Storm Chasing in the Great Lakes

The snow has been flying today, as it has consistently for the past week, but at least the temperatures have risen into the balmy low twenties. For several days, they were down into the single digits, making for some bitterly cold days. And we had it good. Across the lake, in Wisconsin, I saw readings as low as -14 degrees Fahrenheit. Had it gotten that chilly here, I’d have been sorely tempted to put on a long-sleeve shirt before venturing outside.

Just kidding. This is has been some cold weather. January 2008 has proved to be a month of extremes. Two weeks ago, tornadic thunderstorms erupted as far north as Racine, Wisconsin, and I was chasing supercells in Missouri. Now, this. Such is life in Michigan, land of variety, contrast, and freezing your butt off.

It’s okay, though. March is only five weeks away, and for me, that marks the arrival of storm chasing season. Of course, I’m being optimistic here–Michigan winters have that effect on me. Wanting to push the envelope comes naturally this time of year. But I”m not being unrealistic. March produces some toothsome chase scenarios, as blobs of juicy Gulf of Mexico moisture begin to push northward into regions of radical lapse rates, wild helicities, and screaming jets.rnrnIf I sound a little overeager for severe weather right now, blame it on cabin fever. I’ve been cooped up in this icebox far too long. But the truth is, while I’ll chase the big storms when they visit my area, I have no desire for them to do so. The southern half of Michigan”s lower peninsula is simply too populous. Sure, a lot of it is still rural, but you can’t travel far without encountering a town, often a good-sized one. This is not the Great Plains. It’s Michigan, a state checkered with population centers–not a good place to have some mile-wide Oklahoma-style wedge carve a twenty-mile path.rnrnMichigan is also heavily forested, which doesn’t make storm chasing easy. It”s not as bad as chasing in the Ozarks, where one’s view of an approaching storm can be blocked by mountainous terrain, but it’s also not as good as those wide, gracious, open stretches of Kansas grassland.

Frankly, the most chaser-friendly territory I’ve seen so far has been central Illinois. It’s not only incredibly, breathtakingly flat, but it also has a beautiful gridwork of nice, straight roads, roads that behave themselves and rarely offer you unpleasant surprises. No clay that turns into chocolate pudding when wet and tries its damndest to slurp your vehicle into a ditch. No miles and miles of driving like a maniac to the nearest river crossing twenty miles away while the big storm of the day moves off to the east. Just, for the most part, a nice setup of very gentlemanly north-south/east-west roads spaced at regular intervals.

That’s Illinois: you not only can see the storms as far as forever, but you can also get to them without breaking a sweat.

It’s nice.

To all you Great Lakes chasers–I hope to bump into you out there sometime this spring.

January 22, 2008 by
Filed Under: Life, Storm Chasing

Putting It Together

I wish I had understood early on the value of getting away from notes on paper and getting everything in my head. During my days in music school, I memorized scales up the wazoo, but the actual applications that scales are intended to serve were things I consigned to paper. I remained glued to my Real Book, and to solo transcriptions such as the Charlie Parker Omnibook. Those are fabulous tools, but they’re just a means to the end. The goal is to download as much as possible of what they contain into one’s head and fingers, moving the music from the paper to the player. I didn’t make that connection for quite a while. Consequently, I had the ability to play scales and scale patterns at lightning speed, but I was lost when it came to actually making music out of them.

However, once I started memorizing a few of those Omnibook solos, something interesting happened. Suddenly my fingers began to find their way through the music. I began to develop my inner ear, and to connect it with my instrument in a very organic way. I worked mainly on blues and “Rhythm” changes–and the work paid off. The next step–actually transcribing a few solos myself, starting with a simple Wayne Shorter solo and moving on to Cannonball Adderley–provided even bigger dividends. The process of listening analytically, laboring over challenging musical passages, opened up my ears still more. I haven”t done a lot of transcribing, but I can vouch for its value in developing as an improvisor.

I definitely plan to sit down and transcribe a few more solos soon, and I’ve got just the tool to help me: a program called SlowGold. Available as an Internet download, it allows the transcriptionist to slow music down without changing its pitch, to the point where even very fast, complex passages, a la Michael Brecker, become accessible for analysis and memorization. You can select short passages and loop them, so you can hear them over and over at the tempo of your choice. You can also change the key to whatever you please. Ah, the wonders of digital technology!

To be honest, I haven’t really worked with this great resource yet, but it’s on the slate for 2008. The process for me involves analying short sections of a solo and writing them down. But the goal is always memorization.

