Singer Lena Bundy gave Wayne, Jon and I a good kick in the pants last night. 2 fantastic sets at an event called "Arcade Lights" in Pike Place Market. Tonight we're doing it again in Issaquah at Vino Bella 99 Front Street. Wine Bar, good vibe, no cover. Jazz and debouchery.

I was horribly saddened this morning to hear of the passing of Gil Scott-Heron, poet, singer, author, oracle for a generation and disenfranchised Americans. I did not know him personally, though he bore his soul in work so much that I feel like I did. I do have some 2nd party relationships through to him and because he has had a difficult life, I was following his progress this decade. Last year he released his first album since maybe the 70s and it is extraordinary, as were most of his works. He never produced any fluff and he didn't live that way either. His problems were not always explicitely my problems, but I somehow always felt aligned with him. Certainly he spoke of feelings, issues and experiences that I personally related to whether directly or through parallels. I would suggest that any American could if they sat and listened, which may surprise them because he is not what he first may seem. At least he was not limited to that.

His iconic works were "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and "Whitey On The Moon". But I love him for those, all of his albums, "Small Talk at 125th and Lenox" and his 2 novels; "The Vulture" and "The Nigger Factory". He started The Vulture (which is extraordinary) while he was in college and dropped out to finish it. It was published some years later. In the dedicaiton he said that he was trying to do 2 things at the time and came to terms with the fact that he was not going to do either well and had to chose. That statement alone spoke to me with respect to the balancing act I have juggled regarding developing as a musician and making a living in the real world. When WaMu was being siezed by the government and given to Chase and I knew how bad it would be for ten thousand employees and the city of Seattle, I must have listened to "Pieces of a Man" 100 times. His body of work will be with me through my life and hopefully my son's and many generations to come.

I heard on NPR early this morning that he died last night of complications of an infection. The news effected me in a way that I don't remember feeling since the day I heard John Lennon has been murdered. A stranger who was profoundly important to me died and I struggle not to feel like it could have been prevented.

"Home is where the needle marks, tried to heal my broken heart and it might not be such a bad idea, if I never went home again". Rest in Peace GSH.

I hate to think it's come to that, but I have been reclusive, haven't I?

It seems this is the year of recording. I mentioned in my last post that DeadWax and guests recorded a session that should be released soon under Joni Wilm's name this year. Joni put together a great group, made great song selections and set the right mood for good music to take place. No release date yet, but I know she's working on it and can't wait to share it with you.

DeadWax has been recording our originals at a leisurely pace. It's tough to say what we'll do with the finished product yet. It's been a great process in that it's forced us to really think about these songs and how we would like for them to be played, something that you don't always have the luxury of doing when you're going from gig to gig, throwing a lead sheet up on everyone's music stand and counting it off.

We’ve made at least one pass through my active compositions and Jon’s and are listening through to see what we might want to come back to. The tracks that stream when you open the site right now are from those sessions. On the one had, it sounds pretty good and I’m thrilled that these songs have been developed to this point. On the other hand, it’s tough to listen to anything and not feel like I could have played it better if only there was one more take…

We’ve recorded:

Jon’s tunes-
Revery
Movin’ On

And mine-
Una Colada
It Was a Stone Groove, My Man
Del Ritmo
Next to You
Opening Day
Emoticon Makeout Party

I’ve got one more that’s probably not going to be baked in time and a close friend has offered up a great ballad that I think would sit nicely with the tunes above, most of which are uptempo. We’ll see what happens when we reconvene.

Speaking of said friend, I was thrilled to be asked to record a track with the troupe of the musical “Sauced”. My friend, the very talented Annastasia Workman wrote the music for this show and wanted to capture it before the troupe disbanded. I would love to see that show make another run, the music and the musicians were great!

Gigs are pickup up again. There have been a lot of privates and some last minute calls, which I’m always happy to get, but are not always practical to reach you about.

Playing tonight with Marc Fendel and Wayne Porter at an undisclosed location…mysterious, huh? Once the secrets have been revealed to me, I'll see if they are something to share.

