Playing Drums: Bet You Didn’t Know It Was This Easy

I’m visiting with my youngest brother, Brian, and his family in Dallas. Brian and I are the musical bookends among our siblings, Brian having earned his music degree at North Texas State University and gone on to make his living as a professional drummer. I haven’t yet shown him the following link. I’m sure he’ll feel stunned to know how easy playing the drums really is. Yes, stunned is no doubt the word. You don’t even need drums, not today in this age of quality technology. All you need is the miraculous keyboard featured in this video. If you’re playing rock and roll, just make sure to play the bass drum on da firs’ beat and on da turd beat.

Heaven help me and all other horn men if the guy in the video ever turns his eyes toward the saxophone. We’ll all be out of a job.

June 30, 2009 by
Filed Under: Humor, Jazz, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

“Oleo” a la Hancock and Brecker

How about a romp through Rhythm changes? I’m always intrigued to see the different ways that master musicians handle that most contrafacted of all chord progressions besides the blues. The tune in this case is “Oleo,” and the band is Herbie Hancock, Buster Williams, Al Foster, Bobbie McFerrin, and Michael Brecker.

The YouTube video you’re about to see is a truly weird, creative, and delightful rendition, with McFerrin scat singing and acting a total goofball…and obviously having a blast. But I don’t think there’s any doubt that while these guys are just dinkering around, loose and laughing, the level of musicianship and interplay is monstrous. And need I say, Brecker delivers on the tenor sax.

This is a funny, fun, and really insane musical excursion that I think you can only loosely call “Oleo.” But you’ve heard enough from me. Give the band a listen.

May 2, 2009 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Music, Saxophone, Video 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,