Until you’ve memorized a solo, it’s not really yours–but once you’ve memorized it, really got it down cold, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how it begins to leak out into your playing in creative bits and pieces. You’re developing your inner ear–and as you do, your technique will follow. You’ve still got to spend plenty of time doing technical studies, but now you’re giving a focus to those scales, arpeggios, digital patterns, and licks. As you continue to hang actual musical flesh on your technical skeleton, you”ll love how the ideas begin to flow, and how your chops allow you to execute what you hear in your head fluidly and convincingly.

By the way, if you’re concerned that you’ll sound like a Phil Woods or a Charlie Parker clone if you memorize those players’ solos, don’t worry about it. In the first place, would it honestly be such a terrible thing to sound like Phil? If you ever do, count yourself very, very blessed–and congratulations! In the second place, if you want to find your own voice, trust me, you will, and memorizing solos is probably the shortest route to doing so. Learning from the giants doesn’t mean you become those giants. You’re simply embracing a wise, extremely practical tradition of jazz: going through others in order to arrive at yourself.

January 22, 2008 by
Filed Under: Entertainment, Jazz, Music, Saxophone

Cannonball, Hard Bop, and “Work Song”

More on Cannonball, one of the inescapable (as if you’d want to escape him!) influences on contemporary alto sax players. We’re fortunate to have a sizable body of his work, featuring him as both a group leader and as a sideman, notably with Miles Davis.

Cannonball’s technical abilities were remarkable, but his style largely reflects a trend from the harmonic complexity of bebop to a simpler, more visceral approach. Don’t take “simpler” to mean “simple,” though. There’s nothing simple about the playing of Cannonball Adderley. He was a ferocious player, with an inventive, very personal way of weaving “outside” playing into a wonderfully earthy, “inside” overall conception.

To me, Cannon is the essence of the hard bop approach, which combined tunes most listeners could readily get a feel for with lessons learned from the bebop pioneers. Arguably, no better-known example of what I’m talking about exists in the Cannonball repertoire than “Work Song.” According to the YouTube notes, the following rendition of it was performed in 1964 for the BBC series, Jazz 625. I give you…”Work Song.”

UPDATE: The YouTube clip that existed at the time this post was first published has since been taken down. Too bad, because it was exceptional, and my following comments hinged on it. As a compensation, the above link now takes you to an alternative, 1962 rendition. Sorry, no Charles Lloyd on tenor, but Cannon still burns like crazy!

Geeze, do you think those guys could play, maybe? Just listen to how they build energy. By the time Charles Lloyd is wrapping up his tenor solo, I want to stamp my feet and yell like a crazy man. Cannonball exudes a real joie de vivre. His group must have had a lot of fun playing together!

In previous posts on Sonny Stitt and Phil Woods, I’ve noted those players’ economy of motion. Bop lines like the ones they weave have no business originating from men who seem to barely move their fingers. By contrast, watch Cannonball’s fingers. They’re all over the place. So…who wants to critique his technique? Not me, that’s for sure. Besides, I’m of the philosophy, “Whatever gets the job done.” When it comes to that, Cannonball had everything it took and way, way more.

January 21, 2008 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Music, Saxophone, Video

Cannonball Adderley: Primitivo

Let’s talk about Cannonball Adderly. Better yet, let’s get an earful of him–or should I say, of his sextet. Cannon doesn’t take the spotlight in the tune you’re about to hear, preferring to let his other band members shine.

The year is 1962, and “Primitivo” is the name of the Cannonball composition. The title aptly describes this brooding, chant-like modal piece with its droning bass and loose yet relentless rhythmic feel. Yusef Lateef plays a marvelous, haunting oboe solo–no pyrotechnics, nothing fancy, just a beautiful use of motif, with phrases ending on the same pitch–a note that falls off at the end like a sigh.

There’s plenty more to say about this tune, but I’m talking too much. Let’s listen.

Wow. Talk about mood. Talk about colorful note and scale choices. Talk about rapport between musicians. This tune has it all.

January 18, 2008 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Music, Recording, Saxophone, Video

Must-See Storm Chasing Videos

The old adage, “One picture is worth a thousand words,” is quadruply true when it comes to video. So if you wonder why I work up such a lather over storm chasing, just check out the clips on Robert Prentice”s Atmospheric Images on YouTube.

