So when I showed up Sunday, I saw a lot of familiar faces – Great! But when I went to the first rehearsal of Bear’s band, I wondered what would happen – after all, the rhythm section of four years was broken up and spread around, and only Bill Sallee, Don Schauer and I were in previous Bear Bands…when in walks Rachael Fillio, Bear’s student, who played with us last year. We all assembled in a large rectangle, and started in on a blues…as usual, Bear had EVERYONE take a solo – and everyone could play! Suddenly we found that we had screamin’ trumpets, adroit saxes, and a solid bone section. And the rhythm section was cooking. All would work out just fine. It felt great to be playing in the band again.

Things seemed a little different; Jerry Bergonzi was on a European tour, Mark Van Cleave was not there, Peter, Rich, Jim, and ohters couldn’t make it. But then Jeff Galindo showed up the next day to run the improv clinic – he really explained a lot in terms that we could follow, and he played Ornithology for us – wow!

Later in the week Chris Vadala made his entrance, and we stood in awe – an incedible pyrotechnic sax technician but with an expressive soul. And, a really nice man. What a pleasure to back him up on the arrangement of Quintescence that he brought out for us.

The staff concert & featured artist concerts were something – Vinnie Cutro was in fine form, (Slonimsky!) Dave Ellis was wonderfully lyrical as usual, Charlie Sarling was coherently creative, Nick Drozdoff was out there – oh yeah!. Rich Dividian Played (!) extremely well, Ben Sher was in the zone, Jeff Galindo played like a M****************************************r! And of course Eugene, Bill & Glendon were their usual solid section and flexed their solo prowess too!

Some Skunk Funk has never seen such energy – WAAAAAA! They were wailin’, and nailin’ it! Bill Sinclair was up dancing in the aisles! OMG!

So when I showed up Sunday, I saw a lot of familiar faces – Great! But when I went to the first rehearsal of Bear’s band, I wondered what would happen – after all, the rhythm section of four years was broken up and spread around, and only Bill Sallee, Don Schauer and I were in previous Bear Bands…when in walks Rachael Fillio, Bear’s student, who played with us last year. We all assembled in a large rectangle, and started in on a blues…as usual, Bear had EVERYONE take a solo – and everyone could play! Suddenly we found that we had screamin’ trumpets, adroit saxes, and a solid bone section. And the rhythm section was cooking. All would work out just fine. It felt great to be playing in the band again.

Things seemed a little different; Jerry Bergonzi was on a European tour, Mark Van Cleave was not there, Peter, Rich, Jim, and ohters couldn’t make it. But then Jeff Galindo showed up the next day to run the improv clinic – he really explained a lot in terms that we could follow, and he played Ornithology for us – wow!

Later in the week Chris Vadala made his entrance, and we stood in awe – an incedible pyrotechnic sax technician but with an expressive soul. And, a really nice man. What a pleasure to back him up on the arrangement of Quintescence that he brought out for us.

The staff concert & featured artist concerts were something – Vinnie Cutro was in fine form, (Slonimsky!) Dave Ellis was wonderfully lyrical as usual, Charlie Sarling was coherently creative, Nick Drozdoff was out there – oh yeah!. Rich Dividian Played (!) extremely well, Ben Sher was in the zone, Jeff Galindo played like a M****************************************r! And of course Eugene, Bill & Glendon were their usual solid section and flexed their solo prowess too!

Some Skunk Funk has never seen such energy – WAAAAAA! They were wailin’, and nailin’ it! Bill Sinclair was up dancing in the aisles! OMG!

Okay, been busy, but will continue to write this!

I has played bass bone two of the previous three years at JV – Bear brought his high school’s Yamaha bass horn for me to use, and it sucked, falling apart, leaky valves, dented slide etc. – so I bought my own bass trombone this time and brought it along. Much better, but I hadn’t had a lot of face time on it due to business travel, and moving to a new house.

But things worked out pretty well after a day or two – on bass bone, when you use the valveset to drop to the lower octaves, your slide positions are quite different – sharper, so you need to lower the positions – and it took me a while to find the intonation. But I liked the snappy focus of this horn. I wish I had had it last year, when Bear had me play “A Nightengale Sang in Barkley Square”, a bass horn feature. Oh well.

We had a good blend in the band this year – everyone played well and in tune, and given that we only had a few days to acclimatize to one another and learn the charts, I’d say everyone did extremely well.

Bear is an amazing conductor and educator – he doesn’t just say “someone was out of tune on that last phrase”, he says something more like “2nd Alto, that should be an Ab on the + of 2 in the third measure after 153” – he has an incredible ear and knows his material well. He knows what the band members are capable of and pushes us to reach it. After all, there are only 12 notes, right?

Hey, did anyone else have the deja-vu of being in Killington all week? I kept walking out of rehearsal expecting to turn one way and then finding myself in West Dover – weird. Kind of like when you shop a t chain stores in different towns…

So what’s up with JV being in Maine next year? Will it be Jazz Maine? I guess it must have pencilled out better or some other scheduling conflict dictated it. At least we can use this site to try to put together ride sharing etc. – Peter, let’s look at making a sidebar link for that.

Back to work – I’ll contribute more later!

We (Bear’s trombones) gathered for our sectional on Monday afternoon. In the past they were usually just working sectionals led by one of the section, as the guy placed by JV wasn’t very effective (nice guy though). This time around we had Tim Atherton (sp) and it was like a group private lesson! He warmed us up on long tones, made us focus on balance, and then ran us through our charts thoroughly. This was a nice turn of events…he even encouraged us to really learn the sound of the parts as a whole. Kudos Tim!

It’s a real pleasure to have a solid section. Blending, being part of a lush chord sound, solid attacks, good intonation, phrasing together…I get goosebumps just thinking about it! I especially enjoy playing bass trombone with a good section – I like to fill out the bottom with strength to “root” the sound.

Mac did an admirable job at lead, supported by the fine work of Warren on 2nd – they had unison lines and nailed them well. Jim (on 3rd) and I teamed up to provide the bottom of the section, and altogether it worked just fine. (Jim had some nice moving color tones – yeah).

How ‘bout those trumpets! Gary, Don, Shane, and Chris were all strong, clean players who consistently nailed those entries. They all had great solos, and since they are all strong players, the section wasn’t lacking for blend at all. Thanks, guys! It was a pleasure to not have flat trumpets screeching in my ears – you guys rock!

Now the saxes, wow. Barry is a strong lead alto – very present, forceful sound when he pushes, and plays a melodic driving solo. George filled the 2nd alto chair with great sound too. Nick was just having too much fun on lead tenor, boppin’ along on those solos and generally tearin’it up. Speaking of tearing it up, how about Rachel? She is a fine player and we were so glad to have her with us again. Talk about enthusiasm! Mike came all the way across the pond to honk on his bari – of course I identify with that as we share a lot of lines – he has a good solid sound and provided all the bottom the section needed.

So when we saw Rachel walk in to the first rehearsal, we all went “Rachel!” and knew that she’d do a great job, but when she actually started into playing, we were very impressed. An idea formed over drinks Monday night to all kick in to send her to Eugene’s camp in August – and everyone enthusiastically emptied their wallets! All week long everyone was abuzz with “where are we at now?” wanting to know the total collected. rachel kept appearing and we’d have to change the subject. Eugene contacted the VJC and told them what was happening and they graciously offered to cover whatever we were short. Finally Thursday morning I was able to get to our goal (I was walking around all week with a HUGE wad of cash rolled up with a rubber band, trying to hide all this from Rachel. I heard more than a few suggestions to run off to the casino, etc.). Several times someone would hand me some cash right in front of her – whew some close calls. But when we presented the scholarship to her at the concert after her wonderful solo on This Masquerade, it was all worth it – we made her cry! Yeah! Ha ha. So now she has to report to us on the camp, which starts August 9th.

My chops are finally settling back to normal, two weeks later.

Wow, I was just remembering the great hangs in the bar after practice – Bill Sallee and I tend to be bar flies every night, closing the bar…must be a bass instrument thing…

But the regulars were there too – Mike Barbara, Charlie Culbreath, Charlie Sarling, Rocco, Galindo, Vinnie, Eugene, Bill Reynolds, et al…of course some folks have more sense and go to bed earlier!

Just to elucidate, we were mostly just talking (the drinking is not to excess!); after not seeing old friends for a year, there’s lots of b******t to toss around. Besides, we’re mostly old farts and can’t handle too much liquor. :)

One night, Charlie Sarling, Jeff & Mary Galindo, Bill Sallee & I stayed up until, i dunno, maybe 2:30am, with a running joke marathon. We even had to take it outside because the bar closed. Between Charlie & Jeff, were were in stitches! I personally am brain dead when it comes to remembering jokes, but if Charlie’s lip ever goes he can get a second career as a stand-up comedian – what a hoot!

All the interesting people! John Stiles had some good ones too, but he had sense and turned in around 1:00. And it’s always great to spend a bit of time catching up on what Roy is doing with his producing – way cool.

I gave John Stephenson advice on his trombone purchase last year – we’ll get him to dump that reed thing he plays and come over to the brass world yet – ha! Carl and I had a good talk, and Rich Dividian hung one hight too – poor guy worked his butt off for something like 36 hours straight!

I got to know Pierre better – what an interesting past he’s had. That’s one thing I really enjoy about JV – there are so many diverse personalities from diverse backgrounds, but we all have music as a common language. Jack Winn has been playing trombone since he was just out of diapers, and has great stories of jazz luminairies he has met. There are physicians, surgeons, engineers, CEOs, law enforcement, educators, restauranteers, pilots, financial managers, managers, people from all walks of life. But we all get along like old classmates.

Busy weekend, busy weeks at work catching up, but I’ll keep posting!

Tony,
That sounds like a worthy New Year’s Resolution. It seems we are kindred spirits because one of my goals is very similar to yours.
I can relate to your comments on chunking down difficult passages. You might want to check out Kenny Werner’s book, Effortless Mastery. He has a method called the Learning Diamond which breaks practicing down into four considerations – Play Effortlessly, Play Fast, Play Perfectly and Play the Entire Example. Since you always strive to play effortlessly when practicing a difficult passage you have to sacrifice one of the other three. For instance, if you want to play the entire passage perfectly than you have to sacrifice playing fast. Anyway, check it out on Page 161. Good luck!

I’m in suspense because your post got cut off!

I started on Chrismas day with a goal to practice every day. So far I haven’t missed a day in three weeks.

Keep it up, Mark! I want to hear some of those Art Blakey sizzle rolls this July!

Wow Tony, That was great! Thanks for sharing. I didn’t know about Joe Alessi’s playing. I had heard the name but never heard him play. Just beautiful. I have Wycliffe on a couple of things but I have never seen what he looks like. They are both amazing. I don’t feel the need to compare or choose which is better. They are each doing different things and both is amazing and beautiful at the same time.

Very inspiring. I’m going to practice now!
Peter

I like the straight version, but that is awesome playing by Wycliffe Gordon.

I have a friend that plays a new VanCleave mouthpiece and he loves it. I’d like to try one. I like the equal time you give to each mouthpiece company. That’s a fun trumpet tip video.

Leave it to a brass player to notice the mouthpiece!

I’m constantly amazed at what you can find on youtube. What a great clip. It’s so funny to see Parker just sitting on stage smoking in more ways than one.

Great clip. I’ve heard Rosolino for years but never knew what he looked like.

Frank was an incredible trombonist, scat vocalist and musician. He must have been a tormented soul; he shot his two sons (killing one and permanently blinding the other) before killing himself in the 70’s. Sad.