Storm Chasing Musicians

When I started the Stormhorn blog two years ago, I envisioned two distinct readerships: storm chasers and musicians. Knowing nothing about blogging, I naively figured I could reach both audiences. I mean, what the heck, why not?

Amazingly, it seems to be working. The whole world may not be flocking to Stormhorn.com, but enough of you are finding your way here, and I’m encouraged to see the numbers steadily growing. Maybe that’s because musicians and storm chasers possess some important traits in common: a penchant for the unusual; a passion to excel; a thirst for personal involvement with something that is intense and deep; a fascination with how and why things work; a high degree of commitment and self-motivation; and a love of beauty.

For some of you, the focus is music. For others, it’s storm chasing. But both pursuits are fascinating and rewarding, and I’ve felt from the start that there’s a connection between them, and plenty of crossover appeal.

In fact, a good number of you bridge both worlds. In a recent thread in Stormtrack’s Bar & Grill (sorry, no link to the thread–B&G is a “members only” section), fellow chaser Wes Carter posed the question, “Who plays musical instruments?”

A fair number of you do, it turns out, including at least one who earns his living at music. That would be Huntsville, Alabama, blues man Dave Gallaher. Both as a solo act and with his trio, “Microwave Dave and the Nukes,” and also as a disk jockey for his twice-a-week radio broadcast, “Talkin’ the Blues,” Dave has made an impressive mark regionally, nationally, and internationally. A musician doesn’t accomplish something like that without paying some serious dues; it takes not only world-class skill, but also great crowd appeal and tremendous perseverance. You really want to check out Dave’s website.

Then there’s Brandon Goforth. While these days I’ve been hesitant to post YouTube links due to their unpredictable shelf life, I’d be remiss not to steer you toward this link featuring Brandon’s rock guitar artistry.The guy can play.

Dave and Brandon are just two stellar examples of people who are both musicians and storm chasers. There are plenty more. Maybe you’re one of them. Do you consider yourself primarily a musician who chases storms, or would you call yourself a storm chaser who plays music? Or are you, like me, so passionate about both pursuits that the question is irrelevant? Regardless, there’s an interplay between the two disciplines which suggests active minds with large appetites for life and learning.

By the way, I’m never without my saxophone. I take it with me wherever I go, and that includes out to the plains when I’m chasing storms. Some chasers toss a football while waiting for initiation; I practice my sax. So to my fellow chasers who play an instrument (most likely guitar): if we cross paths and you’ve got your axe with you, we just may have the makings of an impromptu Great Plains jam session.

Keep your eyes open for me this coming spring. And if any of you happen to know of a good jazz venue in Tornado Alley, please let me know. Such places are hard to come by out west.

November 24, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Life, Music, Saxophone, Storm Chasing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Sonny Stitt “Au Privave” Solo Transcription for Alto Sax

Sonny Stitt. Just in case you forgot how bad he really was, there’s a CD out there titled…

Sonny Stitt: Just in Case You Forgot How Bad He Really Was.

.

With an all-star lineup of guest musicians including fellow saxophonists Richie Cole and John Handy, the CD, published by 32 Jazz, is a Stitt tour de force featuring the American songbook and classic bebop.

Among the selections is the Parker tune “Au Privave.” Like Bird and virtually all of the other great boppers and jazz musicians before, during, and after him, Stitt was steeped in the blues. “Au Privave” features Stitt blowing several headlong, muscular choruses, demonstrating exactly what an alto player of his caliber is capable of doing with the old, familiar twelve-bar form.

I thought you might enjoy letting your fingers travel the same patterns as Sonny’s did on his “Au Privave” solo. So here for your enjoyment and edification is my transcription of the first three choruses. Please forgive the sizing disparity between the two sheet music copies. I haven’t yet gotten image reproduction down to a fine science. But it’s Sonny’s inventiveness that is the focus, and I trust that will survive even my mutilations.

Sonny Stitt solo on Au Privave

Sonny Stitt, Au Privave p. 2

October 2, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Sitting in with the Local Musicians

It’s always a pleasure to sit in with local musicians. In Suttons Bay, Michigan, I got a chance to blow with some very, er, unusual cats. Talk about jazz being an art form.

kpnc-nam-23-z
I had played a fun gig in Leelanau the previous evening just north of Cedar with the Rhythm Section Jazz Band. Lisa came with me, with the idea that we’d overnight in Traverse City and then take in a bit of northern Michigan. There’s no more beautiful place than the Leelanau peninsula in the fall, and we took our time driving through the area, up the east coast along Grand Traverse Bay to Leelanau State Park and the Grand Traverse Lighthouse, then down the shoreline of Lake Michigan to Sleeping Bear.

