“Today’s Young Writer”
Yesterday I picked up a 10-inch record on Contemporary from 1953 simply entitled “Shelly Manne and his Men” with 8 great, highly arranged tracks with a septet led by Manne and featuring a bunch of West Coast guys, composed and arranged by four West Coast arrangers of the time: Bill Russo (who apparently worked with [...]
2010 ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award!
I am very honored to have received a 2010 ASCAP Young Jazz Composers’ Award for my composition “Lake Superior,” which I wrote last year for the Canadian-American collective Tunnel Six. I wrote the song some time in advance of the tour based on a motif I came up with when practicing one day, but was really stuck [...]
Kora Band Album #2 On The Way…
Well the Tunnel Six tour is nearly upon us, after almost a full year of planning! However, before that epic adventure begins to unfold itself, I’m really looking forward to going into the studio with my Kora Band to make our second album! Just 4 U was a good one, but the band has changed [...]
Cascades
One of my favorite places to write music is on trains. Most recently I was taking Amtrak’s “Cascades” line back and forth between Seattle and Portland quite a bit last fall and had some quality time to work on new kora band tunes. I’m now happy to share with everyone the result, a new tune [...]
Finished Products
So it’s nearly time for the summer Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble concert, this coming Friday. Co-directing this band is one of my favorite projects to date, though it’s quite time consuming and often frustrating to get fourteen musicians together to rehearse and perform four times a year, in addition to convincing various fantastic composers to [...]