Jazz Guitar Trio Improv

This was some jazz guitar trio improv with my friends from earlier tonight. Everything we played was straight ahead jazz except this one piece, this one stood out. It has some more classical and rock influences on my guitar parts. 

https://soundcorset.com/r/YlFIOSV3nZ?fbclid=IwAR2wQfW53rEVL4hwi1DXkCfAdsKyX_MByS1G8fJUTfsyuGouxgUC4aZ9EVg

Featuring Orlando Figueroa on guitar, Jason Tomas on alto saxophone, and Feather Robley on drums.

Live Jazz Performance! 2/24/22!

https://www.facebook.com/orlando.figueroa.3150/videos/503683607883879

Orlando Figueroa, Guitar

Jason Tomas, Alto Saxophone

Recorded on a brand new Fender Squier with better tuners on them, given to me for free from a customer at work, going through my Marshall avt 275 on the clean channel setting. This was recorded yesterday, 2/25/22. Enjoy, thanks for listening. 

Live Jazz Performance! 2/17/22! Livestream!

https://www.facebook.com/orlando.figueroa.3150/videos/1141118989992125

This performance was done with a Fender Squire guitar that a customer from work gave me. Cheers, here's to a happy, healthy 2022! 

Live Performance 12/9/21!

https://www.facebook.com/100004840297787/videos/575826930149393

Good evening ladies and gents, 

Please take a listen and watch to our latest live performance recorded today, 12/9/2021, posted above. I did one thing that was noticeably different from our usual performances, a lot of times after playing with the pick I would lose the pick and just go pick and fingers for a more pianistic approach and softer sounds with the rhythms. This allowed Jason to stretch out more than usual, sounding almost like Eric Dolphy in a few of his solos. 

Thanks for listening

Happy holidays 

Live Music Performance 11/18/21!

 https://www.facebook.com/orlando.figueroa.3150/videos/884509442267455

Good evening, here's another live music from myself, Orlando Figueroa on guitar, and Jason Tomas on alto saxophone. 

I used my birthday guitar from my mother for this particular performance. I've used it before for our sessions, but this second time the tone was dialed in just right. There was a better bass sound, and I was able to get a lot of tonal range on certain chords in good moments using the tone selector switch. The guitar itself is a $160 guitar, as cheap as it gets, its a Rogue Rocketeer, something out of like a Sears catalogue in the 80s, but man, this guitar is actually good. Check out the tone. I use a basic Marshall avt275 amp on a clean setting, no pedals. 

For this particular performance I was focusing on my rhythm chords and really going all out on the solos in terms of off the cuff phrasing, [as I think I was trying to do lol]. Anyways, there was some great moments here, in between a lot of comping. 

Gracias por escuchar 

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 Jazz Performance May 10, 2021!

Here's a livestream performance from this afternoon, featuring Jason Thomas on alto saxophone and Orlando Figueroa, yours truly on electric guitar and effects. It's mostly improv but we also added Miles Davis' Freddie Freeloader into the mix. Thanks for listening! Don't forget to like and subscribe to my YouTube Channel. Stay safe! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUi49tbbhRM&ab_channel=MegaFigueroa007

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

Live Performance 2/3

Live performance on Wednesday, February 3, 2021, featuring Jason Thomas on alto saxophone and Orlando Figueroa on guitar. We played some jazz standards and did some improv. Sound is okay, not great, but the performance was a good one. It's a blessing to be able to livestream, record, and play music during a worldwide pandemic. Thank you for listening and stay safe. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_DERvGXm4o

second keyboard performance

Hello,

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1710314755806518&id=100004840297787&anchor_composer=false

Here is my second keyboard performance with Jason Thomas on alto saxophone. Better performance and better sound quality on the livestream. Thanks, enjoy.

Hasta luego

Keyboard performance

 Hello, 

Today, for the first time ever, I livestreamed and performed on the keyboard in a jam session with my friend, alto saxophone player Jason Thomas. Orlando Figueroa on keyboard and noise. We played a minor blues, Blue Monk, Autumn Leaves, and improvised after the tunes. 

