Jazz master Mel Dalton passed away last Saturday, April 12, at the age of seventy-seven. Many will remember Mel as one of West Michigan”s finest, best-known tenor sax men, and that he was. But to me, he was also my friend, and the closest thing I ever had to a musical mentor. I am thankful for the gift of him in my life.\r\n\r\nAs a young musician back in my college days, I knew of Mel long before I ever met him. His reputation as a formidable player was well established, and during the times when I got to hear him, I simply listened, amazed. Mel was steeped in Coltrane, but he had his own distinctive approach, and a beautiful, full tone to go with it.\r\n\r\nWith sax lessons required for my jazz studies program at Aquinas College, I requested permission from the department head, Bruce Early, to study with Mel, even though he wasn”t on staff. Bruce graciously acquiesced, I contacted Mel, and so began a memorable period of several months studying under Mel. I say “studying” for lack of a better word for those informal, fun, unstructured, richly conversational sessions. Once a week, I would grab my horn and walk the mile or so from my apartment in Eastown to Mel”s home over on Sigsbee Street behind the old Biermeister. Mel made me feel welcome from the beginning. He was always glad to see me, and he never kept a meter running when it came to our times together. An hour, two hours, three hours–it wasn”t about money for Mel. It was about taking a genuine interest in a young musician. Those times with Mel were priceless, not just because of his knowledge, but also because of his encouragement.\r\n\r\nListening to vinyl Coltrane LPs…blazing our way through solo transcriptions of “Giant Steps”…talking about jazz, about life, about God…listening to Mel”s stories of how it was coming up as a jazz musician playing with the likes of Stanley Turrentine and Ahmad Jamal…I have wonderful memories of those days, filled with laughter and good conversation, and warmed by the generous spirit of my friend and mentor.\r\n\r\nThat season came to an end, as all of life”s seasons do. But no matter how much time passed between my later encounters with Mel, whenever he and I crossed paths–usually at some place where he was playing–he always remembered me with warmth, and usually asked whether I had my horn with me. What a privilege to be so honored!\r\n\r\nA few years ago, I got to thinking about Mel. I hadn”t heard news of him in some time, and on impulse, I called him. He wasn”t playing much, he said. His wife was seriously ill, and he was devoting his time to caring for her.\r\n\r\nHow would he like to get together, I asked, and just play a bit, just him and me practicing, like the old days? Mel loved the idea.\r\n\r\nSo for a couple months, we reconnected. My playing had improved vastly over the years, and Mel”s was always impeccable, so he and I made a bit of music there in his basement, blowing along with my collection of Jamie Aebersold CDs. Mel was impressed by those CDs. He had heard of them but never worked with them; those sessions of ours inspired him to go out and purchase a few Aebersold CDs of his own.\r\n\r\nThat was five or six years ago. Time passes so quickly. I got the news Tuesday from my mother that Mel had passed. I hadn”t even been aware that he was ill, but strangely, he”d been on my mind, and I was thinking about giving him a call. Regrettably, that chance has passed.\r\n\r\nI am left with good memories, and with gratitude for the encouragement of an elder jazz statesman and, above all, a friend.\r\n\r\nThank you, Mel. Thanks for everything. You knew the music was in me, as it was in you. You”re one of the ones who helped fan the flame. A musician? Yes, that you were–a great one. But beyond that, you were a beautiful man. God bless you for the gift of your friendship. I”ll see you down the road, amigo.

