights blending into early mornings.  Sessions, sidelines, some producing, a lot of playing gigs. Busy in the home studio too, lately.  That's good 'cause I can stay home, but it means maintenance and updates and downloading drivers and conference calls.  And that's just to order lunch (cymbal crash, snare hit).   Nobody here is complaining, by the way.  It just makes blogging seem like a luxury reserved for the leisure class, and I have had precious little of either of late.  I'll post pix to document all of this, maybe tonight. 

TV production is largely over for the year, but features have been calling: "Yours Mine and Ours" for Sony and added footage on "Rumor Has It" (formerly "Otherwise Engaged;" formerly "Untitled Rob Reiner Project;" formerly "Untitled Ted Griffin Project").  What else?  Don't fucking ask.  Oh alright-"One On One," "Las Vegas," "JAG" -- goodbye "JAG;" it's been great (more on that later), "Numb3rs," "Gilmore Girls," etc. 

And playing lots of jazz.  Thanks here to the Sheraton Four Points LAX (60 kinds of beer!! 60!), Spazio, the Jazz Bakery, etc.

Gotta go.  We're back, baby.

So here's the deal...

...It's going to be a return to the policies of the '80s--the 1880s that is.  Bush won't sign the Kyoto agreement; Social Security is going to be a free-for-all; and Gary Bauer et al will have the keys to the front door on Pennsylvania Ave.  OK, so be it; now, what do we do?  Don't mourn, says Marilyn, organize.  Sounds like good advice to me.  Now where shall we go to get organized....to the right with Leiberman and Gephart, to the left with--who, again? To the center with Hillary and Obama (too early for him; but wait, wait...)   Listen to eveyone from Dowd to Sheer: no one (least of all your humble servant) has got a clue on what to do with the Democratic party except don't do what we did again.  Progressives (and you know who you are; so does W) are going to have to regroup and prove ourselves relevant, because the DLC bunch is going to be gunning for us.

Next Sunday (14th), it's a day of  jazz: At 10.30 I'll be at Spazio with Steve Carr and Kirk Smith; then at 4.30 Steve and I go over to  Henri's,  at 21601 Sherman Way (at Owensmouth) in Canoga Park to host the jazz jam 'till 8.30.  Played a rehearsal with Pat Longo's big (loud) band this A.M.  Nice to see Thom Mason and Jack Redmond again. 

Oh--the WC Fields boxed set hits the stores tomorrow.  See you at Fry's...

Catching Up

Well. as the fires die down and the bleeding stops, what are we left with?  We're still fucked, but we now know better why...Mike A. says Leiberman would have been a better candidate--appeal to the right with strong backing of the war, unimpeachable on "Moral" issues.  But why, exactly, is Leiberman still a Democrat anyway? I've been wondering that for several years.  Are we so horny to win that we'll just run anyone?  I think progressives are going to be shunned for a  while in the rush to win at any price.  Gotta go now.

Gigs for the near future:  Spazio next Sunday and week from Wednesday;  Patti's show at TAS next Saturday; leading the jazz jam for Hammond next Sunday at Henri's in Canoga Park.  More details anon.

The Last Birthday Dinner

Back, and, I hope, bad...The last birthday dinner was held last night, as Ann Patterson (7/30) and I got together for our kinda-annual celebration. She brought along the great sax player/composer/arranger Buddy Collette (7/30) and a few more friends with Leo dates. We saw "Cookin' At The Cookery," the bio play on Alberta Hunter. This is a cool piece of theatre--great music and performances by two actors playing several parts between them including Hunter at various ages and the people in her life, male and female, old and young. An on-stage band adds a lot. Nice to see bassist Tony Dumas in the band, as well as guitarist Ron Muldrow.

More later--work calls..

Ronstadt, et al...

Saw Linda Ronstadt at the Uni last night, and boy was she mad! Not really, but she didn't shrink from the inevitable (well-deserved) kudos to Michael Moore. There was some negative reaction, but it was a huge swell of largely positive approval that greeted each political comment. Some boos, and I've heard that there were some walkouts, though not in my section. As far as I know, she is not barred from the venue for life. Great show, though. She's still got it, even if some of the notes were beyond her. But you, well, I, don't go to see and hear perfection; I go for the feeling and the phrasing and the music. Everything else is superficial drivel. If she's just way off all the time, that's another matter, but she hit most of what she aimed at and the feeling was there all of the time. Steve Tyrell opened, and he's a limited talent at best though surely amiable. Great charts for his band, though, mostly by guitarist Bob Mann, who also works with Ronstadt.

