The Calendar Says Saturday, But Today Was Fry-day For Me

Ahh, the last few days of summer. Today was actually pretty productive, considering I slept in till almost eleven. The mission for today was to find a particular Aebersold recording (or its generic equivalent; more about genericization of brands in a post I'll probably do tomorrow). The hope was to find said recording at Pender's in Denton, thus having an excuse to make a Tomato run. So even after we found that Pender's didn't have the Aebersold, and we in fact got the generic equivalent locally...well, it was still a good day for a Tomato run.

As always, the pizza was great, and I managed not to do my traditional gaffe of spilling the garlic butter from the breadsticks on my shirt this time. The area wasn't very crowded, but give it just a little time; the dorms at UNT open tomorrow, so this time next week, the area will be absolutely packed with students. But with all the recent developments around this area, it really makes me wonder what the place will look like a year from now. And you'd better believe that I signed the Save Fry Street petition while I was there.

While on the subject--I doubt that anyone gets their Fry Street news exclusively through this site, but this seems like a good time for updates: Despite the fact that the new owner/developer, Buster Freedman of United Equities, had told the affected tenants that they wouldn't have to move until at least after August and September (a boon time for them, thanks to the returning college students) and maybe as long as the end of the year, we have now found out that several businesses (including Mr. Chopsticks and Cool Beans) have already been given eviction notices. According to this article in the Denton Record-Chronicle, the Save Fry Street activist group has issued a formal statement of regret regarding the developer's action.

“We are concerned that this will have a chilling effect on this successful local business and we believe this action does not serve Denton’s business or cultural interests and shows questionable commitment to the community in which they have chosen to set up shop,” said Jon Black in a press release from Save Fry Street. Black, of Austin, is a committee member of Save Fry Street and a University of North Texas alumnus.

So we'll see what happens with the rest of the block. In the meantime, I'll take as many Tomato runs as possible and hope that, whether the Tomato ends up as part of the new development or somewhere nearby, that the downtime won't be too long, if at all. (Read my first Fry Street post here; you may also like this recent article by a current UNT undergrad from the FW Weekly. Oh, and I found out today that the Tomato has a MySpace page. You'd better believe that I asked it to be my friend.)

We've had our pizza; now for dessert: Workers in a California chocolate factory discovered a collection of chocolate drippings that bears a resemblance to the Virgin Mary.

I wonder if he emerged in the shape of a relgious icon as well: A man in a Wisconsin factory had to be rescued after he became trapped in a vat of chocolate for over two hours.

The Following Takes Place Between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Six days' worth of students in that one hour, and five days in which to teach them. That's the roadblock against which I'm running up as I try to complete the Dread Sked. There's bound to be a way around it somehow, but, like the completion of an intricate jigsaw puzzle, I haven't found it yet. And even if I do, there's no guarantee that it'll be The Finished Product, as everything sort of hangs in floaty limbo until college classes start. (And "Floaty Limbo" would be a good name for an emo/mall-punk band, wouldn't it?)

I still have three more days to tweak this stuff, and I'm going to enjoy my gig tomorrow night, putting everything else as far from my mind as possible in the process. Today was "meh"--very few lessons spread way apart; a lot of high schoolers have just taken the three weeks of marching band off this year (hope they don't regret it when they find themselves with only a month until Region Jazz) and all the teachers' kids (or at least the ones who don't drive yet) were pretty much out this week as their moms returned to school. No real complaints; I realize that next week, I'll be busy beyond belief, but too much sitting around the computer agonizing over a schedule made the whole of my being start to atrophy. Fortunately, it was cool enough outside to do The Walk™, which managed to get all the molecules moving again. (It'll be nicer when it's about, oh, twenty degrees cooler at that time of day.)

That sinking feeling, part 1: A Missouri man was rather startled when, during a leisurely Sunday morning of reading the paper, a sinkhole swallowed half his house, including his garage and a car parked inside.

That sinking feeling, part 2: When thieves visited a South Carolina church recently, did they steal everything but the kitchen sink? Nope, they stole only the kitchen sink, which had been left outside during a fellowship hall renovation.

Say "Uncle." Now Say It Twice More.

Give it up for Nephew #3, MIcah, born this morning at 7:41 a.m. in Austin. My sister called me with the great news late this afternoon. With a house full of boys, she'll have her hands full (as if she didn't already!), but thankfully, another Big Event takes place next week: My oldest nephew, Noah, begins kindergarten on Tuesday.

Mom and baby are doing fine. I'll get to Austin as soon as I can to visit them and see Micah in person. Here's the first picture of the little guy:



Everybody say "awww...."

I know there'll be a day when I'm celebrating the birth of one of my own, but until then, being an uncle is the next best thing.

(I've also done posts about the births of my two other nephews in years past.)

Getting Greedy Over Good Grades?

This is a subject that predates blogging (and probably computers, for that matter): Should parents reward their kids with money for making good grades? Apparently, it happens a lot...

Sure, learning is its own reward. But some kids respond best to cash. Andrew Waller's grades soared when his parents started offering $5 for A's and $4 for B's. Now he pockets about $25 each report card, saving it for video games and summer camp.
"I think I would still be getting good grades, but this does help. I mean, it helps a lot," said Andrew, a 12-year old from Mobile, Ala. "I think it's a great way to motivate me."
So you want your kids to get an A, eh? Are you willing to pay?
As children return to school, many parents are deciding what prize - if any - is appropriate to offer when kids get good grades. The stakes can get pretty high.

