Seattle area jazz fans, rev up your engines! We’ve got a big weekend coming up with two GREAT events that are sure to delight and satisfy! Read on. The North Bend Jazz Walk takes place on Saturday, September 8, 2012. Beautiful downtown North Bend is all about jazz this Saturday night. One cover gets you into six venues and the performance line-up is very tasty indeed. Featured acts include: Bernie Jacobs with the Danny Kolke Trio The Kelly Eisenhour Quartet with Alexey Nikolev Chris…
For a little over a year now, I’ve been writing a series on this blog called “Our Creative Lives,” which is an examination of the creative experience and a tender look at some of the things that we encounter along the path of our creative pursuits, both in our own psyches and also in the outside world. The response has been extremely positive and I think it's high time to open up the conversation to include other voices. As such, I am super excited to…
I’m sure that volumes have been written on the psychology of performing. My philosophy is this: It’s about the JOY We all work hard at perfecting our craft. Lord knows the myriad of things that we vocalists have to shed on: intonation, phrasing, expanding our scat vocabulary, tricky arrangements, eighth note triplets, Cole Porter changes, breath control, arpeggiating intervals and on and on and on. A performance is where our practice hours culminate and bear fruit. However, at the very heart of it, a performance…
OK, here it is: I hate to get dressed for a gig. I should probably be more specific. I intensely dislike the process of getting the glamour on for a performance. The business of hair, make-up and fashion is bewildering to me. I’ve said it many times before; I find the feminine arts to be, well, stressful. This has been a lifelong difficulty for me. I’ve always been too big and clunky to fit into our cultural ideal of beauty. I have broad shoulders, a…
Today’s post is about going the distance. Let’s face it: the universe does not always shower us with inspiration and flowers on a daily or, sometimes, even weekly basis. Every artist that I know occasionally goes through periods of seeming stagnation; long stretches of waiting for the phone to ring or the grant monies to come through; uncomfortable dry patches with no gigs in sight and no love from the club owners that are normally happy to book you; or an abysmally slow month…
Last week, I wrote a blog post that asked the question “What is mastery?” The responses were plentiful as they were thoughtful. Many thanks to all who jumped in and helped me wrestle with this unwieldy bear. After reading through the comments, it’s clear that mastery is different things to different people. It’s a complex issue. For many, mastery equates to a certain level of finesse in technique and proficiency with one’s instrument. Of these, all agreed that mastery, by this definition, is an…
My head is exploding with scat. And I’m not talking about animal feces. I sure hope that my head wouldn’t be exploding with that. Clearly, if this were the case, I’d be having an altogether different set of problems. Nope, what I’m talking about when I talk about scat is vocal improvisation. Yeah, that God knows this is not the first time I’ve written about scat. Scat is many things to me. It is the hip dude leaning up against the bar. It’s also a…
Danielle LaPorte is my business guru. Her digital course “The Spark Kit” (formerly known as “The Fire Starter Sessions”) is easily the most inspirational and helpful guide for any entrepreneur looking to fire up and build an authentic, satisfying and successful business. (If you’re not yet hip to Danielle, I strongly urge you to visit her website: www.whitehottruth.com. Pure gold.) Danielle has changed the way I think about my life and my work and has empowered me in more ways than I can articulate…
