matthew wengerd|bassist

On Thursday, the wife and I, two cats, my brother-in-law, and his newlywed bride will all take a road trip to Cleveland to spend Christmas with our families. It just so happens that both of the jazz clubs in town are featuring bassists while I’m home. Unfortunately, they’re both the same night!

Dave Morgan, Youngstown State faculty member and Cleveland Jazz Orchestra composer/bassist will be performing his tunes with a nonet at the Bop Stop this Friday. As Dave and Jack performed at our wedding reception, I had to give top bill to the Tom Knific Quartet, which is playing at Night Town Friday night. Tom is the chair of Western Michigan’s jazz department. I’ve secured a lesson with Tom for Saturday morning, pending schedules and Dave Morgan pointed me in the direction of a very generous Jared Craig, who is lending me a bass with which to practice for the week and a half I’m home. I’d love to get a lesson with Dave, too, if time permits.

When it rains it pours! I spend so much time at home laying around, watching TV - this will be a good opportunity to practice, learn and hear some live music! I wish I lived in a town with a real jazz club or two.

Good to see Michael Formanek becoming an active member of the Peabody Bass Blog. I’m looking forward to his addition to an already superb collective bass blog.

It seems like there is a dearth of information about the German bow. I don’t quite know what causes this, but there just seem to be many more French players and information out there.

Imagine my joy and surprise when I read Stan Haskins’ Budget German bow roundup. He seems to give reasonably high marks to the Arcos Brazil bows, one of which I own. The bow is stamped “H. Cirillo” and is a very well-made, well-balanced bow. I paid less than $800 for it and have kept my eyes open for another bow in that range, but haven’t found anything yet.

If you’re looking for a bow in the sub-$800 range, read Haskins’ post and check out the bows he discusses.

The ClickForLessons blog had another interesting post (I was reading back into the archives) I thought worth mentioning. The issue of pricing lessons has always been a vexing one. How do you prevent undervaluing yourself without pricing yourself out of the market? I think these figures wouldn’t fly in my market:

If you want to make $100,000 this year, you can get 200 students to pay you $500 ($20 for half hour lessons, twice a month). You’d also be working your rear-end off - 6 days a week - and needing a support staff.

Or, you can have 60 students that will take two 1-hour lessons a month at $70 an hour. In the latter scenario, you could work Mon-Thurs and have a three day weekend every week - while making $100K. Typically, the person paying $70 vs. $20 also tends to be more serious and stay with you longer (thus avoiding churn and turnover).

I recently “gave myself a raise” and am charging $17/half, $30/hour. Upon obtaining my MM, it’s a sure bet that’ll go up. I could see charging $70 after a decade of pro experience, but don’t read the CFL blog and get the idea that you can demand those prices fresh out of school.

I do indeed like this reality check, though:

The average plumber charges $85 for a house call - whether it’s 10 minutes or an hour - then $85-$100 per hour thereafter. I’d say you’re adding more long-term value than my local plumber, wouldn’t you?

I haven’t encountered any other livebloggers yet, but I did catch a post by Thomas Howard chronicling his experiences. It is so great to see people with backgrounds in rock, pop, and classical music coming to these workshops and making great headway as jazz musicians. I’m awful with names; when Thomas posted at Talkbass to let me know he wrote this post, I had to check his myspace for pictures to recognize who he was. We had several conversations while he was here and I really enjoyed the bit of time I had to get to know him.

This thing really is a brotherhood.

Aside from the fact that I’m lazy, I have an excuse for my brief silence. On Tuesday the 12th of June, Meghan , Rylee, Audrey and I packed up and headed North. We stopped in Beckley, WV for the night and finished the next morning, getting in a little before noon. Though the drive was less stressful than I expected, but not without it’s difficulties. Rylee refused to drink from the travel water dish and, several hours into day one, started panting like a dog. I’ve never seen a cat pant, and found this disconcerting. She got lethargic and temperamental and worried us quite a bit. She drank from her own dish that night, though.

We went to Ohio for my Brother-In-Law’s wedding. The four of us have known each other since High School, which is why I was actually looking forward to this. The week was busy with golfing and parties and rehearsals and such. Each time I head to Ohio, I’m reminded of how much I miss it. It was beautiful up there.

