Justice League

Hey, its been a while. I've been busy reading different sorts of books and playing a lot of music. But I finally got around to seeing to the Justice League movie. It was quite an enjoyable two hours of cinema. Here's why.

The movie takes its time with gainful setup. The movie doesn't meander anywhere and it seems to have a purpose for most scenes. The beginning of the film features Batman looking to assemble his team (like an Overwatch team) of superheroes with powers (which he lacks, but has resources and leadership abilities) to defeat this new threat called Stephenwolf but honestly it doesn't matter who they're fighting, they just need an excuse to kick some ass.

Batman is portrayed in a smarter light in this movie as opposed to Batman V Superman where he came across as a violent maniac. Gal Godot is sexy and straight to the point, just as you would think an Amazonian warrior would act. The Flash is nerdy and quite green here. Cyborg is disillusioned with his mechanical body but otherwise quite nice. And Aquaman is a strong dude with a lance. There's the team, now fight! Superman gets raised from the dead to help defeat Stephenwolf and he's the most emotionally expressive character in a sense. He picks up Batman once he's revived and says, "Do you bleed", an ode to the Batman V Superman movie where Batman says that to him and hits him with a kryptonite lance. That was a nice Easter egg. 

The action scenes in this movie are quite good. Its nothing we haven't seen before in superhero movies but it is quite thrilling. My favorite part was probably when Superman was fighting the Justice League team when he was revived because he didn't know who he was or where he is, he was just raised from the dead, like Jesus Christ or something. Batman played God in this movie and it worked out for him but I have my doubts about some sort of after effect happening-Bizarro anyone? They ended up reviving Superman with this thing called a Motherbox, some kind of multidimensional box that contains "deep power", or whatever they want to say it does.

Superman was portrayed in the most human light in the film. Hell, Batman even remarks, "He's more human than I am." After he realizes who he is Lana Lane (Amy Adams, whom I love because of her performance in The Arrival) comes and they go to his childhood home on the farm. They talk and catch up. Lana says she wasn't strong when he died. They kiss and hold each other. Its the most emotional scene in the film. Superman eventually realizes he has a job to do and takes off. But that scene made the movie more interesting and contrasts with the darkness of the film, a feeling a hope that wasn't present before.

It should also be noted that the film portrays a dark atmosphere. This is not the Avengers, where everybody is laughing and joking around with each other. There's jokes here but they're a little forced and not quite that funny (nobody in the audience laughed at anything). The opening song of the movie has a woman singing, "Everybody knows the world is over, everybody knows the good guys lost." Its the perfect music to setup this dystopian superhero adventure. In essence that's what the movie is. Its not meant to be the best Justice League movie, its just meant as a stepping stone for other DC movies to come, hopefully featuring more superheroes (Martin Manhunter and Green Lantern please) and the Justice League fighting more interesting enemies (after the credits there was a scene with Lex Luthor talking about forming his own team of bad guys).

Although the plot was exceedingly simplistic its reasonable to say its to be expected from this sort of action superhero movies genre. What this movie does better than the first Avengers film is that it keeps your attention on the different scenes and animation techniques, something I looked at with great detail. In Avengers there's so much fighting going on that you forget that there's even dialogue sometimes. In this movie dialogue is used in a smarter and more effective way.

The good guys have won for now. But can they withstand the onslaught of the enemy team of ragtag super villains? We'll find out in the next film.

The Classics

So after going through a lot of new music, avant-garde classical music I found myself listening to the "classics", the warhorses of classical music. I am of course speaking about composers like Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Mahler, and Stravinsky, who I could lump in as a classical composer and a new music composer. He's someone who's influenced many and is important in the development of new music as well as being apart of the "old guard" of classical music.

The interesting thing about all of this is that I've listened to all this music a lot when I was about eighteen years old. In fact, I would turn on the classical music station at all times in my dorm room in college and I always had Wagner's Ring Cycle on various CD's as well as Mahler's symphonies, both of which at the time I thought of as being very heavy and dark music, like heavy metal which I was also interested in at the time.

