Matthew Wengerd's Weblog

I have been in ensembles where things have come just to the brink of falling apart, but I have never found myself in a situation of on-stage restarting. It is comforting to know, however, that I would be in good company if and when that situation arises. My number one, the Cleveland Orchestra, [...]

Reneaud Garcia-Fons is a bassist every bassist should know. I was hipped to him by my very first double bass teacher (a classmate of mine who had barely studied the instrument himself) and, like my first exposure to Victor, Edgar, Jaco, I could not even be sure I knew what it was I was [...]

Jason Heath just might be obsessed with cats. Since Jason is the inspiration for this blog, it seems I might as well follow suit.

My wife and I attended Pigilicious this weekend and came home with an adorable little kitten. I want to call her Pigilicious (Miss Piggy for short). I don’t think [...]

As you may already know, I use Google Feed Reader as my RSS feed aggregator. The following is a list of the items in my Google Reader:

_104 weeks
This blog.
_Aaron In Africa: My Time in Togo
My friends were in the Peace Corps serving in Togo. [...]

It’s been a bit more than a month since I parted ways with my bass so she could get fixed. I posted some pictures of the instrument, post lobotomy, and now have what should be the penultimate post in this saga.

The guys at Upton have done an excellent job of keeping their [...]

Today was the second day of Mayfaire by the Lake in Lakeland, Florida. Yesterday’s hit was a 1:00pm with matthewwengerdtrio and today was a 12:00pm hit with Bendelow Road. There were over 200 exhibitors, ranging from musicians to sculptors to jewelry makers. There were quite a few duds, in my opinion, but [...]

My friend, Rich Van Voorst, and I have started a listing of straight-ahead jazz gigs in the West Central Florida area called tampajazzscene. It is a blogspot with a companion Google Calendar. If you or anyone you know has a jazz hit anywhere in the Central Florida area, let us know and we’ll [...]

matthewwengerdtrio and Bendelow Road will be playing at Lakeland’s Mayfaire by the Lake this weekend. Mayfaire is an excellent outdoor arts festival on Lake Morton in Lakeland, FL. mwt and Bendelow Road are the only jazz groups performing, but there will be other excellent performers and dozens of artists’ booths. Stop by [...]

The modern American church does a poor job of conveying what Jesus taught and who he was. These videos, known to me as “the Jesus videos,” are a satirical look at the concept of Jesus that many people have today. It’s meant to be funny, feel free to laugh.

Eric Roy of Upton Bass emailed me to let me know that pictures of my bass have been posted on www.stringrepair.com, the webpage of the workshop at Upton Bass. Eric has been diligently working on my bass while boss-man, Gary Upton Birkhamshaw, is on a little R&R. Eric has been reinforcing the damaged [...]