From Storm–Some Musings on My 54th Birthday

Today dawned clear and blue, the sky braided with jet contrails and accented with just enough clouds to add drama. More clouds are moving in now, but I don’t mind. The forecast for “mostly cloudy” means we’ll be seeing at least some sunshine, and the temperature is above melting and supposedly will hover in that vicinity through the next ten days. One month away from the vernal equinox and just ten days from meteorological spring, we’re getting what may be our first hint of warmer weather ahead. And we all know what that means: Storm Season 2010. Yeah, baby! Bring it on!

Today is my 54th birthday. Sitting here drinking my coffee, with the sun slanting through the sliding glass doors, the birds flitting about the feeders out on the deck of my apartment, the cat sleeping on the floor, and my sweetheart, Lisa, sitting in her room working on her blogsite, I’m taking a pause to consider how simple and yet how marvelously rich my life really is.

I am a jazz saxophonist and a storm chaser, and those are the topics I mostly write about in this blog. But before them, and above all else, I am a lover and follower of Jesus. That is my true, deep, core identity–the one sure and certain thing that can never be taken from me. All else can be stripped away, and in time, it will be, whether bit by bit, like leaves falling in the autumn, or in an instant that catapults me into eternity.

Most of the things in life by which we define ourselves are temporary. That is not to say they’re unimportant. They’re very important. But they can be removed in a heartbeat–and yet, we are still ourselves. So obviously, our identity as individuals, our “I-ness,” goes much deeper than what we do. We choose our pursuits because, in a very real sense, our pursuits choose us according to God’s intentions for our lives; but the fundamental state of being ourselves–that is not something we choose. We are here by decree, not personal choice.

Right now, if I choose, I can set aside my saxophone for the rest of my life. I can stop chasing storms forever, never trek through another wetland in search of wild orchids and carnivorous plants, never again pick up my fishing pole, never savor another mugful of craft beer, never hike another trail, never write another word. Those are all things I love to do, but I can choose not to do them. The one thing I cannot do is stop being me. That choice is not mine to make.

So today, as I celebrate the family members and friends who bless my life…my vocation as a writer which I work hard to excel at…the interests that I pursue with passion and joy–as I consider all of these rich, wonderful, irreplaceable treasures in my life, I give thanks to the person who has been the source of them all, and who ordained that I should be here to enjoy them, fulfilling, in the process, a purpose that goes deeper than the things themselves, and a pleasure greater and more lasting than the works of my hands.

Thank you, my Lord Jesus. Thank you for everything. Thanks for making me who I am–even in those times when it has been so terribly painful to be me. Thank you for my beautiful lady, Lisa; for my sweet mother and wonderful siblings; for my Jonathan-David buddy, Duane, and other close, close friends who truly know me and love me, and whom I have the privilege of knowing and loving. Thank you for the feel and smell of Gulf moisture, for the rush of inflow winds across the prairie grass, for cloud turrets over the plains that build into turbulent, dark skies and mighty tornadoes. Thank you for gifting me to pour music through the bell of my saxophone, and for my father who gave me that horn as his legacy and is now with you. Thank you for the promise of seeing him again someday.

Thank you for more things than I can possibly say–things I know of, and things I will never know of, all provided by a great, unfathomably deep grace that runs like an invisible current through my life, unfelt but powerful, gentle but mighty, upholding me, carrying me, delivering me, guiding me, providing for me, shaping me. Truly, Lord, you have been a father to me, and a friend, and a brother, and a savior, and my Rock.

Thank you, above all, for You. Your unfailing love has changed me. You, Lord, are the source of my identity and my life. I am who I am because you are who you are. Thank you for the gift of a grateful heart. Grant me to be your faithful follower and friend for all of my life, for there is no one and nothing else whom I desire to worship with all my heart. You, and you alone, are worthy.

I love you, Jesus. On this, my 54th birthday, I thank you for the gift of my life, and the gift of yourself. Imperfect man that I am, warts and all, Lord, let me be a gift to you.

–Bob

Kenny Garrett with Miles

When it comes to alto sax players, Kenny Garrett sits in the tiptop echelon of exciting contemporary voices. The man not only has formidable chops, but a deep understanding of how to use them to generate consistently electrifying performances.

This YouTube clip features Kenny playing with Miles Davis in Paris. As high-energy as the music is, I find the unspoken connection between the two men–the jazz patriarch and the keeper of the flame–to be almost as fascinating as Kenny’s solo. Davis appears mesmerized by the sax warrior’s unrelenting barrage of ideas, and Kenny seems inspired by the presence of the Legend. Whatever the dynamic actually was, evidently sparked by some microphone problems that Garrett was experiencing, the result is unquestionable. There’s a whole lot of music going on here.

