Everything Happens to Me.mp3

Everything Happens to Me

First blog entry on this new host site. Tumblr.
Gotta remember to write to these folks and mention that they misspelled Tumbler. they’ll be glad someone noticed.

About this tune ‘Everything Happens to Me.’ It figured prominently in my life a few years back. still does, come to think of it.

I make a date for golf
you can bet your life it rains
i try to throw a party
and the guy upstairs complains.
i guess i’ll go through life just catching colds and missing trains
everything happens to me

you gotta love the lyrics. murtphy’s law in verse. a guy named…well i don’t recall his name. how unfortunate. don’t remember who wrote the tune either.
i had cereal for breakfast; this much i remember.
no. that was yesterday.

well the memory is not as sharp these days. i’m often apalled at the large cracks that seem to have opened up in the sinkhole that is my short term memory. is it age? is it underuse? is it the toxic fumes of the newly installed utility poles? who the fuck knows. i don’t recall why i care.

and yet.

and yet there it is. changes inside and out. changes in thinking, psychology. changes in geography. changes on top of changes, heaped high like so many sunday morning pancakes.
so.
Everything Happens to Me…today’s project. Yesterday’s actually.

i had been away from this for awhile, having spent time in Boston visiting my favorite son and his favorite girl. Wonderful time we had.

Walden Pond and Lowell Mass; visiting two of my favorite authors and thinkers. Neither had much to say; they’re still dead and all…

So i literally dove head first into Chet’s project again becuase i thought i had to . i wanted to but i had to too. tutu.

curiously, what began as a forced reentry quickly turned on a dime; i wanted to sing.

"Deep in a Dream" mp3

deep in a dream.mp3


Ok kids.

This is the next tune up for the Chet Baker Project. It's called "Deep In A Dream"

This is, incidentally, the title of Chet's exhaustive if not exhausting biography by James Gavin, the same guy who wrote the 2009 Lena Horne biography entitled: Stormy Weather, the Life of Lena Horne

It's NOT on the album "It could happen to you" for those of you sick and tired of that one. If you are one of these folks, tsk tsk tsk.
We're no longer going steady. I'm giving your ring back right now.

In the spirit of experimentation, which this entire project most certainly smells like to me, i decided to change things up a bit and try recording keys first instead of drums.

I thought, what the heck, this is not an up-tempo number; i should be able to stay on top of the changes well enough to deliver a serviceable track using only a clic.

Hmmm. Yeah.
Turns out not.

I tried but the clic (remember that this infernal yet indispensable tool, if you don't happen to have access to drum loops, is an electronic metronome that sounds like, well....CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK and maybe,
Click click click CLACK, Click click click CLACK to emphasize the beat sequence.
Annoying and musically violent.

So i went back to my original technique, that of laying down a VSTi drum track using a Clic as metronomic (is that a word?) reference.

Well this worked fine UNTIL i laid down a keys track.
Cuz this is when i discovered that i hadn't drawn out the drum track long enough. And the result was that i ran out of drum track during my fucking chord changes track. Shit. it's always something man.
Hey wait a minute. Now THIS would be an acronym i could get behind. an acronym for 'it's always something man'

what would that be...IASM...hmmmm.
Naw, that still sucks.

ANd besides, that would go against the bylaws of my yet-to-be-formed political action committee:

People for an Acronym-Free Earth or PAFE. Yeah!

Rock on PAFE!!!

Yeah so anyway, i really need to figure out how to make a drum loop so i can just plug it in to my tracks. But maybe by not having one, it is somehow more organic.
Organic Virtual Instruments?
Oh dear.

SO what i came away with during the process of recording "Deep in a Dream" is that it behooves me to keep the tracks as long as possible. To make as long a pass at a track as possible.

In other words, record a part over the entire form of the tune instead of just running 16 bars of something, copying it and pasting it along the entire track. The less carved up the tracks are, the less hassle when arranging the tune.

This becomes wildly apparent in situations where the parts i've recorded have been punched in and sliced up and moved around over segments of tracks that do not always correspond to full measures and phrases.