Coming back to the music now at twenty-eight is a lot more engrossing. I'm a lot smarter, I can hear more of the harmonies and rhythms, and my musical experience has increased so I can understand the music more. That's not to say that I understand how Bach used counterpoint. I have a long way to go to understand that sort of stuff. But the aural ear training is much more on point now than its ever been.

After going through so much new music and going back to the classics I find myself more appreciative of the past, European art, history, and music. I can see why the Romantic, Baroque, Classical, and Renaissance eras were important in the development of twentieth century music. Sure, the teachers in predominantly white schools (and some black educational facilities) will tell you its high art but if you don't understand why its high art then you can't truly understand the music.

There is a lot of references to classical music in other art mediums, namely film and television. But for me the work must be found from the source and studied, otherwise its just a tune you hear and probably forget about. Miles Davis would say, "So what."

-Stravinsky pictured above

Second Soundcloud account

So my first Soundcloud (music sharing website) account got full quickly so I ended up creating a new page. You can find it here.

This was from an open jam session at the local pub. I'm on guitar, my friend Martin is on drums, and friend and house-bassist Art is on bass. On Jazz and rock for entertainment there was a great jazz guitar player but I noticed he didn't want to take too many solos or anything when we had this jam.

Sunshine of Your Love is the first time I sang live in front of an audience a whole tune. Before I only sang choruses. Looking back to it I think my voice needs a lot more work. I got the words (fumbled a bit though) but I need to work on my pronunciation and melodic sense within my voice. That will take time and work.

There's an instrumental heavy metal jam called Soothsayer by this instrumental rock musician named Buckethead. He was an influence on me when I was getting into playing really fast stuff. We've been playing that tune at the jam a lot because it gives a lot of room for emotional melodies as well as a great rock feel and shred solos for the climax.

My friend Renee, a work associate who introduced me to the open jams sang on all three but her voice doesn't necessarily carry that well. At times it sounds like she could be mumbling. However, I thought her vocal improvisation on Jazz and rock for entertainment was wonderful.

You can check it all out below
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17

Wind River

Wind River is a movie described as a neo-Western murder mystery film. The film stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olson as a US Fish and Wildlife Tracker (hunter) and an FBI agent who try to solve a murder on an Indian reservation. Director Taylor Sheridan wanted to create a film inspired by thousands of stories just like it, involving sexual assault of women on reservations. 

The movie starts off with Renner going to a reservation to hunt down some lions that are bothering this guy's livestock. He finds a woman's body in the wilderness with blood on her groin and he determines that she died from exposure, pulmonary hemorrhage caused by inhalation of sub-zero air. Obviously its a murder and the FBI is called in. On Indian reservations the FBI has jurisdiction over cases like this. Also, Renner knows who the girl is and is disturbed by the whole thing.

Elizabeth Olson comes on the scene but she's not prepared for what's to come. She didn't even bring a jacket. They start off by going to the girl's family. The mother is seen in her room cutting herself in the arm with a knife, a hearth-wrenching scene for sure. The father is annoyed by Olson who's asking her stupid questions. The father says his daughter was last at her boyfriend's house but he didn't know his name or whereabouts. But he suggests they go to see his son. 

So they go see his son and after a scuffle (gun firing, leading to a dead Indian man) his son tells Renner that the boyfriend works at a nearby oil drilling site. The oil drilling personnel are all sketchy and they say that they heard about Natlie's death via radio, Natalie being the girl that died. Olson mentions that her name was never mentioned on the radio. The Indian police officers with Olson start to put their guns up and the drilling personnel do the same but Olson calms everybody down and they go to the boyfriend's living quarters. 

Unfortunately when Olson opens the door she gets shot down hard and fast. A gunfight ensues and everyone except Olson and Renner (who's farther away with a sniper rifle) dies. Renner snipes all the drilling personnel and the guy in the living quarters runs away on foot. But he doesn't get very far. 

