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

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 

Mass Live at the studio

Greetings everyone, here's a short live set we did at the studio and recorded on a super old video recorder device. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6yxqnEIsCI

Mass is a duo musical collaboration comprised of myself and my friend Martin Arevalo, who plays drums. 

We go through Electric Funeral by Sabbath and Sunshine of Your Love by Cream. We also play one of my tunes called Spirits of the Dead, a black metal song complete with screams done by yours truly.

We're calling the group Mass, as in we the people, the masses. I also see it as a reference to mass, as in Catholic Church, like Electric Church Music, something I heard someone say about Hendrix's music. 

Enjoy the music!

Poachers Live With Percussion

Hello everybody! Just wanted to share this new track from last week's open mic at Petie's Place. 

https://youtu.be/D-rHftwnEW8 

This is Poachers live, a piece written for me by new music composer Frank Abbinanti. It's quite avant-garde, it has its moments of melody and makes use of what I'd call "noise chords", real noisy chords. 

We played this piece last week and at the time it was quite nerve-wracking because I'd never played the piece live in front of anyone other than just by dad when I was practicing it. However, the nervousness comes out in a good way. I hit a few bum notes in the beginning but nothing that sets the piece off balance. 

Jim's drumming was quite remarkable. His fills, while keeping time in between is quite good. He played it like a real jazz drummer. My favorite band I've seen him perform with is a jazz-rock fusion guitar trio. He's the best musician I get to play with at these open mics, and its great making music with the guy. 

I do think the piece would've been cooler if that guy didn't yell "Yeah!" at the end but even some of the best classical performances are cluttered with coughing. 

Anyways, enjoy the tune!

Personel
Orlando Figueroa Guitar
Jim X Drums
Frank Abbinanti Composer