The numbers are in and here”s the official tally:\r\nThursday, April 10\r\n States covered: eight\r\n Miles traveled: 1,650\r\n Decent storms: zero\r\n\r\nFriday, April 11\r\n States covered: one\r\n Miles traveled: twenty to point of intercept\r\n Decent storms: one\r\n\r\nIf you want a hobby that”s fraught with ironies, storm chasing just might be for you. Yesterday”s much-anticipated weather event, with a synoptic setup that some had been comparing to the 1974 Super Outbreak, turned out to be a major bust. \r\n\r\nSo today I haul myself out of bed at eleven o”clock, feeling fuzzy from the jet lag of the previous day”s marathon, twenty-seven-hour drive, and I shower up, and then I fire up my laptop, and what do I see? A mesoscale discussion for Michigan, with a possible tornado watch in the works.\r\n\r\nHuh? No way.\r\n\r\nShaking my groggy head, I step outside, and what the…? Hazy blue skies; nice, moist air; warm southeast winds–geeze, this is what we were wishing for yesterday.\r\n\r\nI head back inside and pull up my GR3 radar program on my computer, expecting nothing this early in the day. And indeed, there is almost nothing–except, that is, for a big green hail marker by South Haven. But I can barely even see a storm on the radar using base reflectivity. Maybe if I switch to composite reflectivity…oh my gosh, yes, there”s a storm, all right. The radar updates. I flip back to base reflectivity, and now I can see a very nice, compact storm with an intense precipitation core, and with a characteristic shape that tells me this little guy is going places. The next scan, I can see a sweet little hook and a nicely cleft V-notch. The storm is definitely a supercell.\r\n\r\nAnd it is heading directly toward where I live.\r\n\r\nGood grief. Yesterday I drove over one-and-a-half-thousand miles chasing storms and got skunked, and here today I”ve got a beautiful storm making a beeline for my front door. If some fast-food chain ever enters the storm chasing market, this is what I hope their product will do. McNadoes. I”ll be their first customer in West Michigan.\r\n\r\nI give my chase partner Bill a jingle, then frantically round up my cameras and laptop and head over to his business. Within minutes, we”re bombing down the road. The storm is easily in view, right behind us, organizing nicely. I can see a rain-free base, and just north of it, a precip core. We”ll head east and give this bad boy time to mature.\r\n\r\nIt is at this point that the wonders of high tech seem slightly less than wonderful. My laptop has been giving me grief for some time, and between it booting up and then conking out on me unexpectedly, booting and conking out, booting and conking, along with problems connecting to the Internet, I feel about ready to bust an aorta. Other storms are forming rapidly to our south, but I can”t tell what”s happening with any of them because I can”t access my radar software.\r\n\r\nBut the storm we”re on is visible, big as day, and it”s looking better by the minute. We continue to head east down I-96, with the idea of pulling off at the M-66 interchange, meeting fellow chaser Kurt Hulst there, and letting the storm come to us.\r\n\r\nWe do, and here”s what we see…\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\nYou”re looking at a wall cloud with a possible funnel.\r\n\r\nThis, by the way, is my first attempt at adding a photo to my blog. It”s also my baptism into storm photography using my brand-spanking-new Canon EOS 400 (Rebel XTi) and Sigma 18-200mm lens with optical stabilization. I think I”m going to love this setup, and today”s chase wasn”t a bad way to familiarize myself with it.\r\n\r\nI might add, today marks the forty-third anniversary of the infamous Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak of April 11, 1965. It seems fitting to commemorate that event in such a fashion, with a supercell delivered to me practically gift wrapped as a compensation for yesterday”s long-range bust.

I”m on the road with my storm chasing partners Bill and Tom Oosterbaan and Kurt Hulst, headed for the Missouri bootheel and northeast Arkansas. Today”s impending weather has generated a lot of squawk, with several people comparing it to the 1974 Super Outbreak. However, the latest model runs have modified that picture a bit. The potential still exists for widespread tornadoes, but I doubt we”re going to see six EF5s out of this setup. It”s certainly worth hitting the highway for, though.\r\n\r\nAs I write, we”re near Buckley, Illinois, making our way south down I-57 through the rain. The time is nearly six a.m. CST, the sky is beginning to lighten in the east, and we”re expecting an update from the Storm Prediction Center any time now. At the moment, our two options seem to be to head south to Arkansas, which seems our likeliest bet, or else play farther north in Missouri around Columbia, where there”s a narrow strip of 1,500 CAPE progged for this afternoon. The next model runs could change everything, though.\r\n\r\nEnough for now. Regardless of what the afternoon and evening brings, it”s springtime, it”s storm season, and it”s good to be on the road.

Permit me one shameless, blatant, bald-faced plug, okay? It’s for my friend Ed Englerth’s new CD, Restless Ghost, and I don’t mind telling you it’s a fabulous album. In my personal opinion, it’s Ed’s best effort to date, combining superb songsmithing with impeccable engineering. I’m personally quite pleased with the sound Ed has pulled out of my saxophone, but I’m just as happy with what he’s done with Alan and Don on drums and bass, and with what they’ve done for him. Really, everything about this album is topnotch, and I’m proud to have been a part of it.\r\n\r\nEd writes from a rock and blues vein, but he’s eclectic in style and steadfastly resists any attempts to pigeonhole him. His lyrics are thoughtful and often brooding, a richly personal blend of angst and the irrepressible humor that comes out of him in conversation. This is not lightweight stuff; it’s written from a Christian perspective by a veteran musician who has seen and processed much of the gritty intersection between life and faith. His music is for the thinking man or woman, but don’t mistake it for cerebral. It’s clever, honest stuff dipped in the blues. I hope you’ll check it out.