Hope you are all well. Stay tuned for updates.

I owe you all a post, looking back, I did pretty well at blogging with some regularity in 2010. I still continue my commitment to not overwhelm you with every move I make and I hope you appreciate that. As you can imagine, a huge percentage of my social circle are musicians and I like to know where they are playing and follow their doings, but I don't like getting 5 posts, emails, texts, tweets and event invitations that I feel obliged to accept or decline every time they take their instrument out of their house. Not to criticize, I understand how important it is to turn out support when someone has hired you to play in their venue. I understand how exciting it is to share the music that you are making with anyone who is interested. I believe that there is a line and unfortunately, it's different for different people. RSS feeds help people make some of their own elections, which is nice. I try to keep this site current so that if people want to check here they can. In addition, I post or email now and again because people ask me too. I undoubtedly err on the side of not enough out respect for your time and space. Let me know how you feel about that, I am still looking for the right balance. I'm not a famous musician who has millions of people googling my name each day. You are all my friends and I want your support and interest, but value your friendship much more.

That said, Happy New Year! I was, as many of you know, really flush with music work in the fall and winter of 2010 for me and as sometimes happens, it dried up after January 1st. This is a well-established pattern and I think nothing of it. It will come back around and the phone is already starting to ring.

However, I was sad that the Bad Monkey Bistro cancelled their Thursday night music program. It is a great place and we enjoyed playing there. It's a new bistro and like most, is struggling right now. That struggle cost us our standing Thursday night gig (as well as the other jazz musicians who were playing Thursday nights there). I hope to work with them again either for special events like CD release parties (see below) or on another run.

Open letter to BMB: I'm truly sorry you were losing money on Thursday nights. However, I'm certain that in the 6 months we played for you, you did not on OUR Thursday nights. With the exception of one night that conflicted with a UW football game, we always brought more in than we took out. I know it's more complicated to look at it this way than it is to just axe the program, but I'm a businessman too and it would be a great thing for us to discuss.

We (DeadWax) are looking for another room (or two) and another night (or two) to re-establish our scene. Thanks to all of you who came out to the BMB gigs. It was great to have you there. I hope you follow us to our new location when we land.

But, that doesn't mean that we haven't been working. After years of planning, we completed recording singer Joni Wilm's debut jazz album in November. We were in studio for 2 -10 hour days! I didn't think that was possible, but the energy in that room was phenomenal the whole way. A tribute to Joni, to the group and to my favorite recording engineer, Don Gunn. I contributed the last of my production efforts on that record in December and Joni and Don are working out whatever final mixing they have on it, then it's off to mastering and hopefully in your record collection in the next few months. Stay tuned for information about it's release!

And, it was such a good experience that the trio (DeadWax) has decided to record our own CD of Jon’s compositions and mine. We're going to do it in a private studio that we have privileges in and perhaps I'll post some photos and early cuts from it. Unlike with Joni's album, we're going to aspire to a few songs each week. There will be less post-production on this one. We intend to release, effectively, a "live-in-studio" record. We've got a schedule mapped out that has us recording over about 5 weeks, but we'll see how it goes. We're under no contract or time pressure so we may speed up or slow down the process. Whatever we think will make the best presentation of the music.

For those reasons, I've temporarily disabled the music player on my site. I don't love the way the audio player works on the platform that I host this website and I have a hard time leaving those recordings out there when they don't really represent what exists and is being created now. I'll re-enable it when I have some new music ready to share.

Thanks again for reading, listening and following and most of all for your friendship. See you soon!

Troy

Wow, 6 months of planning and 2 full days in Studio Litho this week recording Joni Wilm’s soon to be released vocal jazz album. It was exhausting, energizing, frustrating, satisfying and a great thing to get lost in. Unedited playback sounded really promising and I can’t wait to start hearing the edits and masters. The record will be jazz standards and a few lost gems and I can’t wait to hear it. Thanks Joni for having us along. Thanks, Jon, Wayne (whoa, just noticed that listing them in order gives us “John Wayne”), Dr Ron Cole, Chuck Sanders on 2 tracks and Ginny bringing vibes in on the title track. Stay tuned.

