When I arrived in New York as a young dinosaur in 1986, avoiding extinction consisted of mainly a/ not starving, and b/ not getting shot by a crack-head that wanted to trade your Mark VI for some rock. The latter meant avoiding places like the last car of the ‘A’ Train after late-night gigs, simple … Continue reading
If you tuned into the radio interviews thanks. If you missed it, you can replay the San Diego interview here. You’ll find it in Vince Outlaw’s “Jazz Live” show a little ways down the list 🙂 Continue reading
Hello Folks, To our Friends in Orlando, I’ll be on WUCF this Friday, August 5th, at 12:30 pm EST talking about jazz with our good friend Kayonne Riley and playing some cuts from the YOUNG LIZARDS CD. I’ll also be having an on-air visit with Vince Outlaw on Jazz88 San Diego at 6:40 pm PST … Continue reading
My organ band, the Young Lizards released our first album, “Our Modern Lifestyle” at a release event on Friday, July 1st, at Boxley’s. Thanks to all of you who attended and gave our project such a warm reception. For those of you outside the Seattle area, the CD will hit stores (both real and virtual) … Continue reading
“The world of now is not the world we came into.” (Copyright 2011 LSMFT). These are the profound words Loren Schoenberg spoke to me (and promptly copyrighted) at our recent lunch in Seattle during which we meditated on our early days as musicians in New York. Loren and I were band mates at a regular … Continue reading
I’ve always loved the Maynard Ferguson big band version of La Fiesta (Arr. by Jerry Johnson) with the killing Alan Zavod Fender Rhodes solo. Through the miracles of the interwebs, the conductor’s score for that very arrangement made it into my hands and my crazy thought was, how would this sound with the B3 playing … Continue reading
Did I say “ME”?…..I meant “us”…because there is no “me” in “famous”;) So we are working on the production end of a new CD, meaning the tracks are selected, EQ’d and mixed and now it’s just all that other stuff like artwork, liner notes, etc. All the stuff that I hate to do and aren’t … Continue reading
This is my old college roommate, fine guitarist and wonderful composer of Brazilian tunes, David Rosenblatt. Shortly after graduation, he received a Watson Fellowship to travel to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and self-immerse in that musical tradition for an entire year! Rough. I recorded two of his earlier tunes, O Cristo Carioca and Subindo o … Continue reading
{Insert Obvious Here} The internet has changed the way music is produced, marketed, “sold”, and consumed forever. When I say “sold”, I should really say “obtained” because purchasing music has become optional. But if you feel guilty and don’t buy into your anti-establishment neighbor’s argument that downloading MP3s for free is cool because you’re just … Continue reading
I have a theory that methods for teaching improvisation (beyond the broader jazz music idiom) arrived late in the history of jazz education. There were high school jazz bands before there were Aebersold albums, and reams of multi-media how-to materal on chord progressions, modes, the Lydian Chromatic Concept etc. Remember how the jazz big band charts … Continue reading
Chris Fagan Jazz 