Black Sabbath Tour 2013

I've been to concerts of most legendary hard rock/heavy metal bands, including Metallica and Van Halen. However, I have never been to a Black Sabbath concert, arguably the first ever heavy metal band. I first listened to them ~1989 via a "Best of" cassette. Ozzy had left the band long time ago and had huge success as a solo artist at that point. I missed their reunion ~1998. I decided I mustn't miss this latest reunion again 'coz you'll never know if there'll be another. Ozzy is 64 already and Tony Iommi has just gone through cancer treatment. I bought the $40 lawn ticket at Shoreline Amphitheater. To be honest, I have never been a big fan of that place. The only concert I remember watching there was the one by Depeche Mode. You basically either sit on the lawn or stand up. Not to mention the horrible traffic in and out of the pricey parking lot. Fortunately I was close enough to bike there. Still, the lawn area was way too far to see Ozzy, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler. Shoreline clearly understood this shortcoming and tried to remedy by aiming camera at them and project the live feed behind the band on stage (and also on big screens at the lawn) which is better than nothing. Back to  the music: the set list included every Black Sabbath classic I wanted to hear: War Pig, Iron Man, Paranoid, N.I.B.... etc. Plus a few songs from their latest album, 13 (their 13th studio album), which was a present surprise. Ozzy's vocal was a bit shaky. For example, he didn't seem to be able to find the key on 'Children of the Grave.' It's quite possible that dumping water (on his heads and the audiences) like he always does messed up his monitor though. Check out this discussion by previous concert goers (which was a response to a poor newspaper review of the first concert of the tour)

Still, I was so glad that I went. They are the one and only Black Sabbath.

Julian Lage and Larry Koonse

This concert is yet another followup to one I wrote about in the uncommon instrumentation post. These two guitarists are half of the Seasons Guitar Quartet and this performance was part of the Stanford Jazz festival. The concert was divided into two halves: the first half featured just the two guitarists with one carrying the melody while the other playing accompaniment. From my seat I could only see Larry Koonse's hands and it's fun to watch him switching between playing lines with counterpoint and chords in the accompaniment but I gotta admit two-guitar-jazz is not for everyone. I mean, there were moments I wish there were a complete rhythm section (bass + drums) and that's exactly the format of the 2nd half :-) Lage and Koonse took turn playing with the all-star rhythm section of Larry Grenadier and Eric Harland. And one could clearly hear the difference in their styles: Koonse is more in the tradition of bop/hard-bop while Lage's playing showed more modernism. Both are equally enjoying to me. Last but not least, legendary drummer Louis Hayes (who played with heavyweights like John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor) came on stage and jammed with both guitarists on the tune "Blue Monk." What an inspirational performance! It will be the tune I learn next.

我的結他雜記: 5 Must Know Major ii-V-I Outlines for Guitar

不得不承認以前一直忽視了教jazz licks的文章，以為要學怎樣作就無須記人家的；當然，近年已完全改觀：好lick要多學，好文要多讀，例如這篇教5個短(指二個小節長)major ii-V-I licks的就寫得十分好，Matt Warnock解釋了結構及組成的音的功能。仔細聽，這些都是爵士樂手常用的樂句，Robert Conti的教材也有提到一些。

Oon

I wrote about a few concerts that featured uncommon instrumentations 2 months ago. Well, the story didn't end there: I was free last Sat and it's one of those rare weekends in the bay area where you don't see the biggest name playing in town except for John Pizzarelli and his wife at the Yoshi's. However, a pair of names caught my attention immediately: Ariane Cap and Paul Hansen, a.k.a. Oon, the bass and bassoon duo that performed at Solo Bass Night 5. They played at a music studio (the type that offer music lessons on various instruments) in Benecia, which is way north of where I usually hang out but the one hour drive was totally worthwhile. Both instruments were not known for their ability to carry the melody on their own for extended period of time so it's quite an unusual experience to hear only the two of them accompanying each other the whole 1.5 hr. The low to mid-high range of bassoon actually sounded very melodic. And the use of two hand tapping on the bass provided more than just interesting bass line but also full and rich sounding accompaniment. Another thing I enjoyed was original compositions. Of course they picked interesting songs to cover, e.g. Dear Prudence (Beatles), Stella by Starlight (Jazz standards), Ginger Bread Boy (Miles Davis) to name a few. One interesting story heard from the show: the organizer has a kid who studied at the music studio (I guess they are all Benecia local) The teacher strongly recommended her kid to listen to CDs by Bela Fleck and the Fleckstones, a group led by banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck that played some innovative jazz. It turns out Paul Hansen was a member of the Fleckstones on two of their albums. So, the kid finally saw a Fleckstone playing live at his teacher's studio!