Whatever happened to learning being its own reward? And sometimes, things can get pretty ridiculous:

Reagan Hawkins, a high school teacher in Nederland, Texas, has had students tell him they will get a new car for A's. Their parents downgrade the deal to a used car if they get B's.
"It disappoints me, honestly," Hawkins said. "I try to instill a sense of intrinsic reward in the students. I'd rather see a student want to learn for the sake of learning than learn for the sake of a car."

And sure, learning for its own sake won't transport you to school on its own, but I think that it's still a value that parents should at least try to teach in our consumer-driven society.

I never received money for getting good grades, nor was I severely punished for getting bad ones--not that there were too many of the latter, mind you; somehow, I figured out at an early age what my abilities were, so I geared my expectations accordingly. More often than not, my standard for myself was an A, though it would be relaxed a bit for certain classes (music history comes to mind). I wonder if things would have been any different if I had been given the carrot of cash rewards for getting even more A's; I was already 43rd in my high school class of 525, so I was reasonably happy with the outcome. And the one time that I was given a D in public school, Mom went to the teacher to figure out what was going on rather than automatically punishing me. Iit turned out that I had earned a C that six-weeks, but the teacher gave me the even lower grade to "send a message" to me. I don't know if there was a direct relationship or not, but I never did receive a grade that low for the rest of my schooling. I do know that the timing of that D couldn't have been worse; I had just gotten a first division on my very first trip to Solo and Ensemble that day, and I had learned that one of my original compositions had won the district level of the Reflections Contest. We came home from the celebratory steak dinner to find the offending report card in the mailbox.)

Read the whole article; it offers a wide variety of examples of how parents use grades as tools for both motivation and punishment. I'm certainly not going to judge the ones who use money, but I hope the greater lessons are being learned as well.

Adults who promise money, gifts or privileges say their children study harder when incentives are on the table. The lesson they hope to teach is that rewards require work.
The trick is making sure that students develop a natural love of learning along the way. When the gift cards and iPods go away, students had better be able to motivate themselves.

We can only hope that the love of learning is achieved before college; as a professor, I've certainly run into my fair share of students who aren't quite there yet.

So, how about a quick survey?

1) Did you ever receive money for making good grades? If so, do you think it was a positive motivational experience, or did you just go for the quick cash?

2) Were you ever punished for making bad grades? If so, what form did the punishment take?

3) Would you give your (current or future) kids money for making good grades? Punish them for bad grades?

Please respond in the comments.

A half-baked idea? In an effort to work around some new Food Police standards that prohibited the serving of french fries in the school cafeteria--even as a side dish--some schools in Arizona are now serving french bakes...or oven wedges, oven fries, potato sticks, whatever you want to call them. Some kids even like them...

VIdeo of the Week So Far

This is really amazing:

And from looking through YouTube, I discovered that there are all kinds of variations on the "Mentos and Diet Coke" experiment, with some turning out much better than others. One of the "best of the rest" is this one, where the kids figured out how to turn the Coke bottles into rockets that launched way up in the air; another video even gives instructions. Maybe everyone else had heard of this already, but it was pretty entertaining to me, especially the one above where they make the elaborate fountain.

Shlog this! I just recently found out that my former student Shaun Groves has been blogging for a while. His site is called Shlog, and it's full of thought-provoking stuff about Christianity and music. I've also linked him on the sidebar.

That sinking feeling: I've updated the Remembering Tasha post to include the picture I took of her sleeping in the kitchen sink back in the spring. I'll also alert everyone if and when that picture gets posted on catsinsinks.com, where I submitted it yesterday.

New gig alert: The Shelley Carrol Big Band doesn't get together all that often, so come to the DMA on Friday night. Once again, I'll have the privilege of manning the bari chair; details are on the sidebar.

The Dread Sked Rears Its Ugly Head

This will be a very short post today, because I've put it off starting the Dread Sked for too long. It's one of my least favorite things to do all year, which makes sense when you realize that I'm having to schedule eight public schools, the college, whatever I end up doing with my Brook Mays students, and the people I teach here at the house (a small number, pretty much made up of people who attend schools where I don't teach). It just seems to get worse and worse every year; this year, at least so far, seems to be particularly bad in the scheduling department. I'm just not sure how it's all going to work yet, unless I'm able to defy both physics and the space-time continuum.

Since I'm working off a new computer this year, I had to rebuild my schedule file (I'm not sure why last fall's didn't transfer along with the rest of my Word files, but...meh). The one that was left was from the fall of '98, which means that the sixth-graders on that list are now starting their sophomore years in college. Despite the passage of time, it was cool to note that, of the seventy people on that list, I'm still in touch (at least sporadically) with ten of them. Gotta love the Internet...

Anyway, if I don't post much in the next few days, it just means that I've gotten caught up in Dread Skedding.

Just say no to crack: Dickies, the Ft. Worth-based manufacturer of durable work-type clothing, has come up with a great invention: a line of jeans designed to prevent rear-end exposure by adding inches to the seat and lowering the waistband. Yo, Mr. Plumber, are you listening? I'm talking to you...

I love you; you complete me: Want an exotic pet, but don't have much room in the yard? Try a mini-cow on for size.

Blowing out some belated candles: Happy birthday yesterday to one of my musical heroes, Pat Metheny, who's 52 years young. A longer ode to Pat may be found at the end of this post, the top of which is very amusing, in case you haven't read it before (it involves jazz and cows at the same gig).

