San Jose Jazz Summer Fest 2017

This is an annual event I try to attend if I am in town and free 'coz I'm all for supporting local artists and performances. I paid $40 on Sunday for the "2nd tier" ticket that allowed me to go to not just the main stage but also the other indoor stages, like Cafe Stritch and Hammer Theater. (The former has become my "home" club these days. ) This was the list of musicians I saw that day:

• SJZ Summer Camper (main stage): these were our next generation (high school students?) of jazz musicians! Gotta show some support (hey, the main stage was right next to the ticket booth!)
• Dmitri Matheny (Cafe Stritch): anyone that enjoy Art Farmer's flugelhorn playing would certainly like his performance. The theme of his latest project was about 70s 80s movie and show music. To be honest, I don't really care for too much. However, he also paid tribute to the late Chris Cornell by covering Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun"
• California Guitar Trio + Montreal Guitar Trio (Hammer theater): the two trio first play by themselves starting with the latter. And they began the show with some Spanish/Flamenco music, which I have always been a big fan of. Then they played a tune influenced by Indian music. I appreciated the complexity a lot. Compared to the other group, the California Guitar Trio certainly sounded more "West Coast" (actually, Pacific ocean) since one member came from Japan. In fact, their tune that I enjoyed the most was named "Komorebi" According to them, the Japanese word means the sun ray one sees when walking though a dark forest (or something more "poetic" than that!)  Then both trio joined force to play as a sextet. Their fusion of Tango and minimalism (think Philip Glass!) was certainly very interesting. Among all shows on Sunday this is the only one I listened from start to finish! (Even bought MG3's latest CD "Danzas - Spanish Guitar")
• Jazz by 5 (main stage): This super group features the biggest name of this festival with Javon Jackson (sax), Randy Brecker (trumpet), Eddie Gomez (bass), George Cable (piano) and Jimmy Cobb (drums)  Really an all-star lineup! Too bad the main stage was not the ideal venue: it's outdoor and many people were talking so there's lots of noise. I could barely hear Gomez's fantastic bass solo through the speakers. I think that was a Miles Davis modal tune. 
• Taimane (Jade Leaf): I gotta admit I went because of the picture of an attractive lady holding a ukulele. It turned out she and her guitarist were very talented musicians. What a dynamic duo! (Think Rodrigo y Gabriella) Their Michael Jackson cover was particularly impressive.    
• Anton Schwartz Sextet (Fairmont Hotel): Schwartz is a very active local sax player (both performing and teaching) and a regular of the festival. I enjoyed their cover of Pink Floyd's Money very much. 
• Kurt Ribak Quartet (Forager): this is one of the completely-free-admission stages. This group led by bassist Ribak played very diverse music. And that place is huge and seems to feature live music regularly! The bar serves craft beers, coffee and bar food. (This place used to be South First Billiards, I wanted to play there for a long time but never did and never will!)  
• San Francisco String Trio (Fairmont Hotel): I have been to concerts of 2/3 of this trio several times before: Mimi Fox (guitar) and Mads Tolling (violin) are two musicians that I respect a lot. They have technical chops and also not afraid to experiment. This format, with Jeff Denson on bass, is a prime example. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Beatle's Sgt. Pepper, they came up with refreshing arrangements of several tunes for their trio. 

That's probably the best way to spend a weekend afternoon!

Jazz Radio and Sco

This week's "Jazz Night in America", broadcasted on KCSM Jazz 91.1 8/1 9PM PDT, features John Scofield. Well, that's a time slot I usually not listening to the radio :( Even though Radio Free America hosts archives of the station's radio program up to 2 weeks back, this is not included because it's not KCSM's original. Fortunately, I am able to find it on NPR:

Music industry in the digital age

As a big music fan and amateur musician who doesn't make a living from the music business (also a tech guy who makes a living in the tech biz) I have always been interested in how tech affected the music industry. For example, everyone must have heard that illegal download was killing the record companies. Most people know about musicians got signed by record companies or work as session musicians and made money from record sales. It seems that illegal download or even legal streaming broke this model completely: musicians earn much less from streaming or downloads. Record companies became more "conservative" and only willing to promote artists that are deemed "safe bets" Even the "frugal" (i.e, not paying musicians enough) streaming service providers were not making a profit! (Well, at least the last one was no longer true for Napster, rebranded from Rhapsody, the service I used for years and just dropped in 2016 when they became profitable!) Some in the industry think high resolution downloads might save the day. It does have a niche market of audiophiles as potential buyers. Check out this article to see if this is for you.