Let me add, thanks to Jon for all of his work on this. We went back and forth for about a month on arrangements and charts and it was a much better project for not just for his playing, but his work and creativity. Same for Wayne, who came into it late, took two days off of work and kept us all steady through peaks and valleys. Really happy to be playing with these two guys in DeadWax and love being involved in projects like this together.

Speaking of, we’re recovering just in time for our monthly show tomorrow Thursday Dec 18th at Bad Monkey Bistro 6:00-9:00 400 Boren Street 98109. No cover, all ages, happy hour food and beverages. Would love to see you there!

And my calendar is showing 7 December bookings and counting!

Metroscape Jazzmen are playing The Repp in Snohomish on December 4th. It’s been a while since that group has played. It’ll be fun to get back together with those guys and turn one out!


I was happy to get a call this week about Drag Chanteusse Arnaldo!’s annual winter show at Julia’s on Broadway, 5 nights, reservations through brownpapertickets.com. December 10, 11, 12, 17 and 18.

Thanks for reading, please keep checking my calendar, I update it as soon as things come in, but I’m spare with my mailings, as promised.

Troy
www.troyonbass.com

My friend Joni Wilm and I have been scheming for 4 years to record a jazz album together and have been actively working on planning for it since the beginning of the summer. She spent the last few months working in Alaska to raise money for the process and flew back into town last night. All the while, Jon and I have been solidifying our trio, DeadWax, and working her tunes into our setlists. Wayne Porter has joined us on drums and I feel like we're peaking at just the right time.

Joni came by last night and sang through the songs with my crappy jazz guitar playing and after a few last minute arrangement adjusts, we're ready to start the process is earnest. She and I are headed to Jon's this morning to play it down together for the first time and we'll do it again with Wayne on Tuesday. Bring in a few guest musicians and spend two days locked in Studio Litho week after next and that album will finally have come to fruition.

if you haven't met Joni or heard her sing, then you've got a great treat in your future. She's a beautiful person with a beautiful voice to match and I think she's chosen songs and found treatments of them that will draw you in and make you feel like you've come home. I can't wait to share it with you!

39 years. My dad took me to the inaugural season and we saw a game together every year since then until he passed away. He watched the games on TV, with the sound off and the radio on, because he liked the radio coverage better. If we were away from TV and weren't at the park, he had a transistor radio with an ear piece. He knew who we had in the minors and how they were developing. He believed every spring and had his heart broken every summer. Still watched every all star game and world series because he loved baseball.

He hit me grounders on his lunch break in his t-shirt and suit pants and ate a sandwich on his way back to the office.

He missed seeing the Rangers win an AL Pennant by just a few years. I love you dad, all is well in the world tonight.

Man, when it rains, it pours. I’ve got a bunch of great music work coming at me from all directions all of a sudden.

First, this Thursday October 21 from 7:00 – 10:00, my jazz trio DeadWax returns to the Bad Monkey Bistro. This will be our 3rd month in a row and he’s booked us ahead to November as well, so it officially qualifies as a monthly gig now. Bad Monkey is a great new venue, which is frankly struggling a bit to keep things moving. It would be very important to both me and them for us to have a happy crowd this week. If you can make it out, I promise to make it worth your while (what am I saying?). No cover, great menu and bar. All ages and there will be TVs with the playoff games on them. Have I gotten all of your excuses taken care of yet?

Bad Monkey Bistro 200 Boren Street Seattle, WA 98109
Jon Reingold – Piano, Wayne Porter – Drums and me playing jazz straight ahead.

