Wedging into Tornado Season

Bill called to say that he and the crew just saw a wedge out there in western Oklahoma. The LSR gives the town of Crawford, near the Texas panhandle border, as the location.

Good for the lads–and the lass, as I understand there’s a new female member of the crew. As for me, sitting here in my La-Z-Boy sofa, nursing a chest cold and watching the radar, naturally I feel like shooting myself through the head. A wedge on a PDS day–and the show is just getting started. And I’m not there! AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!

If there’s any consolation, it’s knowing that I’ve been able to make myself useful doing a little nowcasting. And it sounds like the team got some cool footage. Can’t wait to see it.

Mostly, though, I can’t wait to kick whatever is causing this blasted chest congestion and get out to take some video of my own. Tornado season 2009 is underway!

Shifting gears, last night’s gig at One Trick Pony with Francesca and Friends was a blast, even if I was feeling under the weather. Wright McCargar and I had a discussion about the impact of musicians on each other’s playing. In my experience, one bad musician can drag a whole group of good musicians down; and, conversely, one great musician can kick good players up to the next level. There’s nothing like being with really good musicians, and Francesca and her rhythm section are exactly that.

Moving back to storm chasing, it’s time for me to publish this post and then check out the radar. The storms bumping off of the dryline look to be going tornadic, and I’m thinkin’ that my buddies will have their hands full for the next five or six hours. Sure wish I was with them. But GR2AE ought to keep me entertained; maybe I can capture a few radar grabs to correspond with the photos that I’m sure will be coming back from out west.

April 26, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Nature, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Bob Hartig Quartet Plays the Thornapple Jazz Festival

This past weekend I had the pleasure of fronting my own jazz quartet for two consecutive days as a part of the Thornapple Jazz Festival. Now in its sixth year, the festival has begun to expand its reach beyond Hastings to other, outlying communities in Barry County. This year included Delton and Middleville.

Thus, on Friday the lads and I took the stage at the MidVilla Inn on M-37 just north of Middleville. The turnout was modest, but not at all bad for a small town that isn’t known as a hotbed of jazz. As for a rhythm section, I couldn’t have asked for better players. Ric Troll is one of the tastiest drummers and all-around musicians I know, with tremendous musical sensitivity. Dave DeVos is a seasoned and solid bassist who, like me, has a relentless thirst to grow in the mastery of his instrument. And keyboard man Paul Lesinski is nothing short of fabulous, a player of great inventiveness and the technical excellence to pull off anything his fertile mind conceives.

Together, these guys are my musical dream team. They made it easy for me to pull off my allotted two sets with the kind of energy and spontaneity that are the soul of jazz. If all it takes is one bad player to make a good band sound lame, it’s also true that a great band can boot a decent soloist up to the next level. It takes a certain baseline of aptitude and experience for that to happen, but once you achieve that level, then players the caliber of Ric, Dave, and Paul can lift you out of the ordinary and inspire you to stretch, to push beyond your normal, self-imposed limits and explore new musical territory. That, at least, has been my experience as a jazz saxophonist.

I was very pleased with our performance at the Mid Villa, and again Saturday night at the Waldorf in downtown Hastings. The Waldorf is one of my favorite restaurants, with out-of-this world cooking and absolutely stellar, award-winning microbrews, and I’ve wanted to bring a straight-ahead jazz combo there for a long time. Mike, the owner, finally booked my quartet for the dinner crowd from 6:30-8:30, and we got our chance.

Our song list ran the spectrum from bebop to ballads to Latin to jazz/rock, and included such tunes as “Anthropology,” “Footprints,” “Triste,” “Stolen Moments,” “Have You Met Miss Jones?” and “Song for My Father.” We even played one of my own originals, a Latin-flavored ballad that I wrote several years ago called “Tracy” in honor of a love lost but fondly remembered.

It was a joy to participate in the Sixth Annual Thornapple Jazz Festival, and an honor to be invited by the event’s driving force and musical manager, my friend Joe LaJoye. Joe, if you happen to read this post, thank you! The guys and I had a blast. Maybe next time around you’ll be able to take a breather from all the responsibilities of “makin’ it happen” long enough to sit in with your trumpet for a tune or two, eh?