So, what type of music company/service looked promising and profitable in the digital age? Here is an example: Bandcamps, which allows musicians to upload their music for free. They make money by taking a cut when fans buy downloads from musicians they enjoy. I guess it's really a win-win-win situation, isn't it? Not using traditional record companies as a middleman is definitely a trend. Jazz guitar master Martin Taylor has gone this route. In fact, this "route" is century-old, the same one used by Mozart! Basically his music was funded by his patrons: who got to watch Taylor's video and listen to his tracks.

Another jazz musician has also found his way to make money as a multi-faceted performer, recording artist (running his own label) and educator. That is trumpeter Dave Douglas. Bloomberg wrote an article about him (available to professional subscriber only)

I guess if you are savvy and good at music, you could still make a good living. 

Happy International Jazz Day

Today is the International Jazz Day and I had a sort-of International Jazz month of April as I had a family vacation/cruise in Australia. I visited Cafe Stritch the night before I flew to see the Essiet Essiet Quartet featuring the fabulous Sylvia Cuenca on drums. And as the cruise (Royal Caribbean International's Radiance of the Seas - 8 day Queensland) was mainly geared towards old folks, I got to hear a lot of jazz by ways of oldies/easy-listening music. Of course there won't be any "pure"/free jazz (borrowing the terms from "La La Land") as it's opposite to the relaxing atmosphere. I am amazed by how versatile these cruiseship musicians are! Almost all of them could play some jazz standards and improvise over the changes. I could hear them relying on a few "cliche" licks but that's par for the course. (I would consider myself graduated from the Jazz High School if I play anywhere near that!) Over that week I hear almost every tunes I practices: Blue Bossa, Summertime, Autumn Leaves, Fly Me to the Moon, Satin Doll...... performed by:
- a guitar/violin duo: they handled the "easy listening department." For the first few days the guitarist strictly accompany the violinist who would take improvised solo. However, one night the violinist was MIA (I guess he went to rehearse with the Radiance of the Seas orchestra at that time for the Tango show later that night) and the guitarist played over accompaniment from his phone and I finally heard him soloing. It was very enjoyable.
- a guitar/singer duo: they sang oldies, country and standards
- a 4 man band: they could easily be a Eagles cover band but they play everything from the Rolling Stones to jazz.

After the cruise ended I stayed at Sydney for that Tuesday night and I visited Australia's most famous jazz club: 505. Even though its website mentioned it's Old School Funk Band's night, I figure I should just give it a try and the band was way more than OK! Everyone was playing with a ton of energy. The bass player surely knew secret of laying down a good funky groove. And everyone launched off from there. It was not "pure" but definitely "jazz", and high-quality one.

Gotta praise Air New Zealand for playing local jazz cats on their in-flight entertainment, including Ron Samsom's Ace Tone, The Rodger Fox Big Band Plays New Zealand's X and Phil Broadhurst Quintet's Panacea. I enjoy them a lot on my way home.

And I conclude the month of jazz with another visit to Cafe Stritch for the SJZ Camp Faculty Sextet. (This is the San Jose Jazz camp, not the Stanford Jazz Workshop camp that I attended before) The show started with a sad announcement though: local jazz bassist and SJSU professor John Shifflett has just passed away. The members of the sextet were all local musicians who were close to Professor Shifflett and we had a moment of silence before they played a set dedicated to him. I finally get a chance to see Brian Ho on piano/organ. (Saw his name listed on many local gigs before, including one at the Casino, but never get to see his performance) Trumpeter John Worley is a staple of the local jazz scene. So is guitarist Hristo Vitchev. It's a wonderful thing that we have so many world-class jazz musicians living, teaching and playing right in the (figurative) neighborhood!

Audacity and Mac OS X

I have used Audacity on PC for a long time so it's among the first batch of software I installed when I bought my Mac. I noticed a couple of functionality I used often is missing from the Mac version though. It turns out it has to do with file permission. Glad that I found the solution from this forum post.

files in the Audacity app have the xattribute "xattr com.apple.quarantine" set. This means that Gatekeeper blocks them. To fix it, open a Terminal (Applications > Utilities : Terminal.app) then type or paste:

CODE: SELECT ALL

sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Audacity/

and hit ENTER on your keyboard. Type your admin password (you won't see it on the screen) then hit ENTER again. 

我的爵士雜記：Jazz tunes to learn (revisited)

Three years ago I posted this about my first tunes played at the Stanford Jazz Workshop Guided Jam. From simply improv with the blues, we moved on to modal, major ii-V-I, minor ii-v-i and finally rhythm changes. I recommend checking out this article on Guitar Player by one of my favorite online guitar teacher Matt Warnock about 5 tunes beginner should learn (with great video examples from YouTube too!):

• Summertime: improv with A minor pentatonic (yeah, every guitar player knows) 
• Maiden Voyage: with dorian mode
• Cantaloupe Island: dorian and mixolydian
• Autumn Leaves: major ii-V-I
• Sunny: minor ii-v-i

This set (and in this order) pretty much mirrors what we did at SJW (add your choice for a rhythm change tune: Oleo or Anthropology!) 