Renner captures him and takes him to the top of the mountain, where he forces him to confess his sins. He admits that he raped Natalie and that he killed Matt (the boyfriend) by beating him to death. This is a dark scene. Then Renner lets him free and tells him to run barefoot and see how far he gets. He mentions that Natalie made it six miles and that she was a warrior. 

The murderer runs a few yards before his legs give out and he spits up blood from his lungs. He dies. Renner then meets with the father, who is seen sitting outside in his "death face" paint. He admits that he made up the death face paint. Renner tells him that the killer went out with a whimper. They then sit together in silence, mourning. 

After that there's a message onscreen that says statistics are kept for every demographic except Native American women, whose numbers remain unknown. That to me was mind boggling. How can that be? What's wrong with government officials who can't even track something like that? Racism seems to be a big factor here.

The movie was very good and the characters were complex, especially Renner's character. The movie has a bold message about Indian reservation life and women, something that most people don't know anything about. For that reason the film is important. The harsh cold environment of the mountainous region of Wyoming gives the film a dark and cold gritty feel. It wouldn't be the same if it were on a reservation in California. 

Although the film is dark and the mystery element of it is given away in the end, (in a flashback scene of Natalie and the boyfriend in their room, disturbed by the murderer) I would say that the film isn't hurt by this reveal, instead it shows the audience the brutal nature these people were subjected to. 

Its a good film and did well in the box office and reviews. Check it out. 

New Music, Jazz History, and Science Fiction

I've been doing more research into jazz and new music, avant-garde classical music. I've also been reading science fiction and such.

The science fiction novel is easy enough to explain. It's a science fiction novel set in the future where a scientist is trying to find out what happened to a town in Germany called Eifelheim. Then it goes back into Medieval German times where a priest named Dietrich is working as the communication between humans and these insect-like aliens called Kreken. The novel explores this idea: Can we convert aliens? There's other ideas and tons of rocket science abstraction (dense reading!) in it but this is the primary subject of the book. Its called Eifelheim and its written by Michael Flynn. The book was nominated for a Hugo award back in 2007. Although the book came out in 2006 this is already ancient by today's memelord society.

I also picked up two new books on jazz. Both seem superb after only reading a bit. They're two books written by Nat Hentoff. Jazz Life and Jazz Is. Both explore jazz in a variety of ways with interviews, history, and in depth analysis of the music, the musicians, the audience, and the time periods (some of which include when jazz wasn't popular). Hentoff is a Jewish writer (that wrote for pretty much every major publication) that was well known for his politics. He comes to know the music personally because he met and knew most of the "greats" as a kid in New York. I find his insight on the people to be enlightening. He explains that although the people who play jazz are flawed, the music itself isn't. I'm looking forward to reading both books and I hope to learn a lot more about the history (black history) and people that made such great music.

Then there's the readings on and about the new music scene. I've become a listener of the avant-garde, so called "new music", or as I like to say avant-garde classical music. It started during the Chicago trip when I saw Messiaen's Quartet For the End of Time performed and then it just expanded from there like a mothership dropping its young onto an unsuspecting planet.

I've become particularly fond of Xenakis, Ligeti, Guillermo Gregorio (Argentinian clarinetist and improviser), Stravinsky, Stockhausen, and others. Xenakis wrote a great book about mathematics and music but once I got past the initial introduction the book goes a little over my head. Interesting to check out and read about still.

The thing I like about this sort of music is that it sounds like it could've been completely improvised but it was all written down and thought about. They didn't just throw together random stuff and some people say it sounds random and not music at all (a general opinion on the avant-garde) but I've come to learn that music can be made out of anything and everything, a lesson this music has taught me more so than ever. These composers were revolutionary because they didn't follow the standard norms of composition and influenced music of the twentieth century in a profound way. 

Guillermo Gregorio's music is great. His playing is as my dad put it,"dated". He has a sound that was popular back in the mid to late 1960's jazz, free jazz to be specific. He has the sound of Eric Dolphy, if Dolphy was from Argentina and became an intellectual artist inspired by architecture and European art and philosophy. I don't want to generalize him but his playing reminds me of Dolphy a lot. And I dig that very much.