In particular, you definitely want to watch Prentice”s video segment on the history-making 1999 Moore-Bridge Creek, Oklahoma, tornado. This was the last tornado to be rated an F-5 under the old Fujita Scale (updated last February and renamed the Enhanced Fujita Scale), and it sent that rating system out with the highest winds ever recorded–over 300 miles per hour.

My own videos are not, to date, of a quality I care to make public, though they are improving. Thankfully, seasoned chasers such as Prentice have produced a huge volume of top-quality storm videos, and Prentice has very generously made much of his material public. If you’re at all interested in storm chasing or severe weather, Prentice”s clips are a must-see.

January 16, 2008 by
Filed Under: Entertainment, Life, Music, Recording, Storm Chasing, Video, Weather

Storm Season 2008: Priming the Pump

After all those ruminations about Sonny Stitt and bebop, it’s high time for another storm chasing post. Got just the thing for you: education. That’s right, education. After all, you can’t intercept storms successfully without knowing a thing or two about them.

Last year was the year when I felt I finally had learned a few things about severe weather. Not that I was clueless before–2006 was a great chase year for me, and 2005 wasn’t too shabby, either–but last year I racked up a good 14,000 miles or more chasing storms everywhere from the Texas/Oklahoma panhandles, to South Dakota, to Wisconsin, to Indiana, to–dare I say it?–Michigan, and a few other states in between. Saw a few tornadoes for the trouble, too, not to mention some great storm structure. I witnessed my first tornado last year in late February just east of Kansas City, Missouri, and I bagged my last supercell in Indiana during a regional outbreak on October 18. That event produced a number of tornadoes, a couple of which did EF-3 damage.

This year has gotten off to an even earlier start with the big January 7 Midwest tornado outbreak. So I’m hoping this will be my best chase year yet. My buddies and I are bulking up for it with a forecasting inservice tomorrow at the National Weather Service office out by the airport. I’m really excited about this–it’ll be a great way to prime the pump for 2008.

The guy who will be conducting the inservice is quite enthused about it, too. John is a young fella who has immersed himself in studying severe weather, particularly tornado climatology and tornadogenesis (i.e. how tornadoes form). He’s passionate about his topic and eager to share his knowledge. Tomorrow evening, he will be giving me and my chase buddies, Bill Oosterbaan, Tom Oosterbaan, and Kurt Hulst, his presentation on synoptic (large-scale) setups that are responsible for the bulk of significant tornadoes in our area. This will include his analysis of the 1980 Kalamazoo tornado. From there, we’ll get John’s input on how to make maximum use of the SPC’s mesoanalysis tools, and how to use other forecast models and parameters that are available on the Internet.

It’s amazing just how many weather tools you can access for absolutely free these days on the Web. We’re talking about some truly superb tools, too–professional-quality stuff designed by and used daily by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the SPC (Storm Prediction Center). This is one area where you can get real bang for your tax bucks. From Doppler radar, to satellite images, to soundings, to numerical models, the challenge is no longer finding powerful resources for storm chasing; it’s sifting through the bewildering array of options to find the right tools, and learning how to use them effectively.

There’s no end to the learning. That is one of the daunting things about storm chasing–and one of the wonderful things. Whether you”re sitting in front of a computer pondering a 500 millibar vorticity chart, or watching a dry slot wrap around a mesocyclone two miles away, there is always, always, always something new to discover. I can”t wait to see what this year has in store!

January 16, 2008 by
Filed Under: Life, Storm Chasing

Foundations in Bebop

Bebop is to jazz what Baroque harmony is to classical music. Both became the “common practice” of their genre, foundations on which the entire body of music that was to follow would stand. Even seemingly unrelated musical expressions, such as Schoenberg’s atonalism or Miles’s modalism, were creative attempts to break free from what had gone before, and as such are vitally linked to the common practice of their genre.

This is why I’ve concentrated quite a bit on developing my bebop capabilities–not that I’ve by any means mastered bop, but I get around in it fairly well, well enough to hold my own in most settings. My philosophy has been that a good foundation in the common practice of jazz, bebop, will equip me to handle a broad range of other music besides. The premise is simple: metaphorically speaking, if I own a car that can top out at one hundred thirty miles an hour, I know it will handle seventy, no sweat.

The harmonic sophistication and technical demands of bop lead to the development of a respectable musical toolkit. The melodic language is nearly as universal as the blues; a lot of it is in fact dipped in the blues, and works with reasonable success in blues bands.