And if you check out this list from my other fav Jamie Holroyd, you would find similar tunes:

• Summertime: same as above
• So What: dorian
• Tune Up: This is actually my go-to tune for practicing ii-V-I changes

Yes, you really should learn to play Summertime: the melody, improv and comping. Matt Warnock taught several commonly seen jazz voicing for Summertime here.

Speaking of comping and voicing, I do have a counter example. Another online teacher put up this video and was promoted by GuitarPlayer: 3 Easy Jazz Songs - For People Who Don't Play Jazz! Don't get me wrong: I really appreciated his effort in getting more people to play jazz. However, jazz players simply don't play that! First of all, his video taught the chords of the songs (without the melody) so I'd say it's a bit misleading. Second, it's one thing to know and learn to play those chords (Drop-2 and Drop-3 chords in Berklee's terminology) In a real jazz jam situation you won't play those chords like that though. When you jam with a piano and/or bass, you won't play the low notes on your guitar since it would clash with them. Guitar players should stick with those "upper voicing" when comping.

Ripping CD to FLAC on a Mac

I have rejoined the Mac family for some time already and enjoyed the machine a lot. However, I found it lacks free music-related tools when compared to PC. My go-to music file player on PC is foobar2000, which is very versatile (support many formats) I like to simply drag some files from my drives to it and have it start playing. No import/library BS like iTunes. I could also rip CDs into my preferred format (FLAC at this time) Sadly it's not available on Mac. After Googling for a while, it seems to me that I could still use 2 pieces of free software as "replacement" of foobar2000:

• VLC can play many formats and I can drag-and-drop
• XLD can rip to various formats

However, probably for licensing reason, the "default" installation for XLD does not include FLAC as an output format (which is chosen under "Preference") To add FLAC as a format, one needs to download the plugin, unzip it and mv the whole "bundle" (a dir) under ~/Library/Application Support/XLD/PlugIns/ For other XLD tips, please read this. (I changed the file naming convention to my favorite one: %T_%n_%t)

Smooth Jazz and Metal Weekend

I came to SF less often since the beginning of the year partly due to changes at the office but I went two days in a row during the past weekend. After my tax appt, I visited the Legion of Honor, which I chose over De Young Museum, because of the "Early Monet" exhibition. (The "regular" ticket does not cover this exhibition) I overheard the security guard saying that it has been crowded even since it opened more than a month ago! I also read that Monet is one of the painters who can always draw big crowds. Impressionism gotta be the most popular art style (maybe Surrealism is #2?) Even though "early" implied that the pieces were not from Monet's "peak" period, there were still good and interesting enough to be appreciated in their own rights (not to mention the values of seeing how he evolved as a painter) For the evening, I had a choice to make: whether to see a Joshua Redman led quartet ("Still Dreaming") playing avant-garde jazz inspired by Ornette Coleman and Dewey Redman. videos) at SFJAZZ or the smooth jazz master Richard Elliott at Yoshi's in Oakland. Well, the box offices have decided for me as I wasn't able to buy any tix for the former. And to be honest, the music from the videos are not exactly very attractive either . Even though I often found that the beauty of the "ugly" sounding music shines at live performances, watching Richard Elliott live was definitely a great choice: if I want to play smooth jazz on tenor, he is THE guy I should imitate. He also played an Akai EWI at the show. (I play the USB version of it) I especially enjoy the tunes he played from his latest album "Summer Madness" (in the middle of March Madness, pun intended)

I rarely go to concerts two nights in a row these days but I just don't get to listen to great Death Metal bands live that often so there's no way I would miss Obituary's performances at the Fillmore on Sunday. Again, if I want to play death metal, this is the band I would cover. They are promoting their brand-spanking-new album, which is a strong effort, on this tour. The headliner is actually the legendary thrash metaler Kreator, who also had a new album out in 2017. The other opening acts are also worthwhile to mention: the show started by Horrendous, a two-guitarist/vocalists plus bass and drums lineup. Their sound reminded me of the Death Metal pioneer, Death, with very technical playing. I dig it a lot. The next band was Midnight, which I have also never heard of before. I could hear strong influences of the "punk"-side of Motorhead and also early Venom. They played with their head covered by a black-cloth-mask. And they no only got the look but also the chops. Both bands started the show strong for Obituary. If I remember correctly, I have never been to their show before. (And to be honest, I have probably seen all metal bands that I really dig after this one) Some of their songs are considered to be "easy" to play for "beginning" death metal bands. Don't underestimate their skills because of this though. Their guitarist used the whammy bar very well and played a lot of dive-bombing solos. And finally, it's Kreator's turn and they reminded me once again that they are as good as any of the Big 4 of Thrash Metal. Thrash and death metal are still going strong after all these years.