You Can Still Hoop It Up in UP

I was happy to read that a really ridiculous government idea got scrapped this week: Officials in the tony Dallas suburb of University Park are backing off on an idea that would have outlawed portable basketball hoops in front of homes:

A week after University Park leaders seemed eager to ban shooting hoops in front yards, the proposal is headed for the bench – permanently.
City officials are pulling it because residents cried foul.
"I don't blame the people one iota for getting upset about it," said Syd Carter, a University Park City Council member. "I think I would have, too. It got out of hand."
Mayor Blackie Holmes said he wants to drop the proposal and plans to ask council members to do the same at their Aug. 22 meeting. He said the sudden change in direction was needed.
"We got a lot of input from residents and thoughts from your paper," Mr. Holmes said. "This was something that we thought could serve a purpose, but evidently they didn't want it, and we'll abide by that. We're only here to serve them."

The idea may have started out in a good place--residents had wanted restrictions on what could go in front yards of homes--but this proposal went too far, and after the Dallas Morning News wrote about it last week, the story spread around the country, generating hundreds of letters to the editor and responses to an online poll, most of which had the same basic premise: This idea is dumb, dumb, dumb.

One reader, Allison Doherty of University Park, e-mailed The News: "The families are the ones that make the schools, neighborhoods, and reputation so great. You are suggesting that this is the visual you want to erase."

. Look, I've been to UP, and I understand that they have, well, a reputation to uphold. Nobody wants cars parked in the front yard or anything. But if they're trying to sell themselves as a haven for old-fashioned Americana--albeit one with a lot of money--then driving kids out of their front yards (and back into their living rooms to get fat playing video games, as one letter-writer noted--is definitely not the way to go.

I'm glad the city officials came to their senses on this one.

And on the opposite end of the spectrum: The mayor of a Kentucky town is attracting attention because he has refused to mow his lawn for over a year.

Cool gadgets of the week: The Levitating Hover Scooter and the Robot Shopping Cart. (Hat tip for the scooter: Dave Barry's Blog)

The Other Shoe Drops

It's now official: within a few months, Brook Mays will be no more:

Brook Mays Music Co.'s stores and retail inventory will be liquidated following a $33.4 million asset sale approved Wednesday by a federal bankruptcy judge.
The liquidation, which will result in the closure of 62 stores in eight states, including 12 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is expected to wipe out hundreds of jobs.
Business will continue as usual for thousands of rental customers, including school bands throughout Texas, said Scott Bernstein, who heads SB Capital Group LLC, which is leading the Brook Mays purchase.
"There's no interruption in the rental business," said Mr. Bernstein, speaking at U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas, minutes after Judge Stacey Jernigan approved the sale.
"For those customers who have rented instruments from Brook Mays, there will be no difference in the level of service," he said.
Mr. Bernstein said he hasn't decided if he will still be in the rental market a year from now, but he said, "We think it's a very attractive business."

I'll share my thoughts on this subject a little later.

LATER: It's hard to believe that a company which had been serving Dallas since 1901 will be going away just like that. Sure, I could be accused of bias here, since I've worked for and/or taught at one of their stores for fourteen years now, but it's not like I always agreed with everything they did corporate-wise or anything. Did they gobble up too many other stores in too many other states too quickly? Did doing so force them to get bigger in the front office (they had been in the same family since the early 1950's), and did taking on an "equity partner" (as they did in 2000) make them lose their way? At any rate, it's hard to believe that they were sold to a liquidator instead of someone who would actually buy the company and rescue it from insolvency; an article from not quite a month ago sounded much more optimistic.

Though the CEO blames the glut of entry-level instruments for the company's recent difficulties, it's hard not to believe that the loss of a lawsuit against First Act (the maker of many of those instruments and the subject of an earlier post) must have had something to do with it. I suppose we'll never know why Brook Mays settled instead of appealing that case, but it's dismaying to find out that someone who sells lower-quality stuff has contributed to the demise of a company which at least offered the option of better instruments; sure, they sold some clunkers over the years in the name of saving money, but the Wally World horn shopper only has the choice of entry-level horn or nothing. It would be interesting to survey the parents and students who opt for bargain-bin instruments as beginners and see how many of them make it to high school with that same horn; the ideal situation would be if they could afford to upgrade by then. (Read the earlier post for the rest of my thoughts on the subject.)

So I have maybe a few more months at best of teaching at the store; it's a good thing that my studio there had reached an ebbing point, so I won't have to relocate that many students. And sure, I might find a great bargain at the inevitable going-out-of-business sale that will result from all of this, but the landscape of Texas music retailing will definitely look a lot different when its onetime giant is no more.

(Read a history of the company, including a picture of the actual Mr. Mays, here, for as long as the website is still up. Incidentally, the website still looks as though nothing has happened, though they did add a message from the new owners, reassuring rental customers that at least that aspect of the business will be continuing for the foreseeable future.

While I Was Out

Whenever I run across a weird or funny story, I always save it to a specifc bookmark file called "Blogworthy Articles." I've continued to do this through the busy-ness of the past several weeks, but I haven't actually had time to post them until now. Here's a collection of the best stuff I've seen recently:

• A grocery store customer in the process of being robbed was able to subdue the would-be robber by beating him with a can of applesauce.


• It was bad enough that a guy in Arkansas had to dress up in a chicken suit in 105-degree weather, but the situation became intolerable when passersby shot bottle rockets at him.


• Looking for good art? Try the restroom at the train station (and no, we're not talking about graffiti).


• Want to impress your friends at a party? Bring out the $225,000 bottle of tequila.