Stopping in the artsy-craftsy town of Suttons Bay, we had gotten some coffee and were heading back to the car when I happened to spot a jam session taking place outside a shop. Strangely, though, not a note was being played. As you can see, the band was in fact a group of stylized jazz musicians made

koun-nam-23z
out of metal and set out on the lawn. Whatever the tune was that they were playing, they seemed to be really getting into  it, but something was missing. Ya can’t have a jazz band without a sax player, ya know!

Naturally, I volunteered my services, and we went at it. Lisa caught our little ensemble with her camera. Hope you enjoy the pics!

September 21, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Event, Humor, Jazz, Life, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Once There Were Trains

For many years, it has been my habit to practice my saxophone in my car. Living in an apartment and not wishing to bother my neighbors has forced me to find alternatives for my woodshedding, and my vehicle has served me well in that regard. In fact, I like it so well that if I ever do get around to buying a house, I will probably continue to practice in my car.

Since I love trains, my habit has been to park along a railroad track that stretches between Grand Rapids and Lansing. It has always been a fairly active route, and most days I’ve been able to count on seeing at least one train, and usually two or more, go by while I’m playing my horn.

Until recently. What has happened to the trains? Lately I haven’t seen a one. Really. Not in days. I just returned a while ago from one of my practice spots by the railroad crossing near Alto, and I didn’t get so much as a flicker on the semaphore lights.

This economy has hit a lot of folks pretty hard here in Michigan. I’ve got to believe that the collapse of the auto industry has had a dramatic impact on railroad transport. What I can say for sure is, the trains are no longer rolling along my favorite tracks the way they’ve done for so many years. I hope it’s just a temporary lull, and that railroad traffic will pick up again over time. Practice is still good, and I love being out in the countryside by the tracks, working my sax over and watching the sun set over the woods and the fields of alfalfa, corn, and soybean. But something’s missing. It just isn’t the same without the trains.

September 17, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Life, Music, Outdoors, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How to Master Circular Breathing on the Saxophone

It has been so many years since I first learned how to circular breathe that I rarely give the matter a thought anymore. It occurs to me, though, that to many sax players, circular breathing remains a technique shrouded in mystery.

There is, after all, something about it that appears almost miraculous. Most saxophonists would be challenged to hold a tone for thirty seconds. So how on earth did saxophonist Vann Burchfield manage to sustain a single note for 47 minutes, 6 seconds, in 2003, beating the previous record set by Kenny G of 45 minutes, 47 seconds? (An even more interesting question is, why did he do it? But the point of this article is to discuss the mechanics behind such a feat, not the psychology.)

Sensationalism aside, circular breathing is a useful technique with practical benefits for those who add it to their tool kit. But how does one go about doing so?

Begin by understanding the basics of how circular breathing works.

The principle is fairly simple (which is not to say, easy to master). You support your tone with air from your lungs in the usual way. However, when your air supply begins to dwindle, you store a quick reservoir of air in your cheeks. Then, closing off the back of your throat, you sustain your tone by contracting your cheeks while simultaneously–and very quickly–replenishing your lungs with air by breathing in through your nose.

This accomplished, you reopen the back of your throat and once again blow from your lungs. Repeat the procedure as often as necessary.

It sounds tricky, and it is at first, but the essentials really aren’t any great secret. Like any discipline, though, circular breathing takes time and persistence to master. Once you’ve got the hang of it, you’ll find that you’re able to continue playing indefinitely, spinning out lines for as long as you please without having to break the flow.

Here’s a simple, step-by-step process to get you started.

1. Get in touch with your air reservoir. How do you do this? Simple: take a breath and then puff out your cheeks. Now continue to puff out your cheeks while breathing in and out through your nose. Note how the back of your throat automatically closes in order for you to accomplish this, sealing off a reservoir of air in your mouth that keeps your cheeks “inflated” while your lungs continue their normal breathing rhythm.

2. Repeat the above procedure. But this time, blow a controlled stream of air through your lips, allowing the reservoir of air in your cheeks to empty itself like a leaky balloon. When you start losing pressure in your cheeks, then–without interrupting the air flow through your lips–breathe in through your nose and then release the air from your lungs into your mouth, replenishing the reservoir of air. Then close off your throat again. Continue doing this till it seems easy (which will probably happen fairly quickly because it is easy, much easier to do than it is to describe!).

The objective is to maintain a steady air stream through your lips while opening and closing your throat to replenish your air reservoir.