Enjoy, thanks for listening. Don't forget to like and subscribe to my YouTube Channel. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LWcw8ouc3o

Blues Notes #1

Hello, 

I did another livestream today. We're going to make it a weekly performance. We'll continue to do standards and improv. Enjoy the music. Don't forget to like and subscribe to my YouTube channel. 

Thanks, enjoy 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ikzDWiTXHc 

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 

Guitar/Harmonica Jazz Quintet Performance

Greetings everyone! I'd like to share some tracks from last week's open mic I played at Petie's Place. I'm a regular performer there as I've played there over 40 times, over almost two years now. This was an unusual performance in the sense that I basically did a jazz set [other than Hey Joe-Hendrix] with a harmonica player. He asked to sit in with us and it turned out to be a great idea. The sound of the harmonica is like a human voice, very soulful, very human. I think my solos are becoming more melodic and thematic in a way. I'm getting a lot more confident about playing jazz. It's a rock and roll bar but its also cool being the one guy who can jazz up the joint, feel me? I wish I gave more solo room for the harmonica player, he sounded great. When he took solos I stopped playing and layed out like a true jazz performance :D
Enjoy the music.

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/footprints-live-at-peties
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/mr-pc-live-at-peties
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/hey-joe-live-at-peties

Jim-Drums
Art-Bass
Dave-Harmonica
Orlando-Guitar
Ken-Tambourine, Shaker

Classical Music at DePaul

I've been in Chicago the last couple days and I've been checking out as much music as I can. Last night on the 25th I attended a free classical music concert at DePaul University, a Catholic institution in Lincoln Park. Amazingly it was free and all I had to do was rsvp online and pick up my "ticket" at their box office. Not bad! 

The actual performance was quite elegant. Here's the setlist:

Mozart 

String Quartet No. 19 in C Major, K. 465 (1785) 

Beethoven 

Piano Trio in C Minor, Op. 1, No. 3 (1795)

Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 70, No. 1 "Ghost" (1809)

String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18, No. 4 (1801)

Debussy 

String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10 (1893)

Jean Cras (1879-1932)

Trio for Violin, Viola, and Cello (1926)

Schubert 

String Quintet in C Major, Op. 163, D. 956 (1828) 

As you can see it was quite a standard string quartet 'showcase I' as they called it on their program. The Mozart piece opened things up nicely with that characteristic 'classical' sound. The Beethoven pieces were the main showpieces. The Debussy piece was unusual, mainly because I think its the only string quartet piece that he wrote. 

I've never heard of Jean Cras, and when I asked my music mentor, a new music composer named Frank Abbinanti (find his work on YouTube), he said he had never heard of the guy either. However, his composition was quite good. There was definitely a middle eastern sound here. It was refreshing because it was the only modern piece, written in 1926. 

The Beethoven piano pieces were grand. The most virtuosity and musicianship was displayed when the pianists got onstage and woo'd the crowd with their dazzling gymnastic pyrotechnics. I tend to think that most pianists are virtuosos, due to the fact that its a solo instrument. Most guitarists aren't virutosos because its mostly an instrument of accompaniment. Anyways, these piano trio tunes were the real highlight for me. 

The other high light for me was watching the cellists bow and play emotive low notes. Cello is quite an expressive instrument and I've been interested in playing it, but I've been unable to because the instrument is too damn expensive. Maybe one day when I get a better job. Cello would be a great instrument for me to get into, and become a new music musician, one of my goals as a musician; to move from rock and jazz into the new music, modern music scene. 

Lastly, they ended the program with Schubert, classic quartet stuff. I've actually heard a lot of Franz Schubert's quartet music, thanks to YouTube, my main source for music of all kinds. It was a good note to end it on. 