April 20, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Using Sequence in Jazz Solos: Some Exercises

Howdy, campers. As promised, I’m back with a few exercises on sequences that you can actually wrap your fingers around.

Before you proceed further, please take a moment to read my introductory post on this topic, written a couple days ago.

And now, assuming that you’ve done as I requested and acquired a foundational grasp of what sequence is and why it’s such a handy tool for the jazz musician, here’s the first exercise. It illustrates the concept of diatonic sequence. The sequence happens to move up by thirds starting on the chord tones of a C major 7, but it could just as easily move up or down by seconds, or fourths, or up and down at random intervals.

Diatonic Sequence

You could use the same pattern over a C7 by changing the note B to a Bb. But my point isn’t to show you how to outline a chord. It’s to demonstrate how the use of diatonic sequence provides a sense of logic and cohesiveness which you can use to advantage in improvising a jazz solo.

Sequence does such a good job at “making sense” of an idea that you don’t even have to play in key to sound good. In fact, “wrong notes” can sound very cool when you play them as part of a sequence. The temporary harmonic clash creates color and interest.

Sequentially mirroring an idea exactly, interval for interval, is one way to quickly slip out of key, letting the weight of the sequence rather than harmonic agreement justify the use of individually questionable tones. In the following example, root movement descends by major thirds.

Notice that the idea resolves to a chord tone. It’s cool to take your listeners for a temporary excursion into outer space, but you generally want to bring them back to planet earth again with a healthy dose of consonance.

Exact Repetion

Again, the movement downward by major thirds is just one possibility.

You can add further interest by shifting the rhythm of a sequence. The following shows the same sequence as above, but the six-note pattern is now imposed on a 4/4 setting rather than 3/4. I’ve marked the separations between each group of notes in the sequence.

Exact Repetition with Syncopation

Note that I’ve used the sequence over a different chord, an F#+7(#9), another nice application for the augmented sound implied by the major third root movement.

Finally, here is a twelve-bar blues to illustrate the use of sequence in an actual jazz solo. The ideas may seem a bit forced, but they give you a feel for how both diatonic sequence and exact repetition might be applied in an improvisation.

sequenceblues

The above illustrations just touch on the myriad creative and highly personal ways that sequence can be used in jazz solos. To recap: sequence can help you organize musical material in a way that creates cohesiveness and momentum, and that gives “wrong notes” a powerful sense of rightness when you want to play outside the changes.

Like any other component of music, sequence needs to be used judiciously. The right amount adds spice; too much just sounds overdone and even boring. Listen to how the greats of jazz use sequence, work with it yourself, take risks, and let your ear be the judge. And need I say…have fun!

March 30, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

March 28, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Christian Music, Entertainment, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Tornado Ghost Town

Two years after being completely leveled by a 1.7-mile-wide tornado, the town of Greensburg, Kansas, is  far down the road to recovery and has become a shining emblem of Green America. Not so with Picher, Oklahoma. One year after its visitation by an EF-4 monster, half of the small mining town is worse than gone, and the other half appears just a shadow’s breath away from becoming a ghost town

neighborhood1

Picher, Oklahoma

The town’s demise is not due strictly to the tornado; the storm simply drove the last, very large nail into the coffin. Driving into the community from any direction, you’ll inevitably see the true culprits: vast piles of tailings tainted with the toxic residues of zinc and lead mining operations. Ironically, the same industry that at one time formed the town’s economic backbone has also spelled its doom. Unlike Greensburg, Kansas, which went green and found its salvation in  national attention and an influx of funds, poor little Picher is blighted beyond redemption.

According to the Washington Post, “The mines were shut down in the 1970s, and all that is left in and around Picher are about 1,000 people and giant gray piles of mining waste, known locally as ‘chat,’ some hundreds of feet tall and acres wide, that loom over abandoned storefronts and empty lots.

“The piles are loaded with heavy metals that have contaminated the air and the groundwater and placed the northeastern Oklahoma town in the middle of the Tar Creek Superfund Site, the largest and one of the most polluted in the country. To add to Picher’s misery, a federal study released in January determined that the abandoned mines beneath the city could cause cave-ins without warning.”