• A restroom scene from a film shoot in India was interrupted by auto-flushing urinals. (Why were they filming in the restroom? Maybe to get a look at the artwork on the wall...


• Headline of the month so far: Guard dog destroys Elvis' teddy bear.


• One less reason to visit England this summer: They've cancelled the dead eel-tossing contest.


• Fun gadget of the week: A floating bed, which can be yours for a cool $1.54 million.


• And finally, this one is just too easy a target: Someone stole a donut truck, but it was quickly recovered by the local police.

There are a few more, but I'll save 'em for later.

Catchin' up, part 2: My remaining posts about the Washington trip are done: a wrapup of my thoughts from the week, and a rant about Washington's restrictions on hearing live music for people under 21 (it's the sequel to this one from several years ago. All that's left now is the posting of the pictures, and then I'll be totally caught up.

(UPDATE: Pictures have been added to the Flora and Fauna 101 post, from the day when we hit four major places within a few hours of each other. Enjoy!)

In Case You Missed It...

...here's a picture from last night's gig.


(Left to right, that's Aaron, me and a shadowy Steven--or would that be a dark Dingus? The rhythm section is pretty much hidden. Photo courtesy Steve Solomon, via phone-cam)

I posted this not just because it looked cool and really highlights the three horns, but also so that I could test the Blogger photo uploading system, which appears to work properly on the MacBook (this was an issue on the Ancient and Venerable iMac).

We didn't have a huge crowd (not a total surprise with just two days' notice), but it went well, and we'll get another date out of it sometime next month, since we filled a hole in their schedule. For the first time in a while, the gig calendar is empty, but I expect that will have some new dates on it soon enough; I need something to keep me sane during the next few weeks as I prepare the Dread Sked (yikes--it's that time already).

Oh, and I figured out that the MacBook also has a program that uploads photos straight from my camera without drivers, so I should have the trip pictures up soon.

Catchin' up, part 1: I finished one of the remaining trip posts tonight, talking about the first day we went to the jazz festival. The post is here, and I'll have other ones finished throughout the week.

Two Nights, Two Gigs

Camp and the trip may be over, but it's suddenly become a rather busy weekend for me, playing-wise:

• Tonight, it's the debut performance of the EMANON Jazz Orchestra, a new big band for high school and college students of which I'm a founding co-director (in fact, I'll be in front of the band all night this time, as my colleague will be holding down the lead trumpet chair). Aaron is on lead alto and Steven is on lead trombone, so the TD/D horns will all be there in one way, shape or form. It's at 7:30 at Molina High School, 2355 Duncanville Rd. in Dallas.


• And tomorrow, I'm filling in for a cancelled band at the Broadway Bistro in Carrollton, a place at which I've played several times before, from 7:30-10:30. It looks as though it'll be all the TD/D horns with a different rhythm section, so we're billing it once again as Kevin McNerney and Friends; we hope that a true TD/D gig will materialze sometime within the next month.

I hope you can make it to one of these gigs if you're in the area.

(Cross-posted in slightly different form at Team Demon/Dingus)

Music 2, Blogging 0: Getting back into teaching and setting up these gigs means that I've become quite a slacker at finishing up the blog posts from Washington. With tomorrow morning/afternoon being my first considerable chunk of time off in about three weeks, I promise to get all caught up at that time. Posting the pictures from the trip will follow a bit later, once I learn to use the software that gets them off my camera.

Too Young to Listen?

In the early days of this blog, I wrote a post called Too Young to Jam?, where I vented my frustration with the (in my opinion) lazy owners of live music venues who wouldn't make the extra effort to make their shows available to listeners who had the misfortune of not yet having blown out 21 candles on their birthday cakes. And on the trip we took last week, I found out that some places have it even worse than we do in Texas.

It's really the only gripe I have about anything that went on in Washington (except the fact that the bus line didn't stop in front of our hotel--not an issue for me personally, but it made the band members more dependent on us van drivers than they were on other trips). The reason I found out about this whole thing was that we had a talented high-schooler in our band this summer, and she went on the trip with us; her mother came along, not necessarily as a chaperone per se, but because, hey, it was a chance to take a cool trip and hear her daughter perform in a unique setting. The student was thrilled when she found out that one of her favorite players would be making a club appearance up there, but rather dismayed to find out that he would be performing in one of the venues that was restricted to 21-and-up. But wait, she thought--Mom will be with me. That would work in Texas, but, as it turned out (after some phone calls by Mom), not in Washington.

This didn't make sense to me at first; after all, the performance would take place in a restaurant. Surely they don't keep people under 21 out of restaurants that serve alcohol, do they? You can't take the kids to Chili's? No way! But the answer turned out to be even more frustrating: Minors are only prohibited from places where alcohol is served when there is live music taking place.

No. This is Just. Not. Right.

It took quite a bit of Net searching to find the exact policy once I got back, but sure enough, here it is:

If a licensee wishes to have live music (including Karoake), patron dancing, entertainment, or contests involving physical participation by patrons in a dining area after 10 p.m., the licensee must either:
a) request board approval to reclassify the dining area to a lounge, thus restricting persons under 21 years of age; or
b) notify the Licensing and Regulation Division in writing at least 48 hours in advance that the sale, service, and consumption of liquor will end in the dining room after 10 p.m.

Per WAC 314-02-130, a licensee may prohibit persons under 21 years of age in their dining area earlier than 10 p.m.
(Source: Washington State Liquor Control Board Policy 1-02)

(Hmm, I wonder if anyone in the state legislature has actually been to a "Karoake" bar...)