Man that there is hair-pulling, feet stomping elementary school style, i tell you what...

The tracks themselves, the musical aspects i mean, are getting better. Little by little i'm able to stay in tune with my voice for longer periods. Sometimes i can play entire tracks without screwing up every other measure.

A few times i've actually thought it sounded pretty good. these days i am satisfied with my efforts.

in fact, there is one thing that is happening fairly regularly that to tell you the truth, has me baffled.

when i sing sometimes, a note will hit me just right and i'll puddle up. i know it sounds wacky but there it is. i almost have to stop. i feel like i have to sometimes. but i never do. i swallow hard and try to make the next note. i don't understand but then, what makes me think i would?

I'm paying attention to the phenomenon though and i'll let you know if i start going through handkerchiefs by the dozens.


That said, another part of this whole crazy thing, the practice aspect of this project is grinding its way closer to fruition. At some point I'll be able to dial up any of these Chet tunes and use them to practice solos on horn, piano, voice, spoons, didgeridoo, washboard....

Ahhhhh... washboard.

Nothing like thumping on a hundred-year-old laundry aid to get the blood moving. warms the cockles of a dyed-in-the-wool jazz hound, pioneer style.

Yepper

Back from not here

Chet, shmet. This blog entry is about me and where i was.

All the names are changed to protect the innocent.

The plane was full. These days, this is always the case.
We took off from Austin. It was hot. Of course it was.
Couple of hours later we landed in Orlando. Disney World is there and it's apparent; you can't swing a dead roadrunner without hitting some sort of cartoon figure.

A short six hours later we landed at Logan in Boston. Not a new airport. Grey walls, grey air and dirty windows.
Half hour later, i was sitting in the front seat of my son's car. God it was nice to see him. Too too long. Too long. He looked great.

Another half hour later we are sitting in his kitchen. I'm drinking the one beer that was in the fridge and the three of us are chatting. His favorite girl is making a dinner of tofu and beans and greens and garlic and quinoa. It was 11:30 PM. They eat late apparently. It was good to see her. She looked good too. Maybe we all looked good.

It was the first of many late nights. I got to bed after 2 but slept better than i do at home. Go figure.

Next morning Z drove me over to Brighton Ave to pick up my rental car: a 2009 PT Cruiser...with no cruise control. Go figure.

I love to drive and the day was spectacular, one of those clear crisp early Fall days you get up in the Northeast, just before it gets cold and everything goes to shit.
The first person i meet on this trip turns out to be an old gnarled-hand farmer somewhere between Albany and Cazenovia on old Route 20 west. I got off the thruway because that's what i do: i explore new things.

A roadside sign talking about farm fruits and vegetables caught my eye. and although i passed it one way, i decided to break with tradition and turn around and go back. I was glad i did.

He was just coming in from the fields when i pulled in the U-shaped gravel driveway in front of his ramshackle farm house. the place was a mess. peeling paint, sagging foundation, bulging walls.

He looked to be about 65, his tan face showed the deep furrows of an 80-year-old. he spoke with an even tone, and he smiled readily.

but it was his hands that struck me. workingman hands. dark, shrunken skin belying their massive size. dirty. real dirty hands, fingernails chipped, black under the leading edges. grease on his sleeves.

his teeth were brown and pointy. i think he used to have more of them as there were gaps between the ones that showed when he smiled.

i bought some of his apples (which turned out to be crisp and tart empires) and some of his grape tomatoes (which i snacked on for the next 800 miles or so)
Neither of these he actually grew himself. He confessed that he buys them somewhere else. Yep.

Next person up on my little voyage upstate was my brother. he's my older brother but just barely; he's one year ahead of me, chronologically that is. In other ways, he's miles in front. He's very driven and very successful in the business world. More power to him. He's a nice guy dedicated to making good.

I didn't see him for very long, just a few hours while watching a television show about the guy who is really smart yet very physically fucked. Poor guy. Not really poor though. Very rich in many ways other than physical. I bet he's a great guy too, in addition to being touted as the smartest astrophysicist in the world. Man he's a challenge to look at though.

Anyway, my bro and i talked some talk and then hit the hay, me to my second garret above the garage, he to his front bedroom where his best girl was already snoring. She wasn't up when i got there at 9 although i think i heard her banging around back there from time to time. They get up so early.


So i got up next day and took off for ithaca. i went to my friend's place and we spoke of elemental psychological emotional spiritual things. Our usual. It was good, it always is. he hadn't been at all communicative despite my best email and phone efforts so i made sure to let him know i wasn't pleased. i just asked him how is job was going. had he received any of my emails or phone calls. his responses and mild admittance of culpability satisfied me and we moved on.

I asked him how he spends his days. He told me. I described my days and we moved on. I love talking to him. i wish we could do it more often. i invited him once again to austin. he won't come. for a hip committed to awareness-kind-of-man, he's pretty well set in his ways.

I went to Jim's. I found him outdoors reading and studying his Hellenistic Astrology. it was a warm day and i was gratified to find him clothed, albeit shirtless. we shared some very interesting conversation as always. very interesting.

he is convinced after hearing what i've been up to and after catching me up on his work situation and the kids etc., that i need to put more energy into recollecting feelings of joy that live in my soul.

Apparently in our souls there exists a warehouse full of all the feelings we've ever experienced. so my job is to recollect and collect again all the feelings of joy i can in my life. those times when everything was so positive and good and easy and happy and peaceful (a la Billy Pilgrim in Vonnegut's 'slaughterhouse five.'

The other thing i have to do is to ask the universe to show me my next 'right' place in the world. my next right thing, the next thing that is just right for my next step in the world.

he said that if i am experiencing success in music then i should by all means keep going in that direction.

so this felt right. this felt good and sensible and doable. we spent a few minutes in the house going over my chart in terms of his new Hellenistic Astrological viewpoint. He played through a few pieces on his beautiful Mason. he is an incredible pianist. amazing. he shared some techniques with me.
I asked him about fingering patterns for scales and tension in my arms and hands and whatnot. he explained that one of the first things he learned as a young piano student, was to immediately tuck his thumb under when his index finger was on the keyboard.

finger/thumb under.
finger/thumb under.
finger/thumb under.

so when i start playing again, i'll practice that.

He also described the difference between pushing down on the keys as opposed to pulling. you stroke the keys. that's another thing i'll pick up on when i start playing again.

it was getting late and i still had to go up to the storage unit to pick up my congas and make the drive to Syracuse so we said our goodbyes.

So i drove off in the breezy sunshine heading north. i decided to give my sneaker shopping a try so i stopped in to the Pyramid Mall. Good ole pyramid mall. Good ole Mall...came up short though. no problem. gosh it was a beautiful day.

next up...Dane. Damn what a long time it had been since last we were together. so long. so much had happened during that time. so much. i was interested to see what he looked like.

when i got there he was sleeping on the couch. anticlimax? a little. but it was fine. We had a little time till we needed to fetch Chris at the train station so we decided to take a walk.

we talked as we walked. his dog rita was on a leash until we got to the school playground. as we strolled on the damp grass we took turns answering each other's questions about our respective lives and the twists and turns they had taken during the 15 years since we were together.

he told me that he had given up on finding a companion. that he had been with many during the last 20 years but none stuck. i felt bad for him. but i totally understand the sentiment.

it takes just as much emotionally imbued thought to seek a relationship as it does to maintain one. the logistics alone is enough to be all right with staying in on Friday night despite the wretched feeling of being alone when no one else is.

life lived alone is an acquired taste for most of us. I found out i haven't the stomach for it. at least not now.

chet baker FORGETFUL

Forgetful.mp3

FORGETFUL

Lately, you've been so forgetful
a kind of a
stop and go forgetful
that bothers me

That's how this tune starts. Forgetful.
i picked this one to do first because i'm lazy and i trust in things like visual cues and happenstance.

what the hell does that mean? beats me. 'cept it happens to be the truth.

i chose this one to be the first cuz something had to be first, otherwise there would be no second. or third. or 43rd for that matter.

i chose it monday morning. it seemed like a good time to begin something. and besides, i have been working on solo piano recordings for a few weeks and i happen to be in the neighborhood.

anyway, so this tune, my rendition, sucks. hard.
and what does actually make up the lion's share of the suckage?

well, there's so much to choose from. where to begin?
how about if i start with the methodology...

this is my first attempt. so let's be fair.


i'm not a singer. i've sung exactly twice in my life. one was just last month when i entered a jingle contest. another story. one for a later post. glad, right?

So....this tune 'Forgetful', my first chet tune in this project.

i began by finding the chart for the tune.

A chart, for those not familiar with us very hip musicians, is the piece of music we like to call a 'head chart' aka, 'leadsheet' aka 'chart.' this is the piece of paper on which is written the tune's title, the composer and the music.

the music on these charts, chart out the changes (the chords), the melody, the time signature and key. Also on these charts is everything else you would expect to see in a piece of music...everything except things like orchestral cues, dynamic markings. harmony parts and explicit solo manuscript.

so in this case ('FORGETFUL') i began by learning the changes (the chords) for the tune.

this is not as easy it sounds because apparently, learning the changes is not enough; one needs to put them in the right place...and at the right time.

who knew?

just kidding of course. i know all of this. but sadly, the doing is not made that much easier for the knowing.

so after the chords and the placement of the chords along the timeline of the tune (oh yeah, i forgot to say that before any of this, i needed to come up with a tempo, i.e., the speed of the tune. the tempo for FORGETFUL is 100 bpm (beats per minute) just so you know.


anyway, after the tempo and the chords, i began making recording passes. and this is where things get interesting.

To play music is one thing. to record yourself playing music is quite another. it demands a whole lot of shit. a whole lot of 'non-musical' shit. and if you don't know it, you can't record. and if your goal is to record...well you know where i'm going with this.

it's a bit of a juggling act, recording. especially if you are the musician as well as the recordist. not complaining. just fact. hard, cold ugly fact.

don't get me wrong. recording is fun...well, sometimes. to hear yourself playing can be both exhilarating and demoralizing, sometimes both and at the same time. which doesn't help my ambivalence with regard to my musicianship.

what you do is this:

make a new track, then click on about six buttons each choosing things like: monitoring system setting, midi patches, mono/stereo input, output device selection, recording level, monitoring level and routing matrix.

yeah. i know. all fun and intuitive choices...clearly intuitive. yeah, we were all born with this kind of technological background knowledge. uh huh.

suffice it to say it took me months to get so i could make these adjustments and settings in less than 5 seconds. i know. i'm fucking awesome. i know it.

with all these settings...uh...set, i can punch the little red bullseye in the transport bar of the editor window and we're off to the races. yep. off to the races.

except for the times i forget to arm the metronome, or set the other tracks to "not record" or un-solo the dummy tracks (if any).

if i haven't screwed the pooch on any of these parameters, it is indeed time to record, to 'lay down the snoopy and shred' as my good friend Woodstock Peef says.

In the case of 'FORGETFUL', this was less than smooth. i think i ended up recording and deleting about a dozen piano tracks before i decided to go ahead and lay down a drum track instead.

this'll get easier right?

well, perhaps.

Except when I need to lay down a drum track.

Drums are big. And because i don't want to drag my drum set into the living room, on account of that's where we eat and whatnot, i dialed up the fx editor and chose a MIDI patch from a music library (sadly the only music library) i have tucked away in the bowels of REAPER.

These VSti's--the virtual instruments available to use when recording a song is a much longer story than i care to relate right now. maybe later, over a beer or three.

Suffice it to say that they are digital samples of real instruments. Yeah, i know. what the hell?

Considering the Connection between Emotion and Melody

I took a bike ride.

I was forced to on account of there was so much noise and disruption outside.

Utility crews are fixing some broken dirt. They must be using really dull tools. Either that or they're just plain having fun; little big boys playing together, with big ass equipment. Fun for the entire family. Loud fun.

Anyway i wrote the following while sitting on my favorite pedestrian bridge in Austin. It's one of several bridges spanning the Colorado River as it meanders thru the Capitol City. the bridge does a little meandering itself as its not straight; it undulates, wiggles its way across the green fast-moving water.

Trouble is, the city insists on calling it a lake. Which is puzzling because it's not. Not really.

When i first visited Austin i remember wondering why they named it Town Lake. It's clearly not a lake; it's clearly a river. Lakes are big and somewhat entire--monolithic like a pond or something, not straight and narrow like a...a river. Lakes are supposed to have an inlet and an outlet, at least that's what my Earth Science book claims.

Anyway they changed the name. It's not Town Lake anymore (although why they went with something as prosaic as Town Lake i've no idea). Now it's Lady Bird Lake (which you might find head-scratcher as well, that is,if you didn't happen to know that Lady Bird, silly sounding name as it is, happens to be the dead wife of one of our dead presidents: a Texan by the name of Lyndon Johnson. .

Yeah, so i sat down in the sunshine on this serpentine bridge that connects North with South and i wrote this: It concerns the mystery of Music.

After slugging my way through 'It Could Happen to You' this afternoon it occurs to me that perhaps the thing that eludes me--the element that remains missing--that has been missing all these years--is not so much an element at all but an attitude.

Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl Rast tells a story. He says that we have sometimes a grasping, clutching attitude towards life.

Says that we're all born with this 'monkey brain'-sort-0f-deal. I can totally see what he means. I mean it seems most of us are walking around with a fair amount of caution., some would say uncertainty, maybe even dread. And our response to this tenuous planetary life we got going here can sometimes be to hold on to what we DO have lest it too slips from our grasp.

Think about it:

What is the first thing a doctor does when we are born? He or she shakes the table or slaps the bottom of our feet, or cuffs our butt, to see if we are alive and well. And what is our response? we reach out for something to hold. like a monkey trying desperately to hold on to its mother as she swings from branch to branch.

This response to life extends past diapers, touching even the most basic of human needs: the quest of the human heart for meaning.

Br. David talks about the dilemma we so often face in life: whether to play it safe, take no risks, keep everything on an even keel so as to avoid the oftentimes troublesome unknown or do we venture past our comfort zones, test the boundaries set by inertia, and run the risk of tribulation?

until we discover that the truth is something that HOLDS US, that we give ourselves to it and then it holds US.

Not something that we hold onto, that we grasp and clutch to our breasts like the monkey clinging to its mother.

This becomes an attitude held in us, by us.

And this is what i am wondering about as i sit here on this breezy sun-drenched wavy gravy bridge.

This 'element', this 'attitude' about what it means to create music, to play 'good,' is it something i can give myself to and then let it hold me

or is it something that i must struggle to acquire then maintain and rigidly hold, wielding it like some Medieval knight crashing into battle?

Is this idle curiosity? NO.

This project, this all-inclusive resort for the high-minded that i've begun, has put me touch with all the elements of music that have baffled me since i first remembered that i wanted to play something 'good.'

Part of the project is me acting like i know how to do this shit. i know how to come up with changes, i know how to comp, i know how to engineer, i know how to improvise, i know how to operate instruments and on and on. Really?

So as i struggle to play what i hear, to sing the notes i hear in my head, to sound like a musician that has something meaningful to say, this one thought remains: what's it take to translate emotion into music?

I know this question yet its answer continues to elude me. But maybe this concept of attitude, once thoroughly adopted, is the same kind of deal: Brother David's deal.

Maybe this attitude about playing a melody--any melody--be it my own, the head of a tune, a solo line--maybe the element that is missing in me is not something that is studied and acquired and held on to and hauled out when the time is right.

Maybe it's an attitude that simply needs to be accepted and manifested.

Doubts come immediately of course.

But maybe that's part of it too. Maybe doubts are just indications of an immature attitude; one not yet fully formed and adopted. So does this mean that we can simply sidestep these doubts and continue to strive for this all-inclusive attitude?

An attitude that has at its core an unshakeable belief (trust) that there are notes to be played and i can find them.

It's a mystery.

But could it be, that i have yet to spend the requisite time in discovering the connections between these elements? Do i just need to keep going?

By sitting, by contemplating, by paying attention, is it possible to discover and make my own, this connection between an attitude about life and music that sustains me instead of drains me?

If i stumble upon one will it bend to the other?

If i'm able to discover the truth that holds me with respect to the essential life-giving elements, i.e., love, trust, courage, will the musical elements of melody, harmony and emotion follow suit?

Or vice versa. If through this project, i am able to discover precisely the connection between emotion and melody, emotion and harmony, will the truth that holds me up in times of uncertainty and despair come as well?

'It Could Happen To You"

It Could Happen To You.mp3




Ok. this is cheating but it's my blog right?

I'm beginning this blog, on this particular tune after i worked on it a little yesterday. which in and of itself, isn't really cheating.

but i think i have to do the whole thing over.

why?

there had better be a good reason. you're talking to a guy who HATES...Hates to turn around to go back to the house to retrieve something he forgot.

Hates to retrace his steps looking for an article he 'put in a safe place.'

Hates to go back to anything once he puts it to bed.

that said, i think i have to redo this whole tune.

because it doesn't sound good. doesn't feel right. doesn't work.

i keep hearing the way Chet did it.

that lyrical, round-edges tempo

those leisurely pursued changes

that sweet sweet melodic movement

yeah my version (even the practice version mind you...for practice purposes only kind of a thing) doesn't have any of these things. in fact these elements represent pretty much a diametric opposition to the way Chet did the tune. Not good. Not good.

Ok, so let's dive back into it and see if i can fix it.

Later....that same day.....

Turns out i didn't try to fix it. instead i decided to go with what i had in terms of tempo, drum part, keys and bass. I didn't have a vox or a horn part down yet.

i decided this based on a spur-of-the-moment reaction: i know. it doesn't make much sense. don't worry. turns out, it doesn't have to.

I figured, given what i already had down, i had nothing to lose by going ahead and fleshing it out. i could always build out a brand new version of the same tune, one more aligned with Chet's version.

First order of business: figure out why Reaper wasn't showing up in the version that preceded the new one that they told me to download: the one whose major updated feature seemed to be to fuck everything up: Firefox, Itunes, Safari, Word. The friggin OS for chrissakes!

Finally, i got it and it worked. So i hit out to see what i could do with the tracks i had in the can. They sounded ok and appeared to be in sync with each other which meant i had done a decent job copying and pasting the parts i laid down yesterday.

So i set up the mic to roll on a vocal track. Got the lyric sheet in front of me and tapped 'record.' it felt really good to sing the tune. i noticed it was easier to stay in tune. this was good.

But still, i have trouble hearing the bed when i'm singing. there must be a technique involved when recording . i wouldn't know. but i guess i'm going to find out, most likely by trial and error, the last refuge of an idiot.

one thing i did differently: i recorded my voice through several verses, only bailing if i really fucked up bad, i.e., forgotten lyrics, bad intonation, bad timing or rhythm. this is not different from any other tune i had done thus far.

but instead of moving on to the trumpet part, i had a thought about the arrangement. this meant leaving a hole where a vocal solo or a trumpet line would go. this worked out surprisingly well, arrangement-wise, that is.

The trumpet part threw me for a loop. it always does. i need to remember why i am doing this in the first place. it's not ready-to-wear, more like second-hand sportswear.

so the trumpet part went down but not without some moments of a shitstorm. mostly about the piece of crap i'm playing, the difficult playing the good stuff while the tape is running etc.

All this will no doubt continue through the project, through the process.

'You Make Me Feel So Young'

You Make Me Feel So Young.mp3






You make me feel so young

you make me feel like there's songs to be sung

bells to rung and a wonderful

a wonderful what?

a wonderful race to be run?

a wonderful man to be hung?

a wonderful crap that is dung?

no...

the lyric is:

you make me feel like there's songs to be sung

bells to be rung

and a wonder fling to be flung.

yes.

and why do i bring this up, other than to be a clever sot?

cuz lyrics, like changes, can take on an extra layer, deeper than first thought.

the first pass through a tune is nothing to take for granted. i'm thinking here about my own process yes, but also the process i imagine when the writer is creating it in the first place.

don't get me wrong; i think i'm creating something as well, maybe not worthy of quite the originality of the ...er...original, but i am creating something right. I mean i'm not simply dotting the i's and crossing the t's here right?

well, i guess that's arguable. my point is that lyrics, like other elements of a tune, have to be just right in order for the song to fly...to be believable.

we've all heard songs that are all right but somehow don't quite hit it, you know? they miss kind of...they don't exactly make sense, don't compel us, don't draw us in, don't make us buy into the song's deal....

lyrics like those above: they need to be good. and yes there is such a thing as good and bad in this craft. i mean music is subjective (at least the individual enjoyment/appreciation of it) but as the Duke himself said:

"there are only two kinds of music in the world: Good and Bad."

anyhow, i'd love to expound more on this but i gotta move; there are multiple pieces of heavy equipment not thirty feet from where i am sitting in my living room here on 5th street in austin, texas and they are making music that i subjectively can't FUCKING STAND!

Well, turns out, i can't really leave. gotta finish this. i blame it on my puritan ancestry. never mind that i'm 100% Italian.

so, i just listened to the tune again. and this is what i think.

value judgement, value judgement. value judgement.

yeah, i think it pretty well sucks. the vocal is too strained, the tempo too quick (both over my head) and the keys are, well that track suffers from the same sickness as do the ones i laid before; just too much. too crowded. too....tooo.

I laid a trumpet track and what can i say? it's me playing trumpet the best i can. which leaves a territory of space between that and GOOD.

in all fairness though, the horn. let's talk about the horn for a minute.

First off, the trumpet: it has only three valves. three things to push down. three chances to change the pitch to reflect GOOD. hmmm.

can you understand how impossible this instrument is?

Don't worry, I'll wait.

yeah, three valves. to play what...something like 50 possible notes? wtf....seriously.......wtf.

yeah, and that's 50 notes on a good horn; one on which the valves behave themselves., i.e., that don't stick, bind, get stuck or leak? right.

and speaking of leaking....holy shit man. i have been trying to play this damn piece of plumbing for what, like a hundred years...since 6th grade right?

and i've never...ever heard of a horn that leaks. i mean leaks, as in spit, water, you know?

but this one, this broken down ancient student model Bach 1001 series with its tired valves and its bent and hammered and soldered bell, and its misshapen lead pipe and its wide ass clearance slides...

which brings me to the leakage.

now you'd expect a horn, if it's gonna leak, to spew from a faulty cork, perhaps on the spit valve. right? right.

no

this one leaks from the tuning slide. yeah, the tuning slide. that huge crook that comes off the lead pipe and connects the mouthpiece to the valves and eventually the bell. damn. i mean i never heard of this let alone saw it before let alone had a freakin horn that exhibited it...for God's sake.

anyway, on top of not being able to play a convincing solo on "you make me feel so young" the fucking horn is leaking spit on my feet!

and as a consequence, sounds like crap. all breathy and out of tune.

yeah man. some day. some day. some day i'm either gonna stop dicking around with shitty horns, or throw the thing under a bus.

and thus, you have my rant-o-the-day.

yay for you.

incidentally, i did get a decent trumpet track down for this tune and keeping in mind the reason i'm doing this in the first place (to develop a practice vehicle for Chet's tunes) it's all good.

i can move on to the next tune taking with me, dragging behind me, my ever growing sack of musical updates: piano fingering, chord placement, harmonic rhythm, trumpet technique and bass-on-a-piano chops.

yeah good luck with that.

Next Up.......the title track for one of my favorite Chet albums: "It Could Happen to You."