On the other end of the spectrum (the one where European/American art music and rap don't mix!) I read the entire LA Weekly edition that just came out and in the back they had a list of fifteen of LA's best rappers. I'm not a fan of rap but I figured I would check out some of these guys and see if they had done LA proud with their work. DJ Quik has a nice funky style and Tyler the Creator has become a rap darling. Apparently the guy who doesn't give a fuck about anything actually cares.

All of this stuff will enrich my musical and literary palette. I'm trying to improve the blog, do more editing and limiting my posts and sentences, something before I never would have done because I thought too much editing was a bad thing almost akin to censorship. My goal is to eventually be showcased somewhere on a website and for something to come out of all of this. After all, nobody should write for free. But a free thinker must express his ideas to others lest it all sit inside one's head. As Grace Slick (from Jefferson Airplane) sang in White Rabbit, "Feed your head."

Picture is the composer Ligeti

My (Hero) Musical Academia

So I've been doing a lot of reading, studying, and practicing of different kinds of music and even instruments. I recently started playing the electronic keyboard. I've mainly been reading about music, particularly jazz history. I finished Paul Steinbeck's book on the Art Ensemble of Chicago and I also finished Stanley Crouch's biography on Charlie "Bird" Parker. Both were excellent entries to learn about the history of jazz, which I love with a passion. I also started reading George Lewis' book on the AACM, Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a 1960's experimental music collective formed on the south side of Chicago. A black organization that has stood the test of time and produced a lot of talent, many of whom would go on to have great careers and prestigious positions in musical academia. The book is over 700 pages and is incredibly dense but I'm up for the challenge.

In addition to that I'm also studying music from scores, playing the same jazz standards I play on guitar on electronic keyboard (sometimes with just the right hand), and I've even begun experimenting with classical guitar. I went to University of Wisconsin Parkside for a year and they didn't have a jazz guitar teacher there so I had to learn classical stuff. Unfortunately I didn't stay long enough to gain anything from that-until now. I still have all my classical guitar sheet music in my folder from all those years ago, so I took it out, looked at things, and started working on some of the easier pieces. The classical guitar stuff gives me more of a disciplined outlook on the music and my practice routine. I like the sound of the classical guitar but I don't know if I will ever truly have "correct" technique. But that's not what I'm going for anyways. I'm playing it for the challenge, discipline, and beautiful sound of the classical guitar repertoire. A good a reason(s) as any. Also, I found that if I comp jazz chords with the pick and fingers the way a classical guitarist would play without a pick, the comping style becomes more pianistic-a revelation that occurred to me through practicing simple classical tunes (and also dropping my pick into the acoustic!)

With the keyboard my sound will take months to develop. I'm starting to get the hang of some dense Monk comping and chords but my single note improvisations with the right hand don't really go anywhere yet. I have to experiment more with my improvising abilities and come up with more musical stuff rather than just comping chromatic chord clusters. It will take time and I know I can't expect to become a piano virtuoso overnight.

Also, I've been reading about Zen Buddhism. Zen teaches you to let go. I particularly enjoy the history of Zen in China and Japan, especially how the samurai created Rinzai zen and used it to overcome their fear of death in battle. I was initially reading about it because some of my favorite jazz musicians (Herbie, Shorter, Trane, Pat Martino, countless others) are into it and I thought that if I understood Zen it would help me understand the music and also myself, because as young person I'm still searching spiritually. I think that a lot of the important parts of Zen are ideas that we are initially born with and don't think about, but I would have to research the subject more to confirm this.

I've been occasionally reading some heavy science fiction on the side too. Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a dense hard to read book with heavy detail and big words in nearly every sentence. Yet its also entertaining and fun in a cosmic cyberpunk way. I've owned the book for years but I've got this far in the book before. 

Lastly, there's my band. The band is going really well. We know about 6 songs together, most of which are classic rock covers. We're doing a trio of guitar, bass, and drums with myself and the bass player on vocals. The drummer is becoming a good friend of mine and he's asking me for advice on how to get better (after I showed him some jazz stuff) and he's actually listening. I turned him onto Elvin Jones from the Coltrane Quartet and sent him a how to read drum music page, and the drum music score for Smoke on the Water, a cover song we're working on. My singing is getting better, the songs are getting tighter, and the sound is evolving into great real rock and roll, as well as a harmonious trio.

If I didn't stop playing so much video games none of this stuff would be possible. Now that I'm learning a lot more about my favorite subjects gaming just doesn't seem as engaging.

Thanks for reading
Peace and Love,
Orlando Figueroa 

Your Name 君の名は

So I saw a fantastic anime film the other night called Your Name. The film is arguably science fiction, romance, and deals with the fact that nothing lasts forever, which is very Japanese. You could say the film is science fiction because its about a boy and a girl who swap bodies through the mystic mystery of a shrine and the impending doom of a large crash landing comet. And the film is obviously a romance because although they don't realize it at first our boy and girl are star-crossed, and this is made even more evident when they finally meet, where instead of the boy writing his name on the girls' hand he instead writes I love you. The film was a huge commercial success and aired at Anime Expo 2016 (which I attended, but didn't see the film at), but only recently came out on DVD, made available through Netflix shipping.

The film is very slow-paced and mysterious at first. But once the film gets going about thirty minutes in you start to understand where the film is going and the fact that they are living in different time periods, although its only a small difference of three years. But its still so much of a time difference for them to have a hard time finding each other. There's religious elements because the girl lives with her grandmother and they take care of a shrine. The shrine is said to be ruled by a guardian spirit who rules human experiences and connections.

There's a comet that the boy finds out is going to destroy the girl's town and he tells her to evacuate the town. Once back in his own body and time he finds out most of the people survived the comet miraculously and he spots the girl with her soon to be husband in his Tokyo hometown. They chase each other down and ask,"Your name?"

The artwork in the film was very good too. There was some 3D shading effects and details, like when the comet came crashing down. Apparently the art work was all mostly done by one guy. Pretty impressive stuff. The anime art style of the characters is drawn in a modern way and there are some funny Japanese sort of mannerisms, like how every time they swap bodies the girl always touches her breasts, and likewise the guy always grabs down there. Pretty funny but not something that would happen in an American animated film made for the box office.

This is a film I would recommend to all anime fans because although the film is slow it has a lot of meaning in it. The idea of love, trying to find love, always having it within your grasp but then only to have it slip away once again. This is an idea we think about our entire lives even if we think we've found our true love, weather it be a person or vocation. For that reason I'd even be down to watch the movie again with a girl or even my friends who like anime but not so much the thoughtful sorts of anime like this.

Highly recommended!

Avant-garde classical concert, Quartet for the End of Time

When I was in Chicago I got to attend another great concert (first one being a jazz performance). This was an avant-garde classical (what we call modern or new music like Phillip Glass, John Cage, Xenakis, etc) concert that took place at the Green Mill, a famous club where the gangster Al Capone was known to hang at. The show was important for several reasons. I learned how important classical music (and harmony, theory, counterpoint) was to my music education and it gave me new ideas on music.

The concert ended up being too long but the beginning was so terrific that I don't think I'll see anything that great for probably a long time. They played Oliver Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. I've never quite heard anything like it. Sure I've heard Webern and some atonal classical stuff but this music was different. It has squeaks, what sounded like musical jokes, fast riffs, jazz riffs that reminded me of Eric Dolph's Out to Lunch, a memorable violin solo, and wonderful cello playing. I think I got a lot out of it because I saw how much four people could do on their instruments without even having a drummer. In a lot of ways the drummer was the pianist, bass was the cello, and the two horns were the clarinet and violin. I can think of it that way if I compare it to jazz group.

