Live Jazz Muzak! 12/7/22!

Here's a live jazz performance of some standards and improvised musique. I didn't have time to setup a livestream this time around, so I recorded with the Soundcorset app on my phone. Hope you enjoy the muzak! 

Blues Raga alto sax/guitar https://soundcorset.com/r/Yf56fo24i8?fbclid=IwAR1rEqsrjO3-zZYFNJWb_5R-4hCgirViM6IM2ZftQdceg-X1C3XtRiD8jFA

Winter Leaves alto sax/guitar https://soundcorset.com/r/gTuo88m1Yr?fbclid=IwAR14yGV_ZiIlEXgiPyYvt2Pra1ynzOLKHl3cYute3UwusV6ew24DMYnlJcY

All the things you aren't https://soundcorset.com/r/vFsNwdJNYO?fbclid=IwAR0r5osRRRDG01qjUO_HQVw9Yyj165dar18AkyS-N6qtU7DT7UfR5pYiYoQ

Spanish Blues alto sax/guitar https://soundcorset.com/r/AQ8KA-ceeI?fbclid=IwAR3Bc6knRp-sj6pdEU7YHGgb3q5XuZ5ikDgWh7_Na5xSD-HvWjwA_z5NFGc

Featuring Jason Tomas on alto saxophone and Orlando Figueroa on guitar, recorded in California 2022, on Android phone via Soundcorset app 

image ai generated 

Speculation Band Rock and Roll Jam

Hello rock and rollers, 

Check out this list of recordings I made on my android phone. The quality isn't the best but its true to the rock and roll spirit. I met a guy at the checkout line at work that wanted to jam with me and this is what we got out of it. I played guitar a bit and played drums a bit, apparently, I'm a drummer too now, and even occasional piano. I do it all, I can even sing while playing drums, super hard sometimes. 

The guitar bits with me on guitar are with Jim's Signature Eddie Van Halen guitar, which he says he got personally from Eddie himself. Well, him telling me that did make me play much better. Check out it. 

https://soundcorset.com/r/lIwPlA-HNs?fbclid=IwAR0MSTg4xQw-1o7RsW6Y2USTP-5mTBjuCOYNT4VJPtFyEAWRk-G-tzj03ag [Speculation band Orlando guitar and Mike on drums/spoken word, played with the signature EVH guitar]

https://soundcorset.com/r/xYrrAAMYzj?fbclid=IwAR2GV6OeZg9rdt3nQK2SqXzCmlykbxhz8u2hS11Lk6UfxnYu214wSsd3U8w [Speculation band Johnny B Goode Orlando drums Mike guitar/vocals]

https://soundcorset.com/r/Qz7I2VzWUL?fbclid=IwAR2-n7VOVIaCcyFZ07NmeFT6BFCMb_3avnsRmx-MekDSNOTtB6hj2GrjNbE [Speculation band metal Orlando guitar, Mike drums, with the EVH signature guitar]

https://soundcorset.com/r/9h-WEVEeqY?fbclid=IwAR16sa_MTa_bTMNB1QB4OHp_xNf_IdH4gM1G9pJ2HSx5p2I4JP-ewoQC4_g [Speculation band Mike guitar/vocals, Orlando drums]

https://soundcorset.com/r/AvXQoK6pCp?fbclid=IwAR2PtgQbUL340Bgs-VYF7Y7_yuAQqYSElWqpg2GZza82xaLT0cXOnzoBL_k [Orlando drum solo]

Keep on rocking in the free world! 

Live Jazz Performance! 12/2/21!

Happy Friday ladies and gentlemen, 

Check out our live performance from yesterday https://www.facebook.com/orlando.figueroa.3150/videos/607302963652309

We didn't play during Thanksgiving week and here we are back at it again. Things to note on this particular performance, I was more feeling/thinking more in the realms of rhythm, trying to think of the guitar as more of a drum, rather than a guitar sometimes when I'm strumming chords. My solos still go off into Mars here a lot, but my main focus was keeping that steady pulse. 

Thanksgiving week was tiring at work but I managed to get a lot of sleep that week and even today. Life is good! Happy holidays to you and yours. 

God Bless

Your Most Humble Guitar Player, 

O. Figueroa 

Live performance 6/30/21

 Had a good jam session today with my friend. Check the video here.