I love Kenny’s use of sequence, repeated tones, and motifs as organizational devices. And check out his tone splitting toward the end of the solo. In every respect, both technically and conceptually, the guy is an absolute master. Wish I could get my arms around just half of what he’s doing!

Finding Jazz in the World Around Us

My sweet lady, Lisa, and I took a trip to Meijer Gardens earlier this week. Today, sifting through the photos I took as our tram ride wound along the curvy path through the world-class outdoor sculpture garden, and afterward as we strolled through the remarkable plantings in the children’s garden, I’m struck–as I often am–at how the elements of music are woven into the very fabric of our world.

Jazz is all around us. Form, space, unity, diversity, rhythm, dynamics, improvisation, color, texture, contrast, creativity–whether in music, nature, speech, literature, art, human relationships, or above all, our relationship with God, you’ll find the same qualities working together to create beauty and interest.

Consider the qualities of space and contrast. In a jazz solo, the notes you don’t play are as important as the ones you do. Too much clutter, too many notes in endless procession, ceases to communicate. As in writing and conversation, well-placed punctuation–held notes, brief pauses, and longer rests–helps to shape musical ideas and gives them breathing room. Yet the furious density of artfully placed double-time passages creates another form of color. Both space and density can be overdone; it’s the contrast between the two that helps raise a solo from the doldrums to vitality.

The massive red iron piece titled “Aria” is a great visual representation of the interrelationship between music and art. The piece has a rhythm to it, shape, space, contrast–all the aspects of a well-crafted jazz improvisation.

Aria: like a jazz solo cast in metal.

Aria: like a jazz solo cast in metal.

Here are a few more images from the sculpture garden and children’s garden that remind me of music and jazz.

What musical elements can you detect? Space? Sequence? Color? Dynamics?

What musical elements can you detect? Space? Sequence? Color? Dynamics?

This landscape sculpture creates unity out of contrast and serenity out of movement.

This landscape sculpture creates unity out of contrast and serenity out of movement.

If only I could play a solo as creative, spontaneous, and cohesive as this!

If only I could play a solo as creative, spontaneous, and cohesive as this!

Lisa: the beautiful song God has brought to my life!

Lisa: the beautiful song God has brought to my life!

“Will I Ever Become a Good Jazz Improviser?”

What does it take to become proficient at improvising jazz? Will I ever become a decent player?

Have such thoughts ever nagged at you? Perhaps you’re at the stage where you’ve acquired a decent technique, but you’re uncertain how turn it into flowing, musically cohesive improvisations. Will you ever be able to make the leap between mere good chops and great jazz solos?

Or maybe you’ve been playing the sax for a while and you think you’re making strides. Then you come across a YouTube video of some young firebrand who’s blowing circles around anything you ever dreamed of playing, and your heart sags. At that point, you think one of two things: What am I wasting my time for? or I can be that good too if I work at it.

Depression or determination. I’ve felt both emotions at different times. When I was 26 years old, I took a year of music at Wayne State University in Detroit. During my time there, living on campus, I made arrangements to practice after hours in the music building, where I normally woodshedded from 9:00 p.m. to as late as 3:00 in the morning. I worked hard, doing scale exercises, running patterns, and memorizing solos from the famous Charlie Parker Omnibook.

One evening I walked into the building early and heard sounds of music drifting from the auditorium, where one of Detroit’s high school jazz bands was playing a concert. I listened for a bit. They sounded pretty good! But I had work to do, so I broke away and headed for one of the empty classrooms, which I preferred over the smaller practice rooms. Then I assembled my horn and began to work on one of the Omnibook transcriptions I was memorizing.

A few minutes later, several of the high school band members walked into the room. The concert had ended, and they had heard me playing down the hall and decided to get an earful. Cool. I didn’t mind if they hung out and listened. I chatted with them a bit, and then the bass player said, “Hey, we gotta get James.” The other guys agreed that James definitely needed to be gotten, and one of them left to look for him.

I continued to work on my Bird transcription. Pretty soon, in walked a fourteen-year-old kid with a tenor sax tucked under his arm. He listened to me for a minute, then said, “Oh, ‘Ornithology.'” He put his horn to his mouth and started to rip through the Parker solo from memory as flawlessly as if his genetic makeup included an ‘Ornithology’ chromosome. Then, having demonstrated his mastery of a solo that I was only beginning to get my arms around, the kid proceeded to double-tongue a chromatic scale up into his horn’s altissimo register, high enough to sterilize the flies in the room.

I wanted to slap him.

The kid went on to tell me how he planned to master not just the saxophone, but all of the woodwind instruments. Whether he has entirely fulfilled that lofty ambition in the years since, I can’t say, but I do know that today, jazz virtuoso James Carter plays a large number of the woodwind family in addition to the tenor sax.

Fellow saxophonist Tom Stansell, whose family owns and operates the celebrated Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Muskegon, where Carter spent a summer as a student years ago, once commented, “No one ever told the kid that it’s hard to play fast.”

As for me, I just kept plugging away at my saxophone. My journey as a musician hasn’t taken me to New York at age 21 or on international tours. Rather, it has placed me in Caledonia playing for cows in the pasture at the west edge of town and taking gigs as they come, which they seem to be doing more and more of lately.

And they should be. Because while I’m no James Carter, I’m a good sax player. I’ve been told on different occasions that I don’t realize how good I really am, and maybe that’s true. I hope so. Coming from capable musicians, compliments like that certainly encourage me, because I’ve worked hard to bring together all the technical stuff–the scales, arpeggios, patterns, solo transcriptions, and everything else I’ve labored at over many years–into something that sounds interesting, original, personal, passionate, and…well, musical.

I hadn’t initially planned to share the above anecdote, but there’s a point to it: discouragement and inspiration often come from the same source, and they’re just a matter of how you look at things. Maybe you’re not playing the way you wish you could play today. But if you stick with it, one day you’ll look back and realize how far you’ve come. The technique that you’re presently unsure what to do with will have become your servant, the building material of ideas which you spin with confidence and ease out of your horn. You may not be the next Michael Brecker–or maybe you will be–but that’s not what it’s about. Do what you do for the love of what you do, and everything else will follow in its time.

Not all of us have the same advantages. Not all of us grew up in musical families or were steeped in jazz at an early age. Not all of us have the same natural aptitude, the same educational opportunities, or the same life circumstances that permit us to practice as much as we’d like. But all of us have the ability to choose whether to persevere or give up. So…

“Will I ever become a good jazz improviser?”

If you quit, the answer is no.

If you keep at it, studying the music, listening to great players, and practicing diligently and consistently, the answer is yes.

Don’t rob yourself of the joy of playing music worth hearing. Don’t deprive the world around you of the pleasure of hearing you. And don’t belittle the talent God gave you, because into that talent is woven a purpose that is higher than you may imagine.

Stay with it. You’ll be glad you did.

Changes Coming to Stormhorn Blog

Greetings, friends and readers of Stormhorn.com!

I want to fill you in on some changes that are in the works for this blog. They’re not here yet, but they are impending, and I anticipate that they will help take the blog, and eventually its parent Stormhorn website, to the next level.

At the moment, the most significant change in the works is a brand-new, custom theme. My lady friend, Lisa, who is absolutely brilliant at website development, online marketing, and all things computer, has been beavering away steadily at the new version. When it is done, this blog will have a new look and much greater versatility. I’m excited about what Lisa has got planned, and I can’t wait to roll it out once it’s ready, see how you like it, and get your feedback.

Concurrent with the new theme, I’ve been thinking about adding an extra element of interest by featuring guest bloggers from time to time. They will be from the worlds of both music and storm chasing. I like the idea of offering you insights and perspectives besides just my own, and I hope that doing so will provide an added value for my readers as well as a positive experience for my contributors.

About my Jazz Improvisation E-BooK: While this project has been on the back burner for a while, I do anticipate picking it back up at some point. I’ve already got several installments written; however,  because I tend to be pretty thorough, each lesson takes me considerable time to develop, and with other more pressing matters to deal with, I just haven’t had time or focus for the e-book. Stay tuned, though, because it is by no means a dead project. As this blog and website continue to develop step by step, I will at some point get the e-book back on track.

So, there you have it: changes are coming to Stormhorn.com, and the first of them is right around the corner. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to post with the existing format, which has served me well thus far. I hope you’ve enjoyed your visits here, and that you’ll enjoy them even more as this blog enters an exciting new phase.

Sax on the Beach

Looking north along the Lake Michigan coast at sunset.

Looking north along the Lake Michigan coast at sunset.

Sax anywhere is great, but sax on the beach is fantastic.

Take a Squeegee to your naughty mind. I’m talking about playing the saxophone, thank you, and about one of the places where I particularly enjoy playing it. There’s something very special about heading out to the lakeshore and practicing my saxophone accompanied by the sound of the waves and the cry of the seagulls.