3. Till this point, the focus has been on getting a feel for the air reservoir in your mouth/cheeks. The reservoir is key, but in circular breathing, you’ll only use it for the second it takes to fill your lungs with air, after which your throat remains open and you blow in the normal fashion.

So in this exercise, blow a steady stream of air through your lips, allowing the pressure to puff out your cheeks, but support the air stream from your lungs. Keep it going for five or ten seconds, until your lungs begin to empty. Then close off your throat and keep the air stream moving by using the air in your mouth reservoir, as in exercise number two. Simultaneously, inhaling through your nostrils, fill your lungs back up with air. Then open your throat back up and blow from your lungs once again.

4. Once you can comfortably and consistently perform the above exercise, you’ll have gotten your arms around the essentials of circular breathing. At this point, you are in fact performing the technique. Now it’s just a matter of transferring it to your instrument.

When I was first learning to circular breathe, I found it helpful to work with the soprano saxophone. Assuming a conservative reed/mouthpiece combination, the soprano uses less air than the larger horns, making the learning curve easier. If you’ve got a soprano sax, I highly recommend that you practice circular breathing on it before you try it on your alto or tenor.

Start by seeing how long you can sustain a single tone in the middle register of your instrument. The note C on the staff works great. Avoid extremely high and low notes for the time being. Concentrate on making a smooth transition between lung support and reservoir support, striving for minimal pitch wavering, change in volume, and certainly break in tone when closing and reopening the back of your throat.

From here on, gaining proficiency is just a matter of focused, self-analytical practice. However, there are…

A few things to be aware of.

These involve the way you use your mouth reservoir to sustain a tone.

In the above exercises, you’ve had your cheeks puffed out and allowed the air to leak out of them in a controlled stream. Once you start blowing through a mouthpiece, you’ll find that things aren’t quite so easy. The air goes at a faster rate, and you need to contract your cheeks like a bellows in order to provide enough air pressure to sustain a tone on the horn.

Ultimately, of course, you want to dispense with puffing out your cheeks as much as possible. Cheek-puffing is handy as a preliminary learning device, but it’s ruinous on intonation and good breath support. As you spend time refining your circular breathing technique, you’ll find that you can exert air pressure from the back of your throat by lifting your tongue forward. I don’t know how better to describe what I’m getting at, but I’m quite certain that you’ll discover it for yourself if you continue to practice circular breathing.

Once you’re able to sustain a single tone with reasonable control, try playing a scale using circular breathing. From there, try a favorite lick. Circular breathing while playing lines is challenging at first, but once you’ve acquired the ability, you’ll find that moving notes are actually more forgiving than long tones. They tend to mask the unwelcome waver that often attends the shift in air support.

And that, my friends, is that. My job is done. Yours is just beginning. Grab your horn and get started.

September 10, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Christian Music, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

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!

August 22, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Emile De Cosmo and the Byzantine Scale

If anyone embodies the improvisational and technical aspects of jazz education, it is Emile De Cosmo. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Emile since the time he contacted me about an article I had written about jazz contrafacts, and I can tell you, the man is deeply knowledgeable, and as excited to share his insights into jazz theory and technique building today as he was back in my college days, when I first bought one of books in his Polytonal Rhythm Series.

Our initial conversation, back in early February, resulted in my adding another of his books, The Diatonic Cycle–a tour de force of the twelve major scales and their relative harmonic minor scales–to my practice library. Last week, after chatting with Emile on the phone, I purchased yet another book coauthored by him and his wife, Laura. A compendium of articles that Emile and Laura wrote for Jazz Player magazine, The Path to Jazz Improvisation is a treasury of insights into the vast array of scales and modes that are available to jazz improvisers today. At $14.95, the book truly is a steal–and no, Emile didn’t give me a free copy so I’d write him a glowing review*. I ponied up the money just like anyone else, and I’m glad I did. I know a fair amount about jazz theory, but there always seems to be something new to learn, and Emile and Laura’s book is proving to be a good source.

I’m thinking right now about the chapter I’ve been reading on the Byzantine scale. In his foreword to the book, David Gibson, editor of Jazz Player, writes, “When I read his chapter on the Byzantine Scale I almost fell off my chair. I had never thought about jazz in those terms. I suddenly realized that jazz improvisation has roots which go back much further than the jazz master of the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and beyond.”

Of course my curiosity was piqued by Gibson’s words. The Byzantine scale? I’d heard of it before, but never explored it. I think I had some vague idea that I had it already tucked in my pocket as some mode of the harmonic minor scale. And indeed, the Byzantine scale is related to the harmonic minor, but it is a scale unto itself, and a darned interesting one.

Probably the easiest way to conceive of the Byzantine scale is, as Emile describes, to superimpose two major seventh chords a half-step apart. For example, if you dovetail CM7 and DbM7 and then arrange the chord tones in successive order, you get the following: C, Db, E, F, G, Ab, B, C.

Another way to think of this is to approach every tone in a major seventh chord with its chromatic lower neighbor–e.g. for the DbM7 chord (Db, F, Ab, C), you would precede the Db with C, F with E, Ab with G, and C with B.

The De Cosmos recommend using the Byzantine scale with major seventh and dominant seventh chords that share the same root as the scale. In other words, you’d use a C Byzantine scale over a C7b9 or a CM7. At least one other application quickly suggests itself to me as I look at the structure of the scale, and that is to pair it with an altered dominant that is based on the second degree of the scale. For instance, by playing a C Byzantine scale over a Db7#9, you get both the flatted and natural sevenths (B and C), allowing the latter to function as a passing tone between the flat seventh and the root of the chord.

I have to say, though, that it may be a while before I dig into the Byzantine scale in earnest. Right now I’m focusing on the diminished whole tone scale, with some forays into both the augmented and diminished scales. Those pack challenges enough. But I think I can see a new area of woodshedding on the horizon. Emile and Laura’s book should prove a valuable resource, and you’ll hear more about it from time to time. I have yet to write about Emile’s concept, the polytonal order of keys, or POOK, for short.

But that’s for another post. As for this one, well…the day is beautiful, and Lisa and I have plans to visit Meijer Gardens. It’s time to get rolling. Happy practicing!

_____________

*Emile did, however, send me a POOK T-shirt and a CD of he and Laura playing tunes that he had written. I don’t mind telling you that the De Cosmos can blow!

August 13, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone, Tornadoes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“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.

August 5, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Life, Music, Nature, Saxophone, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

July 28, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Life, Music, Nature, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Uncategorized, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Cool-Weather Wall Clouds

So there I was, driving down I-96 toward my mother and sister’s house in Grand Rapids this afternoon, when I saw what at first glance looked like a wall cloud. It looked like one at second glance, too, and third, hanging off of a cumulus tower in the distance.

Severe weather wasn’t in the outlook today, and in fact, the afternoon was coolish and not particularly moist, with spotty showers but no thunder or lightning. I was unaware of any reason to be on the lookout for abnormal weather, though the extent of the vertical development in the cumulus clouds coupled with their nicely sheared look would have been a tip-off under more propitious circumstances.

Anyway, I was intrigued by the cloud formation, but not quite prepared to call it anything more than a lowering at that point. It was falling apart over Grand Rapids by the time I turned north onto the East Beltline. But the show was far from over. Another large towering cumulus several miles to my northwest was exhibiting an even larger, blocky lowering which wasn’t showing any signs of dissipating.

That did it. It was time to get close enough to this thing to see just exactly what it was. This was a simple matter. The cloud was drifting quite slowly, and intercepting it involved nothing more elaborate than continuing north up the Beltline past 7 Mile Road, then pulling into a small turn-in, where I had an unobstructed view from maybe half a mile away.

The cloud was indeed a wall cloud. I could see a weak updraft dragging scud up into it, and even a hint of an RFD. More important, the cloud was circulating–very slowly, to be sure, but unmistakably. As it moved closer, I even observed a small, anticyclonic vortex spinning almost directly overhead. There was obviously enough shear and helicity in the atmosphere to create some interest, and I had a nice front-row seat. Just wish I’d had my camera with me, but as I said, I wasn’t expecting anything weatherwise today that would have made me think to grab it.

What I was seeing struck me as more fascinating than threatening, but I decided to call KGRR and report it anyway, just for the record. The met who took my information said he wasn’t surprised. He told me that the office had already received several reports of waterspouts out on Lake Michigan, plus other reports of funnel clouds. Sounded like a cold air funnel outbreak.

My buddy Kurt Hulst called later to tell me that he, too, had seen a wall cloud over Caledonia from where he lives in Kentwood. If I’d been home, it would have been a front door delivery, but of course I wasn’t. Seems to me, though, that Kurt said he got some photos. I hope so, because I’d like to see what I missed.

Days like today just go to show that the weather does what it wants, when it wants. Maybe the local WFO will offer an analysis of today’s conditions. That would be cool.

Lesson learned: take my camera with me wherever I go.

July 19, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Life, Music, Nature, Outdoors, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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