As I said in the earlier post, there is no substitute for getting to hear live music when you're a musician in training, especially one who's learning jazz. It's hard enough for young players to experience this when so much of it takes place in clubs, but to restrict it from restaurants just because it's after ten o'clock at night, too? I just have to believe that it wasn't jazz performances that brought on this policy; some rock concert must have gotten too rowdy somewhere. I was happy to see that they do have a provision allowing musicians aged 18-20 to perform in clubs that would normally be off-limits to them...but still, that means their peers can't come hear them play.

There has to be a better way. Here in Texas, it's all in the hands of the venue owner; some will go the extra step (wristbands, X's made with Sharpies for underagers, etc.) to allow access to all ages, but this thing in Washington just seems lame to me, because the clubs don't even get the option. Granted, I'm never a fan of too much government to begin with, but this one hits close to the heart. And yes, some would say that it's not my place to visit another state and tell them how to run things, but I feel that access to live music is something that should be granted to all Americans, regardless of the state in which they reside.

As for our trip, our young player was lucky-the "stage" area in the restaurant at which the guy she wanted to see was playing was set up right next to an unused glass door...so the sound wafted out onto the sidewalk, and she could see him clearly as well. But still, I had to rant a bit about the one bit of poor hospitality that was given to us for the entire trip.

I have a feeling this won't be the last time I post on this subject...

The Trip in Review

I'm back from Washington and trying to get settled into teaching again (and true to form, the very first student of the day was a no-show). I'll catch up on some incomplete posts pretty soon, but for now, here's a collection of random thoughts from the past week:

• It's been a long time since I've gone someplace on a trip and thought, "you know, I could live here," but I felt that way about the Pacific Northwest. The weather was amazing (it barely got out of the 60's the whole time we were there), and I was told many times that the winters aren't all that extreme either. It really was beautiful up there; as I said in an earlier post, almost every picture could be a postcard. (OK, we'll wait until I actually get those pictures uploaded to the computer before finalizing that assessment; the thumbnails that can be seen through the viewfinder don't always give an accurate rendering of the picture, and it's possible that my hands were shaky at times.)


• I found myself feeling very relaxed up there. Nobody ever really seemed in a hurry, and, for the most part, I was right there with them. Maybe it's because, thanks to the winding-ness of so many of the roads, I rarely saw speed limits above 60 mph, or maybe it's because there's just so much to see up here and it'd be a shame to miss it by speeding past it all the time.


• That being said, there were quite a few times when people just pulled right out in front of us on the road. We weren't sure if that was just a local driving quirk or rather that the locals didn't expect us Texans to be driving so fast, and they thought they'd have more time to get out than they actually did.


• I've already had a lot of people ask me if it rained all the time we were there (the usual stereotype). It didn't, but it did rain a few times on the day we spent in Seattle, which is what everyone would expect.


• It was great to be away from Texas during a very hot week. Every morning, I'd get up and check the weather on my computer, and it would usualy say 50-something. I'd then look at the Garland reading, and at the same time (which, granted, was two hours later), it would already be 92 or so down here. I didn't miss that part of home a bit, and the reality hit me the second I walked off the plane and into the jetway; it was like being smacked in the face with a blast from a furnace.

I'll get around to updating those posts from last week pretty soon.

Blowing Out the Candles

SEQUIM--Just a quick break from the travelogue to wish a happy birthday to my sister Kristen. The jazz band will be flying out this evening and home late, late tonight; I'll finish the Thursday and Sunday posts when I get back and have a spare moment or two. (Also a belated birthday shout-out from Saturday to my friends Mark and Douglas, since I didn't have time to post that day.)

Jazzin' the Clubs (Extended Edition)

SEQUIM--It's been quite a good two days for jazz out here. Imagine this, all within a few blocks of each other: Pete Christlieb and friends at an American Legion post; Gary Smulyan in a chordless trio at a Thai restaurant; the great pianist Bill Mays at a pub with alto player Steve Wilson, across the street from a coffeehouse with a frontline of Jiggs Whigham on trombone, Jeff Clayton on alto and Terell Stafford on trumpet...oh, and James Morrison sitting in for the last two sets. If you hadn't read the dateline, you might think I was on vacation in New York City, except that I was actually in Port Townsend, the charming little Victorian seaport on the Olympic peninsula that has a serious commitment to the arts, especially during the last week in July.

Catching up on the last two days (since these have been some very late nights): Friday evening, the mainstage concerts kicked off with the Jeff Hamilton Trio, led by the tasty, chops-laden drummer. The trio (also consisting of Tamir Hendelman on piano and Christoph Luty on bass) functioned as a highly cohesive unit, combining technique and sensitivity with a highly-honed sense of interplay. The venue, McCurdy Pavilion, was originally a military balloon hangar, though the balloon program was discontinued before it ever had the chance to house one. The sound was a little bit thin in the top section where we were located, but besides that, it was reasonably inimate for a place of its size. Since the concert started a bit late, we had to miss the second half, which was the great Latin percussionist Poncho Sanchez...but whatcha gonna do, we were here for a gig, so gig we did.

As for our own set, it went well, especially considering that we were playing from midnight to three by Texas standards. The crowd was a bit disappointing, but we were in competition with about seven other venues, and we did get some club-hoppers who at least stuck around for a tune or two. It was a good showcase for the program, and we were proud to be representing Texas up here. The trip home was pretty much on auto-pilot for me, but I got my vanload back to the hotel without incident.