Obituary interview

The only reason that I'm still subscribed to the Rolling Stone magazine's Two-time-a-day newsletter is because once in a very long while they would write about music I'm interested in (most of the other times they just trash DT) Today they published an interview of Obituary, about their three decades of history and the upcoming new album, which is supposed to sound like 1990's Cause of Death (my all-time-favorite) I am surprised the Tardy brothers were influenced by Southern rock/blues back in the days! These days they are recording at their own studio, which is also a "man-cave" with pool table and TVs. Yeah, that's the dream of every male musician!

Jaco

Like most kids from my generation, we learned the recorder from school music classes. I also took Chinese music lessons after school learning dizi and erhu, on which I could barely play a few tunes. And my mom bought me a harmonica which I enjoy its sound a lot. However, bass guitar is the first instrument that opened the door for me to play some "serious stuff", especially with other friends, and in a rock band setting. Compared to other years in high school, the last year was a relaxing one and I got to spend quite some time to have fun outside of studying. And nothing was cooler than starting a band with my buddies. I started out as a drummer which was a struggle for me. And our bassist bailed on us a lot so I was encouraged to sub for him: "it's so easy to pickup" (which was partially true as I got by with always playing the root of each chord as 8th notes for all songs!) I was already a metal head at that point and had quite a few favorite bands and their guitarists as my heroes. After starting to play bass, I felt that I have joined an even more exclusive "club", bass hero worshipers! The most heralded bass players at that time included Steve Harris from Iron Maiden. However, I got curious about the two guys who won all those magazine polls as best bass players: Billy Sheehan and Stu Hamm. Sheehan's live recording with his old band, Talas Years, was so hard to buy but I eventually get to listen to his highly regarded bass solo masterpiece: NV4 3345. And Stu Hamm's "King of Sleep" was one of the first cassettes I bought after I entered college. I dug his jazz fusion style very much. And surprisingly, at this point I still hadn't listen to any music of Jaco Pastorius, who had of course influenced most bass players after him, including Sheehan and Hamm (he mentioned how impressed he was after seeing Jaco's performance) As I became of jazz fan, it become inevitable for me to hear some cover version of Jaco's tunes, e.g. Portrait of Tracy, and then a whole tribute album. Still, to be honest, I never really tried listening to his albums, like his ground-breaking self-titled album from 1976 or "Word of Mouth" from 1981. I guess my taste is too conservative for his music. I am most familiar with his playing on Pat Metheny's debut album "Bright Size Life". And I did enjoy the playing of his son, Felix, on his lone recording with the jazz fusion group Yellowjackets. These days I am going through Jaco's live recordings with the Weather Report.

To appreciate his genius, I strongly recommend watching his biopic "Jaco" (produced by a huge fan of Jaco and former Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo) It went through his years as a talented kid to joining famed fusion group "Weather Report" to becoming one of the most highly regarded musicians  in the jazz/rock/fusion circle to his demise. Now I understood why he was considered to be the bass equivalent of Jimi Hendrix: he completely reinvented how music could be played on this instrument.

The outro of the movie included his tune "Continuum" covered by another favorite group of mine: Rodrigo Y Gabriela. I was so inspired that I had the urge to play some music (for some reason I picked up my soprano sax first probably influenced by the footages of him and his Weather Report bandmate Wayne Shorter) I found a good tab on "Continuum" here.

我的爵士雜記：Play jazz like Jim Hall

差不多廿年前住在Manhattan的時候去jazz club識了一個朋友（一生人僅止一次！）Ken, 我們都是爵士結他發燒友，當然他的認識比我深得多（我才剛開始彈結他，對爵士樂理認識等於零）他告訴我他最欣賞的結他大師是Jim Hall（我一直最欣賞的則是Pat Martino），所以我不時會找些Jim Hall的唱片來聽聽；在雜誌Premier Guitar的newsletter介紹下讀了一篇關於Jim Hall的演奏手法的文章，十分值得推薦給各位爵士友。五個例子展示Jim Hall如何用chord tone來solo或comping，還有從一條弦到兩弦之外（略過中間一弦）的單音solo，以及chord melody soloing（想提一下：雖然flash player播放該頁的音樂有點問題，更方便的是下載該頁上連結的zip檔案，有齊tab及錄音）