The Green Mill was a great place to take it. There wasn't that many people there but I do think its important for this kind of music to be played in different places other than University or say a church. What else can I say about the Messiaen piece? It was performed by Depaul University of Chicago students who were probably around my age. They played with such virtuosity, humor, seriousness, and even fun (which is rare to see in a classical performance). The violinist introduced the piece and said,"I'm not gonna say anything about the music, but if you have questions you can buy me a drink and I'll be glad to answer any questions." I thought that was kind of funny coming from classically trained violinist. The performance really opened my ears to different sounds and harmonies. It made me realize that sometimes you don't even need a drummer.

The rest of the concert wasn't as great. The memorable moments was a piece where this percussionist recited poetry while hitting motorcycle helmets to produce different tones (high and low almost like timpani). I enjoyed that very much. Her snare drum playing was phenomenal, I've always like the sound of a crispy snare. Also, there was a performance of this guy playing a clarinet piece using toys that made noise. But he ended up taking so long that I lost interest.

The main reason why we went to this concert was because my dad's composer friend Frank Abbinanti was playing an electronic piece using accordion. However, the electronics were so low volume that you could barely hear anything (from the electronics) while Frank played his accordion. He did sound good and I sort of see where he going with the music and the accordion but the volume was so low that it didn't mesh the way he wanted it to. I wish the guy running the event could've realized that and just turned up the volume, its a very easy fix but didn't happen. 

The next day I went over to Frank's house and he taught me about music for a while. I learned a lot and it opened up my mind and made me realize that if I want to do music as a career (eventually, God willing) I have to study more and take it more seriously. I can't hope to find fortune in playing death metal or crap like that. After you've heard Quartet for the End of Time you don't go playing death metal, at least not me. So the concert really helped and changed my perspective on music. For the better I would say. I'm studying music notation and scores, reading jazz biographies and history books, and practicing a lot more with detailed focus. And it was all inspired by one trip to Chicago. As my younger brother would say,"interesting". 

Thoughts on jazz books

So I'm reading two books on jazz right now and I thought I'd jot down some of my thoughts about the books and some things I've learned from them. I'm almost done with both books, maybe even just a mere 60-80 pages away from finishing both. I've been doing a lot of reading...

Anyways, I'd like to talk about Stanley Crouch's biography on Charlie "Bird" Parker called Kansas City Lightning-The Life and Times of Charlie Parker. This book is so heavily detailed with history about jazz, the black musical tradition (including Jim Crow and minstrelsy) and American history you sometimes forget that its about Bird. What Crouch does best is cultural critique. You might not always agree with what he's saying but what he says comes with a sense of seriousness and care for jazz, and ultimately black people and their history. For that his work is incredible, even if I think his thoughts on free jazz are way wrong.

Kansas City Lightning goes into much detail about Parker. He was a pampered only child to a single mother, lived with his girl friend (and later wife) with his mother, and was laughed off the bandstand to such a degree that he went home and cried. He said never again and practiced and practiced until he nailed all the changes, all the melodies, and then some. He was already playing professionally in bands at the age of 16 even though he wasn't a good sight reader (good at reading music charts, notation) and only knew a few keys (most popular songs of the day were played in only a few keys). All that would change.

Once he got used to the nightlife and hanging out all night into the morning he found the world he wanted to belong to. That's when he starting using (code for heroin). I'm still reading the book but one can only assume that he would become super famous and then descend into ruin. That's the story of all so-called greats. They become great, fly too close to the sun, and then crash land to ruin or in some cases death. I'm interested to see how Crouch will end the book.

The other book is author (bassist, composer, music theory teacher) Paul Steinbeck's biography and music analysis on the Art Ensemble of Chicago. It's called Message to Our Folks, which was one of their early albums. This book is much more appealing to me because the Art Ensemble is one of my favorite music groups ever. I was awed by them when I saw their videos on Youtube some four or five years ago. When I heard them I found out that jazz can mean much more and be much different from the other free jazz stuff I had heard in the past (Ornette, late period Trane, Ayler, Sanders, Shepp). The AEOC's music has a lot more collective improvisation (much like Louis Armstrong's Hot Five) but they can also go into bebop, swing, blues, and even European harmonies-sometimes all within the same tune. There's nothing quite like them. You should listen to their music if you aren't familiar with their work.