There is one challenge I face, though, that stems from saturating myself in a particular style. It’s hard to break out of the box and think in a different mode. I have to remind myself to lay back, take it easy, and not default to frenetic double-timing when I’m playing some up-tempo piece with the Grand River Blue Cats. That approach doesn”t fit, or rather, it fits when used sparingly. Ditto with smooth jazz. I am not a smooth jazz player–not that I can”t handle it, but it’s not my area of concentration. Smooth jazz is a highly nuanced music. A lot of it isn”t particularly challenging technically, but that doesn”t mean it’s simple stuff. You have to think in a smooth idiom, and in order to do that, you have to listen to a lot of the stuff. And to be honest, when I”m getting set to plunk down my fifteen bucks for a CD, I naturally gravitate to something a little more hardball. Jackie McLean. Mike Brecker. Cannonball. Eric Marienthal. That’s just my musical instinct, and maybe I need to broaden it.

But that being said, while I”m no music educator, I’ve heard it said more than once that a lot of young players are sidestepping the roots. That”s too bad. Bebop may not be what everyone listens to these days, but it remains the foundation, the source of much contemporary musical language. Studying it–really getting inside it and working at it–pays off. The best players know that”s true.

January 15, 2008 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Music, Saxophone, Uncategorized

Sonny Stitt

My earliest encounter with Sonny Stitt was through a live performance album that featured Sonny on alto, Miles on trumpet, and Stan Getz on tenor. That was back in my college days, and at the time, I couldn”t detect a difference between Stitt and Bird. Both had a blazing technique, and both had a phenomenal command of bebop.

Today, of course, the differences are instantly discernible. Bird was simply nonpareil. His rhythmic approach was considerably more sophisticated than Stitt”s; his vocabulary was broader; his technique, more facile; his overall conception, more inventive.

But that is hardly to diminish Stitt. I am, after all, comparing him to Charlie Parker, and if Stitt stands in the shadow of Bird, he nevertheless stands dauntingly tall. Sonny Stitt was a monster of bebop, and when I listen to him today, my admiration for his playing remains as strong as ever.

Lately, I’ve been listening to a CD called Sonny Stitt: Just In Case Your Forgot How Bad He Really Was. The title is an apt one. The venue is once again a live performance, or possibly a couple live performances, featuring such other sax notables as Richie Cole and John Handy. Stitt plays both alto and tenor, and he shines on each.

Sonny’s quicksilver technique allowed him to execute the fastest passages with precision and conviction. He loved to play in double-time, and he typically outshone most other sax players at it. On this CD, the opening tune, a blues, spotlights Sonny’s penchant for high velocity playing. Following a riff-style blues head, Stitt, the sole horn man, charges into his solo with the aggressiveness of a heavyweight boxer on meth. The mode is double-time from the get-go–inventive, impeccable, a bebop tour de force a la Stitt. You just can”t ask for better.

I hadn’t listened to Sonny for quite a while, so it’s nice to return for a reminder of “how bad he really was.” He was the baddest! He was also accessible. He”s fun to play along with, and to absorb as best I can. Not that I”ll ever sound like Sonny–not that I would ever want to; I want my own language. But when it comes to a mentor in bebop, Sonny is hard to beat and well worth emulating. The man knew a huge number of tunes, and he knew them well. He also knew his horn inside out, and he had a solid command of the building blocks of music. To listen to him analytically is to sit at the feet of a true jazz master. If you at all aspire to excellence on the saxophone, don’t–do NOT–pass him up. Listen, be amazed, learn, and grow.

January 14, 2008 by
Filed Under: Entertainment, Jazz, Music, Saxophone, Uncategorized

Church Music

I’ve been a follower of Jesus for nearly thirty years now, and from day one, I”ve played my saxophone as one of the means God has given me to worship him. I love doing so. However, I”m afraid the word worship is fraught with preconceptions and bad theology among Christians, and over the years, I’ve concluded I can’t live up to some of the expectations that arise as a result.

What do I mean? The best way I can explain myself is to consider a common saying among Christians in regard to the role of church musicians. To hear it told, my job is to “usher people into the presence of God.” I used to believe that, but today, I don’t think it’s possible. I can”t conjure up God’s presence, and I can’t cause people to experience it. The best I can do is simply worship God myself with earnestness and passion, whether with my instrument, or my voice, or simply in listening and silence. The rest is up to God and individual hearts.

Worship is an organic, intimate experience, and it deviates from person to person. One person may be filled with joy, and exuberant praise comes naturally to him; another may be struggling with a broken heart, and tears are the truest expression of her connection with God. A few seats down sits a couple who got into a nasty argument before church, and who are too pissed off at each other to feel very good about being in church at all right now. And those examples are just for starters.