Chicago is known as a blues town but I spent my first night here going to a classical concert. Its good to know that Universities put on free shows for the public, not just for those affiliated with Uni. In the words of Ice Cube, "Yeah today was a good day." 

New Jam tracks (9/5/18)

So I happened to be off work last week so my drummer and I went out and played an open jam, our only real performance space other than practicing at the studio with occasional friends spectating, sometimes even performing too. 

We start the jam off with an instrumental tune, Buckethead's Soothsayer. Then we play Electric Funeral by Black Sabbath, and end the mini-gig with my original death metal tune called Spirits of the Dead. 

Enjoy! 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/soothsayer918
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/electric-funeral-95
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spirits-of-the-dead-95


Good news is that although my singing and death metal screams aren't "good" they are at least decent enough to pass, and I have improved a lot in my general singing and screams. Back to the shed for practice! 

Mass plays Spirits of the Dead

My band recorded an original tune of mine recently called Spirits of the Dead, a tune I wrote on Halloween morning in 2017. Features my friend Martin Arevalo on drums and myself on guitar and vocals with Dmitri on bass. Dmitri also recorded it. Rock and roll!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfdbEKI_y7g

Band Update: We're a death metal band called Wolves to the Slaughter, playing a show soon!

Hey, just wanted to do a short update on the band's status. For a short while I was just practicing and performing at the weekly open jam as a duo, two piece band with my drummer friend Martin but now we're working with a metal (screamer) vocalist, we're playing death metal with a little bit of black metal influence, mostly in the drumming. My guitar playing is more straight death metal with 80s shred guitar and progressive rock (jazzy distorted chords) bits here and there, a bit of black metal influence there as well. But I digress...

What happened with Martin's other group was that they decided their guitar player was holding them back so they kicked him out and recruited me to join. I reluctantly joined because at first I left that band (some months ago) because I didn't want to play death metal. But I changed my mind and I've been working with Alex (vocals) and Martin (drums) for a while now. So far we've only been practicing two hours a week but I think we're already ready to gig. We need a bass player but I think I've already found one, one of my friends.

We've got four songs down already that are originals, more if we count covers but we're not sure if we're going to perform covers, you see we've already got a gig lined up. We're going to be playing a backyard show at Martin's friends' house downtown LA (more information available as I find out more) on March 2nd. 

So yeah we're playing a show on March 2nd on a Friday. Unfortunately we aren't getting paid but it will be my first real official gig in California (not counting the open jams). I haven't played a gig since 2013 so this is quite a musical milestone for me and I'm quite pleased with the band, even if we ain't playing jazz (I wish I could be in a gigging jazz band). These guys couldn't play jazz anyways but they are pretty good rock and roll musicians.

It's all quite exciting and cool. Oh, and by the way the band is called Wolves to the Slaughter, I thought of the name and everybody agreed on it that it was cool. Hurrah for democracy! 

I'm using my 7-string Jackson for the band, I'll bring my Marshall amp for the gig, straight through the amp, no effects. The drummer plays a small jazz kit (even though he's a metal drummer), he likes the sound of small snares. And the singer has this whole vocal effects setup with his own personal microphone. The gig will probably go great. I'll post more information once I learn more about the gig. 

Another thing I'm gonna prioritize for the band is recording. I think we're ready for it, I could even record the bass parts if need be. 

Last week's jam

Here's some music I played last week at the open jam I go to all the time. We played Sunshine of Your Love (a staple for us, my drummer and I) and Spirits of the Dead, an original metal tune I wrote on the first day of October this year. Upon listening to Sunshine I've realized I gotta get my vocals better. The first lines of the song are tuneless but later in the song I start to sing with more authority and tone. On Spirits of the Dead I was going to sing the whole song but my lyrics fell off the music stand! Oh well. I sang it again last night and it sounded amazing. I'll post that when I get the tracks from the percussionist, there's a guy who plays tambourines and hand drums that records everything and sends it to me. Whatta guy! You can find the tracks below.

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/sunshine-of-your-love-1
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spirits-of-the-dead