This afternoon, we were delayed by a trip to the tidal pools just west of Port Angeles, but we did arrive back at Ft. Worden in time to see the Workshop Faculty Big Band. Directed by festival coordinator John Clayton, it featured names such as Ingrid Jensen, Terell Stafford, Jiggs Whigham, Pete Christlieb, Gary Smulyan, Kim Richmond and Jeff Clayton. Each featured soloist got to pick his/her tune to solo on, which added to the enjoyment. Among the guests were two of the vocal faculty, Dee Daniels (who was new to me this week, but she has an amazing set of pipes) and the great Kurt Elling. Even though Elling only did one tune (a treatment of the famous Neal Hefti ballad "Li'l Darlin'"), it was a treat to hear him as always, and I'll post the photo from my camera phone up here once I figure out how to do that. (One other notable thing that happened for the afternoon concert was that the side door of McCurdy Pavilion was opened--it looks like this when that happens--so that people could watch the concert from a side angle on the lawn if they chose to do so; it was a very cool effect.)

After dinner on the waterfront, we returned for the evening concert, which kicked off with pianist Benny Green and friends. Though he turns 43 this year, he doesn't look a day over 20, and he maintains the combination of fiery chops and sensitive warmth for which he's become famous in his duet work with guitarist Russell Malone (a group I saw at IAJE in 2000). Among his friends were Elling and Daniels, along with the other vocal faculty member, Nancy King; the three of them would collaborate on a rollicking "Bye Bye Blackbird" to close out the first half of the program.

After almost no intermission at all, it was time for the main show: James Morrison, the Australian multi-instrumentalist known as "The Wonder from Down Under," ably backed by the Jeff Hamilton Trio. James plays trumpet, trombone, euphonium, saxophones and piano, all at a very high level, and on one of his CD's, Snappy Doo, he recorded several tunes on which he played an entire big band's worth of instruments--everything except guitar, bass and drums. He only brought trumpet and trombone for this performance, but that was more than enough to dazzle the packed house. Sure, he brought several things out of the "bag of tricks" for this show (most notably, playing three-note multiphonics on trombone and trading fours with himself, holding the trumpet in one hand and the trombone in the other--which meant that he did all his trombone work using just his embouchure and the trigger!), but he also showed evidence of both technical brilliance and heartfelt sensitivity. He was also extremely funny, and the cool Aussie accent just added to the package. My only gripe about the festival format was that, by having double-features each night, most sets lasted only an hour, but it was still great to finally see this guy in person; I'd known about him since my college radio days.

From there, it was on to the clubs. We had lots of stops to make in three hours, and I did get to see a few of the people that I was planning on seeing: Christlieb? Check. Smulyan? Check. Steve Wilson? Yeah, from across the street. But I was drawn in by the session that took place at Sweet Laurette and Cyndee's, where the scheduled guests included Jeff Clayton (brother of festival coordinator John), trumpeter Stafford (known for his work with Bobby Watson and Horizon) and trombonist Whigham. I already had a kind spot in my heart for Sweet Laurette's, since they were the only place around that was still serving coffee (and very good coffee at that) during the late-night hours. The place was too packed to actually go inside (except to the separate side room to order said coffee), but they had their extra door propped open just enough to hear the music, and the players were clearly visible from the sidewalk through the windows. That was when I noticed that they had an unscheduled guest: Morrison. Needless to say, the chance to hear him some more, especially when he did fiery trading with Stafford and the other horns, was too enticing to pass up. I spent the entire last two sets out front, digging every minute (especially the extended jam on "A Night in Tunisia" that came near the end of the night). Getting to hear Steve Wilson and Bill Mays waft in from across the street during the breaks at Sweet Laurette's was just icing on the cake.

This was a really great time, and I'm already trying to figure out how I can get up here again during future years, while also wondering if something like this could be replicated at home during jazz festival or camp.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Son, someday you will make a girl very happy for a short period of time. Then she'll leave you and be with new men who are ten times better than you could ever hope to be. These men are called musicians."--Sign on the wall of the place in Port Townsend where we ate dinner last night.

Now It's Time for Music

SEQUIM--We've had several good days of tourist-y stuff on this trip, so it's time to let the jazz begin.

But first, a bit about what's going on here this week: The festival, known as Jazz Port Townsend, is put on by a group called Centrum--no, not the vitamin people, but a local arts advocacy group based at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend. Fort Worden hasn't been an actual fort since 1953, but it now serves as a wonderful venue for conferences and things of that nature. During the week, they also have a jazz workshop that's sort of like our jazz camp on steroids--they have around 250 attendees this year (that's twice what we had), and two-thirds of them are adults. Like us, they have a whole big band's worth of faculty (we'll see them on Saturday), and the days are filled with theory and improv classes, combo and big band rehearsals, master classes, and so on. Today, I got to catch a bit of the workshop, as well as the nighttime activities.

Part I: Genesis of a Combo, or Who's Your Buddy? The afternoon concert featured the legendary clarinetist Buddy DeFranco in what would amount to a public rehearsal with the combo that will join him for a Saturday afternoon performance on the main stage: Bill Mays on piano, Dan Balmer on guitar, Chuck Deardorf on bass and Jon Wikan on drums. He had played with maybe one of them in the past, so they really were having their first meeting right there on the stage. DeFranco discussed how they would figure out the specifics of each tune at the spur of the moment, and what they played really did sound as if it had been rehearsed already, which is one of the great things about jazz music--people who are well-versed in the style and in a certain body of work (the "standards") can get together and make it sound like they've played together forever. (There was one great moment as well, when the master was brought down to earth for a split second: He noted that he hoped he could get a good sound out of his clarinet--which he referred to as the "agony pipe"--after having just flown in that day, and sure enough, on the first tune, the clarinet let out a big squawk...but one and only one.) They did only three tunes (one in each of the usual styles), but it was a lot of fun to see a group of masters come together like that.