Thank you very much for listening. Please share, listen, critque, feel free to comment, like, and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Check out some of my other videos on there as well. 

guten Abend

Live performance 2/10

Live performance recorded today, 2/10/21. Featuring on alto saxophone Jason Thomas and myself, Orlando Figueroa on electric guitar. We perform some standards, blues, and improv.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_W3HRc0CI&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=MegaFigueroa007

Equinox, September

I had a pretty good jam session today with my friend, who plays the alto saxophone. Check out this track here, its a cover of Coltrane's Equinox. It's a minor blues with a swing feel. The autumnal equinox is among us and right around the time of my birthday. Enjoy, and thank you for listening. 

Recorded 9/16/2020

Orlando Figueroa, Guitar

Jason Thomas, alto saxophone

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/equinox-quarantine916

Weekend Update

Greetings everyone! Thought I'd do a weekend update, unfortunately not SNL style, but rather a vlog style summary of what's been going on in my life. Alright, alright. 

I've been working a lot at the retail gig. Forty hours or more every week. This upcoming Halloween week I only have one day off. That's kind of a bummer. But if I learned anything from the first episode of Futurama, "you gotta do what you gotta do." I've found that at a job such as mine you really have to stay positive and keep a good attitude. This is where all my improvements in thinking [from literature] come to the rescue. 

I've stopped drinking soda and energy drinks at work. Now I'm not nearly as tired when I get off work at one am, nor am I as tired during the beginning or middle of my shifts. Overall, I feel a lot healthier and better. I've lost a few pounds already only after a couple days. My body feels like it's going through some sort of detox from all the sugar I've been ingesting all these years. I have withdrawals and crave the sugary rush but when I actually have a little bit of soda I find that I'm not satisfied by it anymore. Ain't that a bitch? That sudden realization that I was drinking too many calories and in fact not overeating all the time that contributed to my weight. That hit me like a lightning bolt.  

I'll probably have to cancel my weekly jazz jam session, unfortunately. I haven't had as much time for music as a result. I haven't even been listening to as much music either. Oh well, things happen. I haven't done the open mic sessions for two months now. Sometimes I think about giving it up for good. I've done it for about two years straight and I would say that it's run its course. Thankfully, I got a lot of great recordings out of it that you can hear on my Soundcloud. 

In terms of reading and improving the mind, that's been my number one goal. Today, I'm going to go through some Jack Reacher short stories before work. Within the last couple weeks, I've read Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus by Wittgenstein, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, and now I'm halfway through The Outsider by Colin Wilson. I've been reading a lot in my living room on the couch, but I also read a lot at Starbucks, where although it's noisy [damn indie rock music], it gives me an opportunity to get out of the house. I really love the coffee there as well. 

I've been thinking a lot about writing [thinking about writing a second novel, I finished my first one a while ago] but haven't had the time to really do much writing on my usual subjects: literary criticism/synopsis, my main and favorite subject the last couple of years. I'm sure I'll get back to it, in due time. I really want to write a review for Colin Greenland's space opera from 1990, Take Back Plenty. Now that is a true science fiction gem. However, as you can see from the recent posts I've been writing, just not about books. Not a lot but I'm keeping a flow, a gestalt if you will. Lately, I've been writing posts like these, going into my thoughts, my meager life [lol]. This goes with all the books I've been reading, as they've influenced me in my life heavily, more so than my friends and colleagues. So when you see me writing about the dialectics of the modern proletariat [a recent post] that is definitely an influence from philosophy and extended readings. 

Lastly, I want to say that reading doesn't just help with my writing but also with my social interactions. I always experience status inconsistency wherever I go but I've also learned that when you get to the heart of the matter and really use all your social skills to max capacity, you will end up having more friends than enemies. 

Have an excellent end of October weekend. Happy Halloween! Free candy for everyone! 

Jazz Trio Recordings

Well, how-day! How's life been treating you all? I've been playing a lot of music lately. Here are a couple of jazz trio recordings from last week. I managed to find a bass player to join us but it turned out to be short lived, a one time jam session. Still looking for a bass player. They are very hard to find! However, I dig manage to get some good recordings out of it. Here it is. 

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/freddie-freeloader-jazz-trio-1 
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/blues-in-f-jazz-trio 
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/footprints-jazz-trio 
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/blue-bossa-jazz-trio 
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/all-blues-jazz-trio-1 

Purple Haze [Live]

Here's a live rendition of Purple Haze, played and sung by yours truly. With the Petie's Place open mic house band. Petie's Place is a bar in Tarzana, CA that hosts open mic sessions every Wednesday night. This is the first time I've ever done Purple Haze live. Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/purple-haze

Orlando Figueroa-guitar, vocals
Art-bass
Jim X-drums 
?-keyboard

Jazz duo recordings [4/1]

Back again with more jazz duo recordings. I have two recordings that turned out sounding good. One thing to note is that on both of these cuts, my demenor was a somber one. The day before didn't go so well for me, and it shows in my playing. I think the attitude and/or spirit of the jazz musician isn't discussed as much as the music. It plays a big role.

