Wax and Wane Until Yesterday Begins Again (Featuring J. Otis Powell‽)

Rain Comes Every Time

Incident On the Bus (Featuring J. Otis Powell‽)

318 North 1st Avenue
Minneapolis 55401
612-338-8100

• Sunday – July 29th
• 6:00 – 8:30 p.m.
• Cover: $5
• 18+ Show

Come for a light dinner and enjoy the music!

I am very excited about playing with this fantastic group of musicians joining me for two eclectic sets of jazz and funkiness:

• Leslee McKee – vocals
• Neil Hendrickson – guitar
• Kristin Sponcia – piano
• Margo Breivik – bass
• Sue Leigh – saxophones
• Chris Wiley – trombone
• Kari Coad – trumpet

…and of course, me, on the alto!

Everyone should know that a recording of Kari Musil’s compositions is now available at CD Baby. This studio recording consists of all the music performed at the April concert, and is the fruit of many hours of musical thought and careful work by Kari. Of course, as with the concert, the CD features the Nova Jazz Orchestra. Check out this groovy music.

On a break during a recent rehearsal for the show, an informal group photo of the Nova Jazz aggregation was taken. Our canine friends seemed (possibly) happier when there weren’t so many loud sounds coming from the basement.

On Monday, April 9, Kari will be a guest on Maryann Sullivan’s Corner Jazz (on KBEM 88.5 from 8pm-11pm). If you’re unable to listen to Kari on Corner Jazz during airtime, archived interviews will be available here.

Minnesota’s True Jazz Band [pdf]

For me, writing words about thoughts falls into a different category of mental maneuvers than speaking about them and sometimes this is not only easier, but necessary.  I’ve never used a forum like a blog for this purpose before and suddenly I appreciate it very much.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about other composers I admire and wondering why and how they do what they do.  I’m hoping to talk to some of them about the process of composing – not necessarily the mechanics or theory behind the notes – but rather the thoughts that get them started and move them from idea to idea.

Authors – Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickens

Poets – Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, J. Otis Powell

Jazz Composers – Duke Ellington, Jim McNeely, Maria Schneider, Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter

other composers – Beethoven!

I’ll be back daily, weekly, monthly…?  I’m not sure yet, but right now I’m off to a rehearsal with the Nova Jazz Orchestra.  We’re working on some very cool charts by Bill Simenson (Twin Cities trumpeter/composer), Mark Pappas (from Michigan via Duluth), and Michael Burton (grad student at Lawrence & son of Bill).  We just finished a huge project recording the music of Bill Mathieu from his early years with the Kenton Orchestra that was very enlightening to me as a composer.  I guess that will be my first essay – what I learned about composing from playing the music of Bill Mathieu for 6 months.

In 2002, William Grim wrote a review of the Kenton album from 1959 featuring all Mathieu arrangements.  He was 22 at the time. (CD review from All About Jazz.com)

The Mathieu arrangements we played with Nova are very similar to those on this CD, and were written at the same time as the album, but never recorded.  The music is dramatic and deliberate, but also subtle.  The characteristic we all noticed eventually was how uniquely interconnected each note was to the plot of the story.  That might sound simplistic, or obvious, but we didn’t appreciate that immediately as a band.  Some of the Mathieu charts were very slow and the voicings sometimes made us uncomfortable.  My personal revelation about half way through the project was that the voicings were changing, note to note, in almost every soli and ensemble line.  After playing each chart so many times I started to identify certain notes with other great jazz composers, especially Ellington.  One note in particular sounded to me like a spot in one of the compositions from Masterpieces By Ellington (1950) – Sophisticated Lady, I think.  I’ll have to go back and listen to that album.