I kept intending to blog and transcribe and do so many other things, but it just wasn’t happening.

Picture proof:

Many, many thanks to be.jazz for the link. I’ve discovered a lot of interesting reads through it. There are great photographs to boot.

Oh, and he linked the USF Jazz blog a while back!

Win Hinkle veered from his usual topic of discourse to talk about amplification in jazz; recounting his experience at a Ravi Coltrane soundcheck. Win is a tells-it-like-it-is kind of guy and I don’t always agree with him, but his post makes a pretty strong point.

As a bassist, I find I usually need to amplify when playing anything larger than a duo/trio in a small room. Now, there are plenty of purists who go all-acoustic, but I think it’s realistic to use an amp. What I think is absolutely uncalled for is miking drums and horns in small rooms. It’s dismaying to see big-name pros bringing entourages of soundmen to club dates. As a musician, I spend so much time working on playing with sensitivity that I cannot imagine ruining that with trillion-watt sound systems.

Add Win’s blog to your reader; you may not always agree, but it’s bound to be a good read.

Apparently, I have had this link saved on my delicious since Halloween. It was just brought back to my attention by this thread at Talkbass. The generous webmaster of this site has compiled links to listening and purchasing sites (iTunes and amazon.com, chiefly) for every tune in the Real Book 5th edition. I am a firm believer (as it’s been taught to me) to listen to as many examples of tunes you’re learning and I have 3-10 versions of most tunes in the book, but this is a great place for a jazz musician with a small library to find recordings of tunes they want to learn.

It would be nice if the site had multiple (read: dozens, when available) versions of each tune and noted which were the generally agreed upon “definitive” versions. It could be detrimental to a player to only listen to highly-arranged/-stylized versions as their source material.

Bookmark this one in case anyone ever asks, “Where can I go to hear the tunes in the Real Book?”

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 hearing.

Garcia-Fons’ technique stretches the concept of the double bass to its boundaries. His extensive use of his high C-string and extended techniques elicit unexpected timbres from what, for all intents and purposes, is a clumsy, cumbersome instrument. Renaud recently released a DVD (from which this video is culled) and it is worth the cost to obtain.

David Howells posted a review of the Arcoluz package at Amazon.com that reads as follows:

J. Hellborg, G. Willis, S. Clarke, D. Holland et al could not begin to dream where Renaud Garcia-Fons journeys on his 5 string double-bass. He is quite easily the greatest bass player of them all and this breath-taking CD (and DVD) is a living testament to his out of this world skills. His bowing technique alone is both bewildering and awesome. The sounds and speeds he gets in the higher register are like those of a maestro violinist and the arrangements are a joy. If you don’t believe me, buy this CD/DVD. The 85 minute DVD alone is worth the asking price (and more!). If you are a bass player, please ensure have a loved one close by to console you. If you want (need) to listen to Renaud in a larger group setting, get hold of a copy of Oriental Bass. Oh, and the guitarist and percussionist are also wonders to behold. PS: If you’re of the opinion that Jaco was the greatest bassist of all time, think again!

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. Reading this helps me understand the stories they tell.
_Adaptistration
Drew McManus’ excellent orchestra management blog. I was the Development Coordinator for the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and find this to be a very informative resource.
_be.jazz
A Belgian blog that highlighted the USF Jazz blog.
_Cow Country Bass
A Connecticut Yankee writing about bass playing.
_craigslist | musicians in lakeland
_craigslist | musicians in orlando
_craigslist | musicians in tampa bay area
The musician’s classifieds at Craigslist for my local areas.
_CSO Bass Blog
Michael Hovnanian (of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra)’s insightful look into life as Big 5 bassist.
_Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society
I met DJA at IAJE 2007. One of the more prolific jazz bloggers, Darcy keeps the NYC dream alive for me.
_Dark Roasted Blend
Amazing images. Jason Heath hipped me to this one (and others).
_Dragons and Princesses
“Non-political, frequently musical, life in Washington.”
_EMERGE Lakeland Blog
A local business-type blog.
_Empirical Polk
One of the Lakeland-related blogs I try to keep up with.
_hella frisch
Matt Heller, the New World bassist who just won Calgary.
_Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog
The man who started it all for me.
_Jazz Licks
One I just discovered. Explores jazz licks (duh!).
_Jazz: The Music of Unemployment
Andrew is a member of the Industrial Jazz Group. This is courtesy of DJA.
_JazzPortraits
Station Manager of 90.7 KFSR radio in Fresno, California, Joe Moore writes on jazz.
_JazzTrombones
Just like it says.
_Jessica Williams, Jazz Pianist, MORE NEW MUSIC!
Legendary pianist Williams’ blog discovery was a result of her Before and After in JazzTimes
_Lakeland Local
Another Local blog.
_Mama Need Java
And another (though I think the author is leaving the area, she hasn’t posted in a month, so I can’t quite recall).
_Musical Perceptions
Scott Spielberg is a DePauw Assistant Professor of Music.
_Rhetorix.net
My friend, David Gross’, rarely-updated blog.
_Riding For Charles
Bike riding in memory of Charles Barr.
_Rifftides
From the same people who bring Adaptistration, this is Doug Ramsey’s take on jazz.
_Scribe Life
Philip Booth’s blog. Philip is a friend of mine who contributes to some major publications and works at the University of South Florida.
_SpiderMonkey Stories
Taylor Ho Bynum, in blog form.
_stop the play and watch the audience
A California jazzer.
_Tampa Jazz
The new project. All yo need to know about Tampa area jazz.
_Tcritic - The Daily T-Shirt Blog
I sued to hate tshirts. Then Tcritic changed me.
_the double bass is my best friend
The Double Bass community at Livejournal.
_Thomas Dolby’s Blog
Just like it says.
_USF Jazz
The blog I maintain that was highlighted by be.jazz.
_Win’s Bill Evans Blog
Win Loves Bill and Scottie.
_Working From Home Dad
Amos Wong works at home.I discovered him Googling for some scripting tips.

If you think I should add something, let me know. Post your own list and leave a comment so I check it out. And please don’t be offended if you’re not on this list; I’m not always as focused as I should be.

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 I am very anti-Florida-style and imagined a lot of the art I saw hanging over a wicker sofa. ugh.

Highlights included:

Jack Hill created these scultures - the larger “mello cello” sculpture was nearly six feet tall. I am particularly fond of the Icarus image of the middle piece.

This is perhaps the most impressive work at Mayfaire. I was at first convinced that these were photos screened onto frames, but Mike takes the photos and Patty paints the frames. It’s a pretty phenomenal setup they have and I was impressed with every piece they had displayed.

Nathan Herrera had an excellent set of Flamenco-inspired solo guitar work.

Joe Pilcher’s work focused on laminate wood bent into vibrant shapes. His use of a reflective laminate on one side of the material creates pleasing lines in the center piece. I could not find web information for Pilcher.

This image of Trane was created by Arthur Dillard. Dillard’s work is in the practice rooms of several of my friends’ homes. His work is music-centric and an interesting source of jazz-art.

Joe Ihn’s furniture and sculpture work with wood is contemporary and plays to my interest in unique pieces of wood.

Ron Lemoine creates fish-centric metal sculptures. I love the Bass-playing Bass, but am particularly fond of the shot in the center.

It seems a lot of the artists had subject-themes. Michelle Mardis‘ theme was dogs. I can easily see one of these hanging over our couch, but I’m not sure the cat would appreciate it.

I think I can easily call this my favorite exhibit at Mayfaire. Scott Causey’s sculptures are absolutely breathtaking. I am not the only one to be drawn to these absolutely wonderful animals!

Last but not least, yours truly playing with matthewwengerdtrio:

While wifey and her brother watched:

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 list it!

We’re looking forward to an opportunity to build the jazz scene in Tampa. I’ve gotten sick of waiting by the phone, so now I’m hitting the proverbial streets.