As a result we ended up sounding not unlike something off the ECM, European jazz label. You hear these lush guitar arpeggios, and Jason [alto sax] is improvising over the top of it. I didn't really get into my typical straight ahead jazz guitar comping style. Instead I was rather subdued, and played back. 

Enjoy the tracks. 

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/going-home 
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/tune-up 

Jazz Duo Recordings [3/25]

These are some recordings from Monday. We're starting to work through tunes and figure out which songs we're gonna to build into a reportoire. 

We did Blue Bossa, in a straight ahead style. 
These Foolish Things, a second ballad I think that was needed. 
Body and Soul, a first ballad that everyone knows. 
An improvisation as well. We're going to keep doing improv but we're not making it our main thing. We're playing standards. This is a straight ahead project. 

We have a trumpet player but he couldn't make that session. More recordings to come in the future. Watch this space. 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/blue-bossa-1 
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/these-foolish-things 
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/body-and-soul 
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spring-beginnings 

Jam tracks

Here's the tracks from last week.
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/soothsayer-buckethead
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/sunshine-of-your-love-most-recent-version
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/bad-horsie-improv

This was the last jam with my friend Martin on drums before he went off to Mexico. The first track isn't Soothsayer but actually an original tune that me and Martin play for our death metal band, called Wolves to the Slaughter. I think my vocals were a lot clearer and louder for Sunshine. And Bad Horsie is Bad Horsie lol.

Working on recording the band soon, we have a bass player now! More updates and blog posts coming soon. 

Last Week's Jam Tracks IV

Here's the tracks from last week's jam tracks from the local pub. 

The first track we played was Sunshine of Your Love (a staple of ours-me and martin my drummer friend), but this time it was performed with Jim, the house drummer at the open jam and an unknown bassist to me. The bass player is very good, as is Jim, which makes the guitar playing and singing very easy to do. I'm pretty proud of the solo I did here on Sunshine, a mix of straight up blues rock Hendrix-esque licks with a bit of shred. I like how when we ended the song I played the riff to Day Tripper retardando haha. That cowbell though! 

The next tune we played was Steve Vai's Bad Horsie. I still haven't gotten the hang of playing this so off the cuff and never practicing it with the musicians I play it with but I tried it again. Here it sounded pretty good with Jim's drumming and Bassist X's bass sound. I went for a super fast shred solo here. I really dig that melody and that metal riff. Steve Vai is a pretty big influence.

This week my drummer friend Martin couldn't make it so I played with the ace drummer Jim and this mysterious Bassist X dude with long hair and glasses, it turned out pretty well. My guitar sounded really great here, it sounds really in tune!  

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/sunshine-of-your-love-cool-bass-and-drums
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/bad-horsie

Friday 9/22 open jam recordings

So these are from the 9/22 jam session last week. I thought everything went fairly well sound-wise and guitar-playing wise. Some tracks here are actually from a few weeks earlier.. I really like the Too Rock and Roll for You tune, that woman had a good voice for that kinda thing. Check it out, enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/blues-jam-supreme
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/sunshine-of-your-love-2
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/cannon-too-rock-roll-for-you
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/move-over
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/smoke-on-the-water-2

Open jam recording, fusion set

So I've been going to the open jams and I got some more recordings. These turned out quite nicely. I ended up playing with a young drummer, a blues bass player, and the percussionist that shows up every week. I called out two chord vamps for both of the jams and it ended up being kind of a heavy jazz fusion sort of set. I thought my guitar tone was trying to do too much at times but it ended up sounding really progressive and fusion-y. I really liked that I was the only guitarist on the set, it hasn't been that way since like when I first started going. Great stuff. You can hear both of the tracks here. 

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/two-chord-vamp-amin7-d7 

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/two-chord-vamp-fmaj7-cmin7

Enjoy! 

New Soundcloud Live Tracks

So I went to a jam a few weeks ago and this is the results. You can listen to all the new tracks here.

Hey Joe (version 2)
Dark chord jam
Shuffle Truffle jam 
Voodoo Ritual (jazz version)

The whole purpose of this jam session was that I was trying to provide support with rhythm, mainly the chord progressions. I hardly ever took even a hint of solo. I was straight comping the whole night. I like to think it sounds pretty well. This older black dude played the more distorted electric guitar, I'm on my Hagstrom Les Paul on clean setting the whole time, using the Jazz/Blues Seymour Duncan Jazz Pickup. Enjoy!