“In Munchen steht ein Hofbrauhaus.\r\n “Eins, zvei, g”suffa!…”\r\n\r\nSo begins the chorus to the “Hofbrauhaus Song,” a tribute to German beer and German tradition. From the bandstand, I got to watch both come together in a sort of ongoing Oktoberfest at the grand opening of the Hofbrauhaus bier garten in Panama City, Florida.\r\n\r\nBesides being a fine musician, accordionist Dave Slivinski is a fabulous entertainer, a gregarious guy who loves to stroll off the bandstand and walk the tabletops, sit next to the patrons, and get the whole room singing, hoisting mugs, and enjoying themselves. It”s no gimmick with Dave. He really enjoys engaging with people, and he easily develops a rapport with his audience.\r\n\r\nI don”t possess anything like Dave”s gift for schmoozing, but that was fine. As his sax support, it was a pleasure, not to mention quite an experience, to simply play my horn and watch Dave work the crowd.\r\n\r\nHow effectively does a jazz sax player fit with a polka accordion player? Evidently, quite nicely. The people loved us. Here”s the deal: chords are chords and melodies are melodies; the rest is just a matter of interpretation, taste, and attitude. If I can get a feel for the style of the music being played, I can serve the music–and in serving the music, I serve the people listening.\r\n\r\nThere”s plenty more to say about my three liederhosen-clad days at Panama City Beach, and I”m not going to try to cram it all in here. Right now, it”s enough to say…\r\n\r\nI”m baaaaaack!

A paid Florida vacation? Gee, that”s not hard to take.\r\n\r\nI”ve never been to Florida, but the opportunity popped up suddenly a couple days ago with a phone call from Dave Slivinski. Dave, who is a coworker with my friend and musical cohort Dave DeVos, is the leader of The Dave Slivinski Band. As you”ll instantly pick up on when you visit Dave”s website, the band is a polka band, and I understand it”s a well-known, high-quality group.\r\n\r\nEvidently, a very cool gig came up for Dave, but the short lead time created conflicts with the schedules of some of his band members. So, at the behest of Dave DeVos, the call came my way. Looks like it”ll be Slivinski and me, making the drive down to Panama City to play for the grand opening of a bierhaus, the newest in a national chain owned by a large German brewer.\r\n\r\nSince I love craft beers and home brewing, this gig is right up my alley. Polkas? I used to play with a polka trio years ago. It”s not jazz, but it”s music, it can be quite high-caliber, and it”s a lot of fun. Moreover, I hear that Dave is a superb musician. All in all, I can”t imagine a better way to finally make my acquaintance with the Sunshine State.\r\n\r\nWe play Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And yes, I will be wearing liederhosen.

Speaking of weather–we were speaking of it, right?–it looks like my plans for a Sunday chase down in Texas are scrubbed, and with them, any thoughts of traveling with this present weather system as it deepens over the next few days.\r\n\r\nLooking at the roll call of components for a decent chase, I come up short.\r\n\r\nCAPE? Check. CAPE of 1,000 south of Dallas is sufficient. \r\n\r\nMoisture? Check. Dewpoints hovering around sixty degrees.\r\n\r\nBacking surface winds? Check.\r\n\r\nWinds veering with height? Check. \r\n\r\nUpper level support?\r\n\r\nAhem…upper level support?\r\n\r\nUpper level support, please report for duty. \r\n\r\nI just don”t see anything in the forecast models in the way of strong wind fields. Maybe that will change, but I can”t see making a 2,000-mile-plus round trip to find out. Actually, the trip would probably end up more in the neighborhood of 3,000 miles, since if my chase partner, Bill, and I drove down there, we”d almost certainly head along the Gulf Coast to check out the more promising setup Monday.\r\n\r\nBut gas isn”t getting any cheaper, time and energy are commodities that can”t be priced, and discretion now will hopefully pay off in the future as more vigorous scenarios move into the southern plains.\r\n\r\nAs for this Sunday, looks like it”ll be church as usual. And since I happen to love my little church, that”s just fine with me.

What is CAPE and what is its significance for severe weather? How does an outflow boundary originate? Where do you normally encounter drylines, and why do storm chasers love them? What is a supercell, and what are the three supercell modes? What is helicity, and how does it affect tornado formation?\r\n\r\nTake up storm chasing as a hobby and you”ll soon start asking questions about things you never even knew existed. The good news is, the Internet is rich in learning resources. You simply will not believe the information that is available on the web, or the professional-grade forecasting tools you can tap into online.\r\n\r\nOne great source of answers to scores of questions similar to the ones above is Haby Hints. Meteorologist Jeff Haby has provided a unique and invaluable educational site for weather novices. According to his bio, “Since the year 2000, Mr. Haby has launched theweatherprediction.com website. The website was developed to benefit his hundreds of current and past students as well as the web community at large.”\r\n\r\nHaby Hints is the place to go if you have questions about weather. The learning curve for becoming a storm chaser has to start somewhere, and there are no other sites I”m aware of that explain in such accessible, concise, and easy-to-understand language the atmospheric alchemy over which chasers ponder. If storm chasing or weather in general fascinates you, drop in on Haby”s site. It”s a class act, and well worth your while.