TV season is going great guns already. Worked yesterday on "Medical Investigations, " a new Paramount show. Last week did a pilot for the people at "Entertainment Tonight;" next week is "Navy NCIS." Pix are on actual film that is being processed even as we speak, so pix will be up next week.

Back to it after a nice one-day gig trip to SF. I really think San Jose may have the best climate in the country. So much easier to fly into SJC and drive into the city. No worries re weather delays and other SFO bullshit.

Yesterday I was on a panel as part of the Global Entertainment Conference back here in LA. That sounds much more grand than it really is. It was so cool to be seated with the great arranger Jimmie Haskell. If he had never done anything after "Ode To Billy Joe" (and he has done much) he'll always be revered for that chart alone. As far as the rest of the afternoon--I don't think we covered much of what had been planned, unfortunately. A five-person panel with only one hour to talk--how much can you really do? I know we didn't talk much about sidelines and the various ways that music gets into a picture, but maybe next time.

TechTV News is all from Canada--Leo is going to TechTV Canada to do a new version of CFH. Now--how do we get that down here? And why are they so smart up there--it's the same company, eh?

Brother Ray

Ray Charles was surely one of a kind. There is no more market for his kind of eclcticism, which is sad. My one gig with him was memorable both musically, and for Ray's, eh, strong personality. Towards me he was gentle and respectful; the band was hot, and everything I wpuld have expected of Ray Charles. It's nice when your dreams come true, and your idols are true to your fantasies.

Did a session this morning for saxaphonist/composer/good friend Steve Carr. He's written some funky tunes with Sweet Baby J'ai that they're trying to place. Solid engineering, as always, by Billl Jenkins (David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, etc.).

There's a topic--the value of good engineering on a session. If I'm a player on a date, and especially when I'm producing, I'm always thankful for an engineer that knows what to do. What to do?

-Record everything as soon as set-up is completed
-Keep track of all marks and headers on the piece--be able to get the second chorus if that's what I need to hear
-Don't produce, unless asked, and then don't be afraid to be honest
-Be intuitive--know where things are going and anticipate without pushing

It seems like these things would be self-evident, but I guess they're not. Funny how with the advent of Pro Tools/Nuendo as the means of recording, it takes more people in the booth to get the sound down on--I almost said "tape," but of course that's a misnomer now, isn't it? To get the sound down on whatever, at least in professional studios. At my place, at Steve's, it's still a one-person job. I remember vivdly some of the arrogant, drugged-out engineers I saw on my first record dates in the sixties and early seventies. Those guys got away with a lot of bullshit, mostly 'cause the producers let them. It's a different job today.

The best comment on Ronald Reagan comes from Ben Stiller's character in "Flirting With Disaster." Seeing a hack portrait of Reagan to on his (presumtive) birth-mother's wall, he says with some discomfort (I'm paraphrasing, but it's close to this) "I always felt like I could have appreciated him more." There's a liberal's true discomfort with the whole Reagan thing, in one sentence: I'm certainly no fan, but this was an immensely popular man and politician, though he never seemed very likable to me, with his pettiness and narrow, paranoid worldview. He touted "family values" but was alienated from his children; was unflinching in his devotion to lowering taxes but tripled the federal deficit; as governor of California he was pro-abortion rights and a friend to environmental crusaders; percieived as a strong leader, he was obviously at sea in the world of White House protocol easily manipulated. A mass of contradictions, but often seen as a simple ideaologue. Go figure.

TechTV news: Kevin's site says he's moving to LA. Sarah's still mum; Cat has a chat tonight at 5PM our time, Leo's vague . If Patrick doesn't move to LA, who's up? The boards are full of hue-and-cry; G4 seems to be saying they'll be responsive to viewer sentiment, but really, will they? By the way, if you mistype G4, most commonly you get G$. Coincidence? I think not.

Nice gigs this week, with Chris Larson last night, and a cool jazz quartet I led for Steve Rawlins on Saturday.