Part II: Jazz Goes Clubbing One of the great features of this festival is that the main concerts are followed by a number of performances in clubs around town. Since there wasn't a mainstage show tonight, the clubs started early at 8:00 (it waits until 10:00 tomorrow night, when we perform). There were only three locations going tonight (as opposed to the seven or eight that will be running tomorrow and Saturday), and a couple of us found ourselves at the Public House, where trumpeter Ingrid Jensen got top billing. Among those joining her were altoist Steve Wilson (who's worked with such luminaries as Chick Corea and Dave Holland, and whose sound bears more than a little resemblance to that of Kenny Garrett), guitarist Bruce Forman (whose name I remember from my radio days) and drummer Jon Wikan. Jensen and WIlson had a lot of great moments together; in many tunes, their solo section consisted of them trading fours or eights for an extended time. I really enjoyed Forman's soloing and will have to check out his recordings when I get back, and I was quite impressed with Wikan, especially during an extended turn on the hand drums, where he came up and sat at the front of the band. Trumpeter Terell Stafford, who's spent a bit of time with Bobby Watson and Horizon, sat in for a tune and nearly blew the roof off the place. This was a great way to start the nighttime portion of the festival, and I'm looking forward to the next several days.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "There are no bad solos; there are no good solos...it just be."--John Clayton, renowned bassist and festival director, in a speech to the workshop students this afternoon.

Flora and Fauna 101

SEQUIM--Today was our "become one with nature" day, covering over 250 miles in a giant loop that hit four of the high points of the Olympic National Park out here on the Olympic Peninsula. It felt like we'd had a whole year's worth of seasons in a single day, and we went everywhere from sea level to nearly a mile above. All this will best be described by the pictures that I'll eventually post here, but mere words (and links to the places' websites) will have to do for now...

1. Life's a (rocky) beach: We decided to hit the farthest point of our trip first, so we drove for nearly two hours through winding roads to reach Ruby Beach, made up mostly of rocks which evidently do have a pinkish hue to them at times (though not today). A brave few of us waded in the frigid water for a few minutes, and then we spent the rest of the time climbing around on the large rock structure and seeing things like live mussels and even a sea anemone. The weather was cloudy and in the lower 60's, so we didn't stay long. (You can see a cool panoramic picture of the beach here.)

Ruby Beach has some unusual rock formations.

2. The Hoh truth. Our next stop was the Hoh Rain Forest, one of the few such forests in the United States. (And yes, since we were a bunch of musicians and mostly guys, the "Hoh" jokes ran rampant throughout the day, although it's actually named after the river that runs through the area and the Indian tribe that lived there.) We took one of the shorter trails, the Hall of Mosses, which was really amazing. We also had a picture of the whole band taken in front of a 270-foot-tall, 500-year-old tree that was appropriately named the Big Spruce Tree. On the way in, we stopped to take pictures of a good-sized herd of elk that were resting near the river bed. A panoramic shot of the Hall of Mosses can be found here.

A herd of elk chills out by the entrance to the Hoh Rain Forest.

3. Great falls. After dining at Pacific Pizza in the town of Forks (the largest one inside the national park), we embarked upon the third leg of our adventure: a trip to Marymere Falls near the lovely Lake Crescent. When we drove past it this morning, I noted that nearly every picture that could be taken of that lake would be postcard-worthy, and Highway 101 winds around a generous portion of it. After a shorter-than-expected (but very steep in places) hike up the trail to the falls, we stopped by the shore of the lake to get a bunch of pictures (which again will be up here shortly after I get back home). The glacial lake has clear, cold water and tree-topped mountains in the background. Again, check out the panoramic view here.

Marymere Falls

Lake Crescent

4. The mile-high club, in a way. Our last destination of the day was a trip up to Hurricane Ridge, which, according to the GPS in our van, is 5190 feet above sea level. It doubles as a ski area in winter (which is defined here as October through April), but in summer, it offers spectacular views of snow-capped mountains to the south (and we even found a bit of snow ourselves today) and the chance to see all the way to Canada from the north. We also saw a deer feeding nearby and got a few pictures. A Ridge-Cam can be found here, and a panoramic picture from the visitors' center is located here.

A view of the mountains from Hurricane Ridge
A deer and snow in the same picture--how cool is that?

Dinnertime brought us down to 22 feet above sea level (only because we had to park upstairs), as we took the Hurricane Ridge road north into Port Angeles for a delicious dinner at Downriggers on the waterfront. A lot of us had clam chowder in a bread bowl, just like we'd had in Vermont last summer, only this stuff was even better. It was a great way to cap off a long but productive day.

I realize that my travelogue isn't wasn't complete until I post posted the pictures, but I wish you could see the ones I didn't get--things of beauty that happened way too quickly to fire up the camera. I definitely encourage a visit to this part of the country if you haven't yet done so.

Oh, and go back to yesterday's post for updates to the "what's in a name" section.