Going forward, the book starts off as a biography about all the guys in the band. Its interesting to note that most of the guys were in the army, went to college (but most didn't stay) because of the GI bill, and most of them all came from musical and religious families. Pretty typical stuff. I was a little surprised to read that most of them were in the army. In today's world going to the army is seen as a much different thing as back then. It's good to know where all the guys came from.

After that history part there's musical analysis of the album A Jackson in Your House (Jackson was the name of saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell's cat). I listened to the entire album before I read it and although I don't think Steinbeck can completely explain the music in words I do think its cool that he added transcriptions (music notation) of certain parts to the music. That's something I've never seen before, its new, and totally exciting. Again, I think he does a good attempt at explaining the music in words but I don't think words do it justice. Its just too hard to explain the variety of sounds that this band can produce. However, its still great reading.

After that there's more talk about their next period, the 1970s. They were in a good spot by then. They had reached international acclaim in Europe (particularly Paris, where they stayed from 1969-1971 and when they came back home they were already the most famous band to come from Chicago's AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). However, work was still hard to come by so they played on and off about twelve times a year and in between they played side gigs where they could earn a living (mostly playing with other AACM groups). Eventually they began to become more popular in America (once they got signed to a major label-Atlantic) and they started to get regular gigs where they increased their price. They've had a big influence on me musically and culturally. I look forward to reading more.

When I'm done reading these books I'll probably write a final little excerpt about it. This is a great step forward in my jazz history.

It don't a thing if it ain't got that swing.

Experimenting with jazz standards

So when I was in Chicago I took a music lesson from my dad's composer friend Frank Abbinanti, a really great pianist, composer, musician working in the avant-garde classical (we call it new music) scene. He's worked a lot with this really great clarinet player named Guillermo Gregorio, and they've both played a lot in Europe. Anyways, since he taught me some stuff I've been thinking about music in a different way and I'd like to jot down some of these new ideas mainly for fun and so I don't forget them.

So one of the things that's new when I look at standards when I play the chords is that if there's too many changes in one measure I'll default to just using one chord for that measure. Instead of just playing a root position voicngs I'll also play first and second inversion of that chord but with some extra melody notes on top (adding a melody that isn't there in the sheet music). This gives the music a much more original and modern sound than what I was doing before, which was more basic.

For example in the past if a measure was 4/4 with Gmin7 I would just play Gmin7 with maybe first inversion but it would always just be stock Gmin7 notes rather than adding a melody on top.

Another thing I've been doing is playing triads when comping through a standard. For example if it says Gmin7 for a 4/4 measure I would just play Gmin and first and second inversions in a jazz rhythm more akin to piano. This simplifies things and makes it a lot easier to focus on the changes of the song. However, this is also really limiting because there's no melodies or voice leading happening on the top, just bass notes and important notes of the chord. Its a simple way of thinking about jazz guitar comping. Good for practice.

Yet another thing I've been working on is bebop phrasing and improvising through changes. I've realized that as long as I always hit the important notes of the chord and you always come back to it you can go as far out as you want-to a point. For example if its 4/4 and measure 1 is Cmaj7 and measure 2 is G7 I can start on a c note and play lots of chromatic legato stuff and as long as I hit a g when measure 2 comes around it will always sound "right". For this example my old method was always to play something like Cmaj scale through Cmaj7 and then when measure 2 comes around I would play G7 dorian or something like that. Pretty basic and standard way of thinking about it. However, now I've realized that as long as I hit one or two important tones in the chords, even if they're just passing tones, I can fake my way through it and it will still sound right. I can't just play anything but there's a lot of open possibilities to the way I'm thinking about it now which is still based on the harmony given but I can go out and then come back much more easily. Before I was a lot more buttoned down when it came to soloing through changes.

