Took a break from live music because of holidays and my trip back home (other than jamming with friends) but resumed last month as soon as I was back. The SFJAZZ center, the first one dedicated to jazz in US, opened last month. Too bad I have yet to visit it or attended any concert from the opening week and after :( On that 1/25 and 1/26 weekend, there were actually several appealing concerts, including the ones at SFJAZZ, the International guitar night (featuring the great guitarist and educator Martin Taylor) but I had to pick the one by Joe Lovano US Five. Saxophonist Joe Lovano is THE most prominent jazz musician today IMO. His new releases of recent years have all been exciting: with new compositions and young players, including the charming bassist (who also sings vocal with her own group but not US Five) Esperanza Spalding and an unusual duo of drummers. Check out these video:
Why two drummers? I brought it up with my drummer buddy and he wasn't impressed but a NPR blog post has a deep discussion on this very topic.
I consider Testament my favorite band (ranked about the same as Pink Floyd and the Beatles) and I've been to many of their concerts since 1991, about every other year except during the time that their vocalist Chuck Billy had health issue and the band was inactive. I felt guilty when I was on the fence knowing they would play in SF, the opening night of their tour promoting 2012's hugely successful album "Dark Roots of the Earth." (Man, I'm becoming an old man, or my "old man :P" not wanting to pay extra fee, to LiveNation and long/late/costly drive/parking......) I checked LiveNation the night before and tickets were still available so I took a gamble and decided to buy ticket at the door and fortunately I was able to (also found free street parking) Kinda felt bad 'coz Testament should have sold out the show in their home town. I was able to get in early enough to hear the first opener, a local band called the Butlers. Their style is more hard rock/glam than thrash. They played some covers but was quite enjoyable overall. And they've got some friends from local metal bands played as guest on stage with them. The metal brotherhood rocks man! The 2nd opener was Australian band 4ARM. While the vocal is metalcore-ish, I definitely hear thrash metal roots in their guitar playing. Their lead guitarist Johnny Glovasa could shred! And his Ibanez XPT sounded and looked totally awesome. Next was long time thrash metaller Overkill. I don't know why but this band deserved to be much bigger than what they already are after thrashing hard for 20+ years. Their lead vocalist Bobby Blitz has one of the most devilish voice in my opinion. And D.D. Verni was THE bassist I wanted to sound like if I play thrash. Listen to his bass on "Nothing to Die For" on the album "The Years of Decay" and you'll know why. This album ranked high on my list of great metal albums. I screamed the loudest when they played "Elimination" from that album (yeah, that's where I learn the word from in late 80s) Finally, Testament came on stage. I kinda worried about their guitarist Alex Skolnick 'coz he posted pictures of the cold med he had to take before the show. Well, when the spotlight is on, he played (and sang backing vocal) like his usual great self. Since it's for promoting the new album, they played a lot from it, which were all great songs on par with their classic albums. What a show! I was glad that I didn't miss it.
For a fan of jazz and Chinese music like me, Ultra World-Xtet's music combined the best of both worlds! I decided I had to go to their concert after watching Gary Schwantes' solo on YouTube.
He is the band leader (saxophonist and dizi player) I've never seen a Westerner playing dizi, the Chinese flute, which was also the first instrument I seriously trying to learn. The rest of the group played drums, bass, guzheng and yangqin, respectively. Some might imagine the awkwardness of fitting the sound of Chinese instrument to jazz music but there was none. It sounded very natural, like they are supposed to be played together. I found both guzheng and yangqin players to be masters in playing Chinese music on their instrument but at the same time adopted quite a bit of improvisation skills from jazz. The encore was the Chinese-new-year-of-Snake-appropriate "Golden Snake Dance." (Yeah, everyone who played Chinese music have learned it)
In addition to practicing licks, arpeggios are also part of my daily routine. I understand their importance. The million dollar question in my mind has been: how am I supposed to apply them during improvisation? I've recently come across two helpful resources:
- 25 Major ii-V-I licks for Jazz Guitar: an e-book written by Joseph Alexander. Even though all are 3-4 bar licks, the author made it quite clear how the notes came from arpeggios.