In the midst of all the variables in even a small gathering, I’m supposed to “usher people into God”s presence”? Sorry, but I”m a musician, not a magician. I can”t usher anyone anywhere. Worship is part heart attitude and part divine action. It isn”t about selecting the right tunes, or about getting everyone to clap, or raise their hands, or dance, or any of that. Worship is a condition of the heart, and nothing I do can produce it in others. The best I can do is cultivate it in myself, and express it in ways that hopefully will free up others to follow me. Beyond that, I enter into spiritual manipulation, and I”m not willing to go there. I”ve seen too much of it, and it never bears good fruit.

Do I believe the Holy Spirit shows up in the midst of worship? Absolutely. But I can’t make him do so, nor can I determine how he will do so. I do think too many churches are so preoccupied with seamless musical productions they call “praise and worship” that they don’t give the Lord much opportunity to get a word in edgewise. I wonder how differently we would approach the act of corporate worship if we actually expected God to show up–if we really believed that he might have something to communicate or accomplish that placed the focus on his performance, not ours. Perhaps we”d be less concerned with smooth segues from one tune to the next, and more concerned with listening for his voice.

On the day of Pentecost, no mention is made of a well-rehearsed praise band facilitating the event which transpired in that upper room. As a church musician, I find this thought humbling, reassuring, and freeing. It allows me to keep things simple, and not make more of myself than I am. Because it’s not about me, it’s about Jesus. I’m just a man who plays the saxophone, and who loves God, and who has been given the gift of music as a language to express my love to my Lord. Hopefully, in what I and my fellow praise team members play, you will find something that frees and inspires you to find your own voice, be it song, or laughter, or tears, or whatever it is that most genuinely expresses your connection with God in the moment.

If you’ve prepared your heart through prayer, you’ll encounter God on your own, and if not, God may choose to initiate contact anyway, just because he loves you. Worship musicians can enhance an atmosphere for such a connection, but that’s about it. The rest is up to you and God.

It’s a matter of the heart.

January 13, 2008 by
Filed Under: Band, Christian Music, Church Worship, Entertainment, Jazz, Life, Music, Saxophone, Uncategorized

Of Jazz and Whirlwinds

Last Saturday I played a big band gig in Bay City, Michigan.

Monday I intercepted a tornadic thunderstorm in Columbia, Missouri.

Those two pursuits–jazz music and storm chasing–may seem miles apart, but the passion that drives them is the same. And I have to think, as a person in whom both interests dwell with equal intensity, that they are related in other ways as well.

Each is, at heart, a search for beauty.

Each is a compelling and richly satisfying adventure, one that revels in exploration, challenge, intensity, wildness, and something within me that is bigger than myself.

Each unites knowledge and an endless thirst to learn with intuition and an unquenchable desire to experience something sublime.

In jazz, I prepare myself through countless practice sessions that culminate in the joy of a well-crafted improvisation. In storm chasing, my preparation lies in honing my forecasting skills, and the payoff is standing on a Kansas roadside, watching a tornado dance across the prairie a mile away.

In both pursuits, the discipline required is rewarding in its own right. Yet that adult quality of discipline leads ultimately to being caught up in the moment in a way that lets the child in me run wild and free.

In a jazz, solo, I’m swept up in the swirl of the music, the rush of ideas that tumble from my imagination into my fingers and out the bell of my horn. At the edge of a storm, I”m caught up in the environment; I feel the inbounds racing around me toward the updraft base, watch twirling filaments reach earthward from a rapidly morphing wall cloud, and yell in exuberance at the wildness of it all.

Both in playing jazz and chasing storms, in different ways, I encounter my heavenly Father. I experience his magnificent creativity, his awesome power, his childlike playfulness, and his tremendous worth. In jazz, I participate in God’s creative nature, and in so doing, I reflect it back to him as worship. In storm chasing, I stand apart from an act of creativity far too immense and uncontrollable for me to ever participate in. I can only admire it “in awesome wonder”–and see in it the face of the great Creator, and feel his extravagant, untamed pleasure.

One of my life goals is to get a decent video clip of myself playing my saxophone out on the Great Plains as a huge honking wedge tornado churns in the background a mile away. Crazy? Damn right. I like being crazy that way. It’s how God wired me. It’s a part of who I am–and the reason why this website is named Stormhorn.com.

January 10, 2008 by
Filed Under: Church Worship, Entertainment, Jazz, Life, Music, Storm Chasing
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