If you follow the jazz side of this blog, then you know that I love to play my horn outdoors. My practice habits are fairly eccentric in that regard. Many years of apartment dwelling, which include neighbors whom I haven”t wished to disturb, have taught me that my woodshed is wherever I choose to make it. The state parks. The cow pasture at the edge of town. Most often my own car, parked by the railroad tracks out in the countryside.

But there’s no place quite like the shores of Lake Michigan.

It’s been a long time since I’ve taken my horn out there, but yesterday provided a reminder of what I’ve been missing. Regretfully, I didn’t have my saxophone with me, but I did have my sweetheart and best friend, Lisa. From our little outing in Muskegon State Park, I thought I’d share a few images with you of…

sailboats out on the waters…

sailboats1

…the north boardwalk along the Muskegon channel…

muskegonboardwalk

…dune grass silhoutted by the setting sun…

marramsilhouette

As for the great sand dunes that are one of the hallmarks of this beautiful state, I’ve already given you a glimpse of them up at the top of the page, but the really imposing dunes lie in the northern and southern ends of the Lower Peninsula. Perhaps in another post I’ll include some shots of Sleeping Bear, Warren Dunes, P. J. Hoffmaster Park, and Nordhouse dunes–vast tracts of sand, marram grass, and wooded dunes that reflect the wild beauty of the Michigan outdoors. It is a wide open sublimity that speaks to something deep inside me, and that has colored the music I play for many years.

One of these days soon, I will visit the lakeshore again–this time with my saxophone, to serenade the gulls, the waves, the far-stretching sands, and the setting sun.

Francesca and Friends at Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts

Next weekend the annual Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts will draw several hundred thousand people from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon. The festival, now over thirty years old, is one of West Michigan’s most popular springtime events–an amalgam of literature, art, dance, music, and ethnic food, with the operative word being variety.

On Saturday, June 6, I will be playing sax with Francesca and Friends on the Calder Stage from 3:15 to 4:00 p.m. If you follow this blog, then you’re familiar with Francesca Amari. She’s a stellar performer who covers the spectrum from jazz standards to pop to show tunes, and a lovely friend. It’s always a pleasure and privilege to share the stage with her as a side man, and it will be very cool to have the band featured on the festival’s main stage.

Obviously, I want to be in prime playing shape. I hope to spend some serious time this week practicing my horn after having been away from it for several weeks. A truly nasty bronchitis put me out of commission, and I’m still suffering from an irritating dry cough that feels as if a little gremlin were sitting inside me, tickling my lungs with a feather. The doc finally prescribed an inhaler for me Thursday to help me get past this thing, and I’ve spent some time getting reacquainted with my saxophone. Feels so good!

While time away from the woodshed unquestionably has a deleterious effect on one’s technique, I’ve found that it often frees up creativity. I don’t know why this is–I just know that it’s not a bad thing to take a break from my horn every now and then. I lose something, but I also gain something. And I’m not the only musician who has experienced this phenomenon.

Anyway, I’m back to my patterns, scales, licks, and interval studies. It’s nice to hit them afresh. What’s already there comes back quickly, and it has the advantage of feeling new.

But about the festival. Come on out and get an earful of Francesca and Friends, not to mention the many other sights, sounds, and savory tastes of Festival 2009. It’s a great way to spend a June afternoon in West Michigan.

Of Sax Practice and Railroad Tracks

I just returned from a nice, two-hour saxophone practice session out by the railroad tracks.

The railroad tracks?

Oh, I guess I haven’t told you about my practice habits. They have as much to do with where I practice as what I practice.

Living in an apartment, I try to be considerate of my neighbors. I like to think that they’d enjoy my music, but realistically, there’s only so much that even the most ardent jazz lovers can take of listening to the same licks, patterns, and scales repeated ad nauseum, blaring down the hallway and through the walls. So for years, my practice room has been my car. My routine has consisted of driving to the outbacks of Kent County and parking at various locations along the CSX tracks between Kentwood and Lansing, where I practice my horn and watch for the trains to roll by.

I love trains. Obviously, I also love playing my sax. It’s nice to be able to combine those two interests in a productive way. Tonight, as I do so often, I parked at one of my favorite trackside spots near a small community called, appropriately, Alto. I didn’t see any trains, but I had a most productive practice hashing out some diminished and diminished/whole tone licks, and woodshedding the Charlie Parker tune “Ornithology” in several keys.

I always return feeling good about my playing after a session like tonight’s. The time goes so fast! And that’s as it should be.