Next, it’s a bit early to announce, because this just came up, but it looks like I’ll be playing a theatre gig Friday and Saturday nights for my friend Annastasia Workman, who is the composer and musical director for “Sauced” at Café Nordo. I don’t know a lot about this yet, but knowing Annastasia, it will be cool. She described it as a “film noir soundtrack” for whatever the play is about. Sorry, it’s a horrible dis-service to this show to describe it that way, I’m sure, but I’m excited about it.

www.cafenordo.com

And next, I seem to have joined a group called Empress Omni. Not jazz. Electric bass. Modern, funky R&B. Two lovely and talented singers with some great original songs with 5 capable dudes laying it down for them. Very fun and lots of potential. I can’t wait to point at the TV some day and say “I played on their demo and did a few gigs with them back in Seattle.” Come see and…well you’ll see.

Empress Omni @ 7th Star Lounge 410 Dexter North Friday October 29
Check my website for updates and stay tuned for more on this new group!

And, perhaps dearest to my heart, after several years of co-scheming, DeadWax is going into studio to record Joni Wilm’s first vocal jazz album. If you cycle through the tracks on my website, you’ll hear a demo that we recorded with her in about 2007. She is one of my favorite people and her lovely spirit comes through in her voice and lyrics. More to come on this album and the process, but it somehow will remain my primary focus for the next month, despite all else that I have going on.

And last, but not least, I gotta say how happy I am to see, after 43 years the Texas Rangers playing for an AL Pennant. Our TV is broken and I’m listening to the games on the radio, which just makes me think about my dad all that much more. He was optimistic every spring, frustrated every summer and heartbroken every fall, but remained a consummate fan. Thinking of you dad, I hope they do it for you this year!

I'm posting this from the arms of an old love, the city of Philadelphia. I worked out here in the early 90s and came pretty close to moving here once, but didn't obviously. I've been through a few times since then, but never with sufficient downtime. I'm on the east coast for my good friends Ted and Roseanne's wedding and decided to make my base in Philly so that we could get reaquainted.

Last night after arriving, I went to an event on the 3 floor of a very old building and sat through an hour of a single song by a very creative, outside trio. I'm not really a free/avant guarde guy, but I find myself really into it. It was partly the excellent musicianship and partly the awsome vibe. There were maybe 45-50 people there, all sitting and listening supportively. A few things occured to me and I started to remember why l love this city. First of all, everyone was dressed appropriately, not to bust on my Seattle brothers and sisters, but we wear a lot of fleece to the Opera, so to speak. People here are fashionable and appropriate without looking uncomfortable or overly made up. Second, great arts crowd and there's no doubt that there were similar gatherings all over the city, not to mention nearby NY and DC. Also, an obvious racial integration and diversity in a way that suggests that they're just over it and don't think about it anymore. I love you, Philly (like a brother, of course).

This morning I took what turned out to be a 6 hour walk around town and came home with a stack of vintage wax from the Philadelphia Record Exchange and Repo Records. There is no vinyl shopping like east coast vinyl shopping. Gifts for Kirsten and Del of course, an awesome hoagie for $5 and a glow in my heart. On my way out to meet some friends new and old for dinner and perhaps either a jazz club later or maybe we'll take my record score back to Peter's for a dedicated listen on the best system I've ever heard.

But, I am looking forward to the 3 gigs I have waiting for me in week that I get back to Seattle.

Metroscape Jazzmen on Wednesday 15th at Rhapsody in Bloom 6th and Union in Tacoma. All originals this night.

Saturday is the same group, with some subs at a private event at a Woodenville Winery (thanks John Lilly for the referral)

Then DeadWax returns to the Bad Monkey Bistro on Thursday 23rd from 4:00-7:00. We had a great outing last month and would love to build on that momentum. The band is excited and would love to see you there. No cover, great food and drink, all ages, early show gets you home in time for America's Got Talent or whatever your fancy.

Hope to see you all soon!

Troy

Came home from a great day out with Kirsten and had a message from my old friend and the best alto sax player in Seattle, Marc Fendel. I'm headed out tonight to hang and sit in at the Bohemian in West Seattle. I'll probably be hanging as much as playing, so if you're in W. Seattle and would like to hang, swing by.

3405 California Avenue Southwest
Seattle, WA 98116-3306
(206) 938-2646