Lastly, I'm also working on improving my tone, particularly jazz guitar tone. Typically this would mean more of a Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall kind of modern jazz guitar sound but I play on solid body guitars (not a hollow or semi-hollow body guitar) its harder to achieve this. But I try to make do by turning my bass sound higher, medium treble, and medium mids. I also roll down the tone knob on my 7-string Jackson to produce a more round richer and dark tone. I also use a chorus pedal too that gives me quite a bit of sustain without a distorted effect. It sounds nice but I think I can get a closer traditional jazz sound if I just played a semi or hollow-body guitar. They ain't cheap though so I'll have to make do with what I  have. You don't have to play on a hollow-body to play jazz. After all I'm playing on a 7-string Jackson most of the time but I can get a really traditional jazz sound out of my Hagstrom Les Paul because of the Jazz/Blues pickup in the neck on that thing. Now that one can get really close to say Jim Hall.

These are all things I'm thinking about. Good to share with other musicians. 

Band Practice Going Good

So I had a rehearsal last night with my band that I haven't played with for the last two weeks because I was in Chicago. It turned out really well. It actually turned out to be our best rehearsal we've ever had. I'm starting to understand the capabilities of the guys in the band.

Me and Martin, the drummer usually play together every week at local bar's jam night so we're constantly improving and evolving our rhythmic dynamics. At first we were having a super hard time locking in with each other but now I'm listening a lot more and using his timing as an anchor. Sometimes he still makes mistakes, especially after trying a technical fill but I know how to anchor the chords down to speed up or slow down accordingly perfectly now and even making it sound musical in the process. Sure he needs work but right now keeping time and locking in with the chords is the most important thing. I gave him some advice last night after practice. I told him he should practice all the rudiments and learn to read drum music. If he does this his "rolls" as he calls them (I call them fills) will start to sound much better and he'll always get back to the music in time as opposed to falling behind the beat and stuff. Important stuff to know. I hope he takes the advice to heart and starts shedding more. As of right now me and him are probably the most important pieces to the band. We now know five songs together that we can play pretty well and because our timing is locking in so well it sounds really good. Rock and roll, metal, with hints of jazz in my harmonies.

Our friend Dmitri actually started off playing bass for the first couple rehearsals. The first rehearsal he played guitar but it was so out of tune (both him and myself, we've since resorted to using the famous Snark tuner) that it was mostly a progressive art rock kind of improvisation. Our timing was so off but the improv was unique. After that first initial jam he started bringing his bass along to our practices and we thought he was going to play bass. The problem is that he isn't a disciplined bass player meaning he lacks the focus to play the same things twice for the song. We aren't playing jazz so its important for the bass to stick to the same harmonies all the time. So before practice I texted him to leave the bass and bring his guitar just to see how it sounds. It ended up sounding really great and its the way we're going to move forward as a band. We'll play without bass. The timing with my guitar and the drums is so good I feel like we don't need bass. Plus the extra harmonies and doubling of the guitar gives the music a stronger and more melodic sound, even if its just Sunshine of Your Love. The way I see Dmitri's purpose in the band is that he's adding colour around what me and Martin are playing. As long as me and Martin sound good anything Dmitri plays sounds good. He's not the best musician either but his guitar playing is much better than his bass playing. Bass takes a lot of timing and not all guitarists can do it very well. However, his guitar playing is quite evolved compared to his bass playing. I noticed he understands harmonies and hears the sounds I'm going for although he's usually always using more of a distorted guitar tone. At first we were practicing with him doing vocals and I would do some too but now I've come to the realization that it sounds better if we go on with myself on vocals. It's just a more rounder voice and tone, even if its rock and metal. More musical. 

And of course I see my role in the band as a songwriter, time keeper, singer, and soloist. If I keep all these things in check it will sound good. I'm really happy that the band is evolving and becoming better. If we really need bass I could always record bass and we could play with a bass track live or something. That actually sounds like a great idea because right now I really love the idea of a three piece with two guitars and drums. I stole the idea from Animals As Leaders but of course because our music isn't as technical or complex we can really steer the music in various directions without getting lost too easily. It's nice.

Pretty soon we'll be ready to gig. Sounds exciting.
Picture is Animals as Leaders, really inspiring band