The best way to make a living is to earn money doing things we’d pay money to do. Playing the sax is one of those things. I can’t say I make a living at it, but it certainly supplements my cash flow; it’s part of the picture of my livelihood. I’ve been at it a long time now, and most of that time I’ve been practicing in my car by the tracks–or, during the warm months, often outdoors. If I ever do buy a house and gain an honest-to-goodness practice room of my own, I think I will still maintain my railroad track sessions. I’d miss them far too much not to. Habits are hard to break, and there’s no reason to break a good one in the first place.

Using Sequence in Jazz Improvisation

Okay, campers, listen up: it’s time to talk about…

SEQUENCE.

Yes, sequence. A fundamental building block of music, and a very handy device in the improviser’s toolkit.

What is sequence? There’s nothing mysterious about it. Sequence is simply the repetition of a melodic idea beginning with different tones. Sequence can be diatonic within a key, and many scale exercises consist of scale material organized sequentially. Sequence can also be an exact, interval-for-interval repetition of a motif (or lick), which often–indeed, almost inevitably–will take you out of key.

The beauty of sequence lies in the coherency it brings to a solo. Sequence is a means of organizing melodic material in a way that the listener can immediately relate to. In the midst of a free-form flow of melody, sequence provides a sense of logic, a momentary theme for the ear to latch onto and follow through one or more permutations.

In its simple, diatonic form, sequence creates interest as you navigate your way through a single scale, chord, or ii-V7-I cadence. But sequence can also be used to take you out of key The strength of repetition has a way of making “wrong” notes sound right–a quality that becomes increasingly important when you’re playing tunes with little in the way of harmonic interest. When you’re in the midst of a two-chord jam, diatonic scales get boring pretty quickly. You’ve got to create energy. How? By using chromaticism–tones outside the key center that add color. Sequence is a great way to do so in an organized fashion.

Now, one picture is worth a thousand words, right? “Don’t tell me, show me,” is what you’re thinking. Relax. I’m not going to leave you hanging without a few examples. I’ll provide some material you can practice in an upcoming post. Right now, I just want to introduce the concept of sequence and whet your eagerness to get a few exercises under your fingers.

“But I want to start noooowwww!!!

Patience, Grasshopper. It’s Saturday afternoon, it’s spring, and I want to get out and enjoy the day. Stay tuned, though. I’ll be back with a few goodies. Promise.

An Amazing Evening with Guitar Prodigy Monte Montgomery

Ho.

Lee.

Cow!

Monte Montgomery is an unbelievable acoustical guitarist!!!!!

Please note that I, a professional writer, have just used five exclamation marks, a breach of good grammar and nothing the inexpert or fainthearted should attempt unsupervised. But last night was definitely a five-exclamation-mark event.

Monte’s little trio is a gnarly bunch. His backup players are young musicians, and Monte and his bass man look like they could have been cast as the two mountain men in the 1970’s movie Deliverance. But man, can they play! It was an honor to open for these guys with Ed and the band.

I’m pleased to say that our own quartet performed seamlessly, and we sounded about the best we’ve ever sounded. For homegrown talent, we were a great first act. But Monte’s band sounded exactly like what they are: well-rehearsed, seasoned road warriors who play the living bejeebers out of their instruments night after night, have spent plenty of time tightening down some imaginative and challenging arrangements, and communicate well with each other onstage.

The concert was held in the performance room at the front of The Intersection in downtown Grand Rapids, not the huge concert hall in back. This smaller venue made for an enjoyable, intimate setting that seemed to draw the best out of Monte. He has a comfortable, easy manner with his audience and clearly enjoys interacting with them, trading banter and showing none of the airs that I’ve seen some of the musical aristocracy display. Just a down-home cat you could sit down and drink a beer with and who, by the way, happens to be phenomenally gifted.

But “gifted” doesn’t mean Monte’s guitar chops–and, I should add, his superb vocal abilities–were handed to him on a silver platter. No one plays at that level without working hard to achieve it. I don’t know why Monte and his band aren’t far more widely recognized, but I have the sense that he’s doing exactly what he wants to be doing and cares less about fame and fortune than about playing world-class music in venues where he can connect with his listeners.

My mother and sister made it to the concert, by the way. It was neat and kind of touching to look out into the room and see my mom’s white puff of hair out there in the audience, listening at age 83 to probably her first-ever rock concert. Which is how I’d categorize last night: a rock concert. Monte ain’t about jazz, folks. But he’s got elements of pretty much everything thrown into the mix, and I’d imagine he and his players could hold their own in a straight-ahead setting.

Monte closed with what appears to be his trademark tune, “Little Wing.” His rendition of the famous Jimi Hendrix standard will take your breath away if you’re ever fortunate enough to hear Monte and the band. Here’s a video clip to give you a taste. Get ready to become a believer.