Jumpin' for java joy: I knew that this area was really into its coffee (being the home of Starbucks and all that), but it's really hit home during these travles just how bean-crazy it is up here. Every small town has multiple coffee places, and even the most unlikely venues (bait shops, video stores) advertise espresso. It's my goal to try as much local coffee as possible while I'm here. (UPDATE: My favorite weird coffee place so far has been the place that advertises HOT DOGS, OYSTERS and ESPRESSO...but nobody has been brave enough to stop there yet.)

Thar' They Blow!

SEQUIM--Today was whale-watching day, as well as our first venture into Port Townsend, the place where we'll be performing on Saturday night. It took a few hours for the boat to get ready and some weather problems to pass, so we had a little bit of time to explore the town in the interim. We chilled for a while at a cool local cafe called the Boiler Room, which had a lot of unusual drinks besides the standard coffee fare, along with games and funky decor; the mocha I had was quite good. We also walked around in search of sandwiches that could be taken on the boat with us, and we were lucky enough to stumble upon the Victorian Square Cafe and Deli (940 Water St.) that is actually underground, located a short flight of stairs down from the sidewalk. The place was intimate and well-furnished (and, true to form, I was scoping out the place, imagining a very small jazz group playing down there), and the sandwiches were delicious; I'm sure we'll be back later in the week.

The boat trip itself was four hours long--a bit expensive, but totally worth it in terms of getting to see things that we'd never otherwise see at home. The boat, called the Olympas, was run by an outfit called P.S. Express, which is headquartered right on the waterfront. The captain (Roger) and tourguide (Eric) were friendly and informative, and, save for the rough seas, which got the better of a few members of our party, I think everyone had a great time. Among the things we got to see were a bald eagles' nest and a large group of harbor seals, including some pups. (I got a picture of the eagles' nest, but I'll have to get a seal picture from someone else. My batteries ran out at that point, and the rechargeable ones didn't charge properly, though that problem has been solved. I'll post everything here when I get it all collected.)

Sure enough, when we'd been out for about an hour and a half, we got to the whale area. There were actually three pods of whales, and Eric was able to identify most of them by name. One particular whale, Ruffles, surfaced quite a few times near our boat, and several people in our group were able to get a decent picture or two. Orcas are amazing creatures, and it's staggering to think that, on a full-grown adult, the dorsal fin alone is taller than nearly any human who doesn't play center in the NBA. Most of us on the boat hadn't seen anything like this outside of Sea World, which now pales in comparison. It took a while to get our land legs when we disembarked, but it was truly a memorable experience.

The rest of the day was spent taking a righteous nap and going into Sequim for dinner. Tomorrow will include visits to a rain forest and the Pacific coast (which means that, eventually, this week's posts will be filled with pictures).

What's in a name: We've seen some places with unusual names on this trip, and I'll post them here throughout the week. Here's the list so far:

Chicken Coop Road
The John Wayne Marina
Jimmy-comelately Creek {Johnny's brother?--ed.]
Fat Smitty's Restaurant

UPDATE: We gots more...
Kitchen-Dick Rd.
Tumwater Truck Rd.
State Salmon Hatchery Interpretive Area [what, the salmon do sign language?--ed.]
Dancing Elk Rd.
Undie Rd.
The Hoh Humm Ranch
Hard Rain Cafe
Camp David Jr. (we were trying to decide if Cheney or the Bush twins had their retreat there)
Camp Flattery

ANOTHER UPDATE: I forgot this one earlier...
Chevy Chase Golf Resort (be the ball)
and another real funny one....
LITTER AND IT WILL HURT
(followed by a number at which you could evidently report people whom you caught in the act of littering)

Three Days, Three States

SEQUIM, WASHINGTON--Saturday night, I went to bed in Cleveland; last night, what sleep I got took place in my own house. Tonight, I'm so far northwest that I'm practically in Canada, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow, which will be the first time in four days that I won't be on an airplane somewhere.

But at any rate, I'm here in Washington state for the next week; it was nice to actually unpack the suitcase and use the hangers and drawers at the hotel, just like we did in Vermont last year. I'm also happy to have a room to myself for the first three nights until the "late group" arrives Thursday.

The flight up here was long; the plane was full to the gills, and to top it off, I was stuck in a middle seat, which pretty much meant no sleep on the flight. The window seat guy had the shade closed for almost the entire trip, so it took an announcement from the pilot and a quick glance across the aisle to discover the beauty of Mt. Rainier off to the side, which was breathtaking, and it reminded me that we weren't in Texas anymore, Toto. In general, thanks to the mountains and the overall green-ness of everything, it reminds me a bit of Vermont, despite the fact that we're on the exact opposite coast.

Tonight, we explored the town of Sequim (pronounced "skwim"). It's a charming little place, and we found a cool local diner to, well, dine at tonight (it's the Hiway 101 Diner if you're ever in the area). Tomorrow is whale watching, and, assuming I can find a way to keep my digital camera dry on the boat, I'll have some pictures up here eventually. Until then, since the wi-fi in the hotel works just great, expect some daily travelogue-type updates all week.

Travel Advisory II

I'm back for my little twelve-hour stint between trips, finishing up some laundry and transferring stuff from one suitcase to the next. Since my two-hour nap the other night felt much better than the all-nighters I usually do when flying out this early, I think that I'll get some sleep tonight as well. I have a random little story collection from the Cleveland part of my sojourn, but I'll have to update it later; the laptop goes with me on this trip, since our hotel has wi-fi, so I should have some posts every now and then, as well as lots of pictures when I get back (It's also my first vacation in the digital camera era). I haven't been to the Seattle area since I lived there as a little kid, so I'm looking forward to this.