That was back in January, 2007, before the tornado. There certainly are no thousand souls left in Picher today. I doubt there are one hundred. It’s a depressing, ugly, desolate place. Yet there are people who remember and love it as home, and a handful who still call it so.

Nothing Left

Nothing Left

Last Saturday, my buddy Bill Oosterbaan and I began our chase day with a visit to Picher. The northern part of the town is just a town, though with its empty streets, it reminded me of the set for a spaghetti Western. As for the southern part, it’s blown to smithereens.

bike-in2

Bike in Tree

Many of the homes have been cleared away, leaving only cement slabs where neighborhoods once stood. Other battered structures remain, their siding stripped away, roofs missing, walls torn out, twisted window frames gazing vacantly at a landscape of tortured trees, tornado trash, lethal chat hills, and toxic lagoons. Debris litters the fields, and sheets of tin and other objects wrap and twist around the treetops. No one is in a hurry to clean any of it up. There’s no need to. No one is coming back.

What's Left of a House

What's Left of a House

On the north end of the damage track stands an old storm cellar. Presumably, in a tornado that claimed seven lives, the cellar saved a few when the time came for it to serve its purpose. Once a house stood nearby; today, the rough-hewn block shelter stands alone, much like the rest of what is left of Picher, Oklahoma. The cellar resembles a crypt, and in a way, I suppose it is–a memorial marker for a town that is no more.

Storm Cellar

Storm Cellar

March 9, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Life, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes Tagged With: , , , , ,

First Storm Chase, 2009

What a memorable way to kick off storm season 2009! Yesterday, I chased supercells in Kansas with my buddy, Bill Oosterbaan, and today we attended Tim Vasquez’s severe weather forecasting workshop in Norman, Oklahoma. I’m writing this post from a Best Western Hotel maybe a mile north of where the 1999 Moore tornado crossed I-35. All in all, not a bad past couple of days for a lad from Michigan.

Yesterday’s chase began with a visit to Picher, Oklahoma. The southern portion of this tiny town got wiped out last spring by an EF-4 tornado. Today, a year later, that desolate landscape shows scant chance of recovery. It’s a sobering place to visit.

But that’s another story for a different post. Right now, I just want to share a couple images from yesterday’s chase. The moisture was marginal, with dewpoints averaging around 55 degrees up toward the warm front north of Wichita. That’s where we headed, in search of the better helicities. A lot of folks questioned the setup, but it produced. The storm we intercepted put out four tornadoes, though those occurred before we caught up with it. We still saw some nice structure, including a nice wall cloud and a funnel. Check ’em out.

Funnel Cloud

Funnel Cloud

Nice Structure!

Nice Structure!

March 8, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Nature, Photography, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

March 4, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Music, Video Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Monte Montgomery Concert Tomorrow Night

Whew, I have let waaaay too much time elapse since the last time I posted an entry in this blog. Let me mollify you with a nice, bright, sunny image from this cold, early March day. The following photo is one of a number that I took out at Pickerel Lake near Grattan Township in east-central Kent County. It’s a beautiful area, and with spring rapidly rolling in, today was a great day to capture the beauty of the icy landscape while I still can.

Pickerel Lake

Pickerel Lake

Cold as this day has been, there’s no question that warmer weather is moving in. By Thursday, temperatures here in the Grand Rapids area should be in the forties. But I won’t be here. I’ll be with my storm chasing buddy Bill down in Louisville, Kentucky, where he’ll be meeting with some of his clients while I do my own business on my laptop. Then from Louisville, we head out to Norman, Oklahoma, for an all-day severe weather forecasting workshop with Tim Vasquez on Sunday. I’m really looking forward to it!

On the way out there, I hope to catch some early season action. The GFS is calling for a low to be positioned in Colorado or somewhere out there, and with a little luck, we’ll see the right combination of moisture, lift, and kinematics to make life interesting somewhere between Louisville and Norman. Arkansas looks likely. We’ll see.

More immediately, and on the musical side of things, tomorrow night is the Monte Montgomery concert at the Intersection in downtown Grand Rapids. The concert got rescheduled from its original date last September due to illness, and now the time has arrived.

