Stockton Festival/Alter Ego/More Piano

Stockton

Yesterday I performed with Alter Ego as part of the Stockton International Riverside Fringe Festival. I felt that we played really well, especially given that there were three deps in the band! Once the first tune was out of the way I started to feel at ease and enjoy things more - the band is definitely relaxing into the material and there was some nice interaction and good soloing all round. Luckily the performance was recorded by several camcorders so I had the chance to watch a little footage last night. I was pleased to get this kind of feedback. It was especially interesting hearing back some of my own soloing which at the time I thought was terrible. It turns out it sounds fine.

More than one person said that they enjoyed my Art Blakey-isms... which is curious because although people say it quite a bit I've never consciously tried to 'cop' any of Blakey's stuff. I do however have a huge number of CDs with Art Blakey on so I guess it happens by some kind of musical osmosis. Either way I'm absolutely more than happy to take the compliment. If I can get a few more comparisons to Philly Joe Jones, Tony Williams and Vinnie Colaiuta I'll be even happier!

Hopefully some clips will make it onto youtube or www.myspace.com/alterego septet sometime soon. It also looks as though we have picked up a couple more gigs in the next few months - all good, positive stuff.

Piano

I bought myself the 2007/2008 Grade One Piano Pieces on Friday and started off by working through the Mozart Allegro in F (K. 1c)
I was pleased with the fact that I got through the piece fairly quickly. It isn't quite up to allegro speed yet but my reading/technique seems to be improving. This morning I started working through Corelli's Sarabanda which is a little trickier but is coming together nicely.
I've started to practise scales/arpeggios in rotation. Each day I do one scale and one arpeggio - lots of repetitions. Next day, next scale and so on. I'm also increasing the tempo slightly each time I come back round to C major.

I'm currently listening to a lot of Steps Ahead - Smokin' in the Pit and Hank Mobley's Soul Station.
Smokin in the Pit has fantastic tunes and great playing all round whereas I think Soul Station is one of those rare 'perfect' CDs - an essential lesson in how to play small group jazz. Its incredible how Art Blakey seems to play hardly anything most of the time and still sound fantastic. He takes a very relaxed approach when compared with his Jazz Messengers playing. Inspirational stuff!

I'm also reading The Art of Practicing by Madeline Bruser. Its well worth a read.
Other good texts I've gone through recently include Victor Wooten's The Music Lesson. It is a little new-age here and there but there is some great food for thought in there. I also read through Daniel Levitin's This is Your Brain on Music - another fascinating book. Check them all out!