Well, I’ll join the Z-List. This is a type of traffic-builder designed to up your technorati ratings. Copy and repost the links, if you get a chance:

104 weeks
Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog
Creative Think
Soloride
Movie Marketing Madness
Blog Till You Drop!
Get Shouty!
One Reader at a Time
Critical Fluff
The New PR
Own Your Brand!
OTOInsights
bizandbuzz
Work, in Plain English
Buzz Canuck
New Millenium PR
Pardon My French
Troy Worman’s Blog
The Instigator Blog
AENDirect
Diva Marketing
Marketing Hipster
The Marketing Minute
Funny Business
The Frager Factor
Mindblob
Open The Dialogue
Word Sell
Note to CMO:
That’s Great Marketing!
Shotgun Marketing Blog
BrandSizzle
bizsolutionsplus
Customers Rock!
Being Peter Kim
Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman’s Blog About Surprise
Billions With Zero Knowledge
Working at Home on the Internet
MapleLeaf 2.0
darrenbarefoot.com
Two Hat Marketing
The Engaging Brand
The Branding Blog
CrapHammer
Drew’s Marketing Minute
Golden Practices
Viaspire
Tell Ten Friends
Flooring the Consumer
Kinetic Ideas
Unconventional Thinking
Buzzoodle
Conversation Agent
The Copywriting Maven
Hee-Haw Marketing
Scott Burkett’s Pothole on the Infobahn
Multi-Cult Classics
Logic + Emotion
Branding & Marketing
Popcorn n Roses
On Influence & Automation
Bullshitobserver
Servant of Chaos
converstations
eSoup
Presentation Zen
Dmitry Linkov
aialone
John Wagner
Nick Rice
CKs Blog
Design Sojourn
Frozen Puck
The Sartorialist
Small Surfaces
Africa Unchained
Perspective
gDiapers
Marketing Nirvana
Bob Sutton
¡Hola! Oi! Hi!
Shut Up and Drink the Kool-Aid!
Women, Art, Life: Weaving It All Together
Community Guy
Social Media on the fly
Jeremy Latham’s Blog
SMogger Social Media Blog
Masey.com

At the Brecker Concert this Monday, I had the pleasure of conversing with two friends about the nature of blogs.

Saxophonist|composer Rich Van Voorst is returning to USF for his second Masters’ this Autumn. Rich is the reason I am attending USF this year (another story for another occasion). He doesn’t blog and isn’t really all that interested in the blogosphere. The conversation turned towards the inevitable: What is a blog exactly? Well, for me, it’s an interactive diary. I put my thoughts out there for the world to agree or disagree with. To improve, dissent, and generally respond to. It’s a view for potential employers and clients into my life (well, then, it’s definitely self-censored, right?). It’s also a way for me to organize my history. I can go back and work through the blog for inspiration for my CV|Resume (When was that gig with Tenor Sax Giant X? (Ha!)).

For my friend, Philip Booth, who I am glad to see blogging regularly again, the stakes may be a bit higher. Philip is a freelance journalist who works as Media Relations Coordinator for the University. Because he is a journalist, his standards are rightfully higher. While I am content to tell you about what I ate for breakfast and slip in a few typos and mis-quotes, Philip’s journalistic orientation means a more carefully crafted (and often more substantive) post.

The beauty (and the pitfall) of blogging is that Philip, Rich, and I are all able to speak. For the casual reader, credibility may be determined by the blogger with the most user-friendly interface instead of the one with the best credentials. In cases like Jason Heath, you get both. In cases like mine, well, you decide.

Jason Heath offered an excellent addition to Drew McManus’ Post-a-Day series for Take a Friend to Orchestra (TAFTO).

Jason makes an excellent point about the effectiveness of conductor rambling in drawing the audience into orchestral programs. I am young and inexperienced enough to still be pretty wide-eyed when a thoughtful, intelligent conductor sheds new (to me) light on a piece I am playing. I often wish he had said that in rehearsals, so I could allow it time to settle in and affect my performance. Seasoned musicians, on the other hand, often find these same-old, same-olds tedious and unnecessary. Jason’s thoughtfulness on the value of these moments is a longview which should be taken by more musicians who value their jobs.

Take a minute to read some of the TAFTO contributions at Drew’s site.

I am maintaining what I hope will be an official USF Jazz Blog at Blogspot. I am planning on cajoling more USF jazzers into contributing. Keep your eyes peeled.