I’ll be playing with the Ed Englerth band as the opening act for Monte.  We rehearsed last night and sounded tight, and today I took my horn to the shop and got a leak tightened down, so all in all, I feel good about playing tomorrow.

If you’re in the neighborhood, come on out to the concert. Ed’s material is strong, and if you’ve never heard Monte, prepare to be stunned. The man is a brilliant guitar player, rated one of the all-time top 50 by Guitar Player magazine. The show starts at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $10 (cheap!),  and worth every penny. See my events calendar for more details.

March 2, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Music, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Blowing Strong: National Storm Chaser Convention and a Great Gig with Francesca

What a fun and interesting weekend this has been! I had the rare pleasure of indulging both of my two main passions in life, storm chasing and playing jazz.

Fellow chasers Bill Oosterbaan, Kurt Hulst, and I got together Saturday at Bill’s house and spent the day watching live, streaming video of the eleventh annual National Storm Chaser Convention in Denver, courtesy of SevereStudios.com. When 6:30 rolled around, I broke away and played a gig at One Trick Pony in downtown Grand Rapids with Francesca Amari. The engagement was a blast and we were well received; tunes included a vocals-sax duet on “Good Morning, Heartache,” as performed on Francesca’s new CD, Better Days. Then this morning, I got together with Bill again and we watched the rest of the conference.

The entire conference was great, but from my perspective, the last part was the best. This included talks by Dr. Greg Forbes, Jon Davies, and Rich Thompson on forecasting and mesoscale analysis. I learned a couple things that will definitely be helpful for this coming chase season, which is just around the corner.

All in all, a most enjoyable couple of days. I finished by spending an hour or so practicing my saxophone, which is performing beautifully for me after coming back from the repair man.

Another point of interest: I’ve been invited to put together a little unit to play for the Thornapple Jazz Festival on April 17, hosted by the Thornapple Arts Council of Barry County. I’m excited about this, and pleased that the festival coordinator, my friend and fellow jazz musician Joe LaJoye, thought to ask me. I’ve already got two standout players lined up for my rhythm section, and am considering whom I’ll use for the last one.

Lots going on, and much of it good. Today it snowed, but with temperatures in the thirties, even the cold weather is warmer than it was a few weeks ago. From storm chasing conferences to jazz festival invitations, there are signs that spring is on the way.

February 15, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Music, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Emile De Cosmo and the Polytonal Rhythm Series

I got a most pleasant surprise today while checking my voice mail. A gentleman named Emile De Cosmo had left a message saying that he had run across my post on jazz contrafacts while researching the topic online, and inviting me to call him back. Emile mentioned that he is a jazz educator who has written twenty-six books, and wondered whether maybe I’d heard of his material.

Are you kidding? Heck yes, I’d heard of his books, and of Emile. I’ve known of Emile since back in my college jazz studies days, when I first encountered an ad in Downbeat for his Polytonal Rhythm Series and ordered one of the books from that series.  Good grief–Emile De Cosmo, calling me? What an honor!

Of course I returned Emile’s call, and we had a most enjoyable chat. Besides being a passionate and thoughtful jazz educator, Emile is a genuinely nice, warm, down-to-earth guy, easy to talk to and well worth listening to. Unfortunately, our conversation got cut short by a bad signal on my cell phone, but I look forward to reconnecting with Emile and picking up where we left off. At 84 years old, he’s still going strong, writing books and developing his didactic concepts in jazz. He may be retired from university instruction, but the educator in him doesn’t appear to have taken so much as a breather.

Having visited Emile’s site, I’m struck by how much thought and time the man has invested into perfecting his ideas about helping others develop a fluent technique and “big ears.” The Polytonal Rhythm Series was a magnum opus in itself, but Emile and his wife, Laura, have developed more material over the years. With my interest reawakened, I purchased The Diatonic Cycle and have my sights set on The Path to Jazz Improvisation. I’m also intrigued by The Tritone Cycle, but that can wait. I expect that I’ll have my hands full for a while with the first book once it arrives. The timing is perfect; I’ve been wanting something to help me expand my saxophone practice in a different direction.

Emile, if you read this post, it was great talking with you! I look forward to our next chat. Keep up the great work!

February 4, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »