Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to remain silent.
– Victor Hugo
I must admit that all of the hoopla about “Whiplash” actually delayed my watching it by many months. I’m not always anti-hoopla, but when it comes to something as close to my heart as the great American art form of jazz, and drums in particular, I have a natural skepticism regarding anything blessed by the […]
I play every Thursday at The Brass House in Austin, Texas, 6-8:30pm, with two Austin music legends – quitarist Mitch Watkins and bassist Chris Maresh. I met Mitch in 1981 and he has a been a close friend, mentor, and inspiration ever since. He and the other members of the group Passenger set the bar […]
Reposted from my email newsletter, dated Apr 9, 2015 SUBSCRIBE HERE for periodic updates like these. Friends, First off, these newsletters are more important than ever, since I decided to leave Facebook. For me, it was too difficult to resist its tempting allure even while the value of it seems to be waning. For me, views and […]
Church on Monday’s tally, by category, at this years’ Austin Music Awards, held last night at SXSW. Favorite Jazz bands – #1 Band of the Year (All genres) – #5 Musician of the Year – #5 Elias Haslanger (our illustrious leader) Album of the Year: #7 “Elias Haslanger: Live at the Gallery” Horn Player – #2 Elias […]
Fitting that the word “Lounge” appear next to “Jazz” in my weekly Thursday billing in Austin, Texas, only because I’ve written a few thousand words of feelings and memories surrounding the lounge scene. But we won’t be loungifying our jazz on Thursdays, 6-8:30 pm at The Brass House, 115 San Jacinto in Austin, Texas. Our […]
If I were to wish for anything I would not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of what can be, for the eye, which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating as possibility? – Soren Kierkegaard, […]
This is kind of going to where I started listening to music … my brothers and older siblings were into this music, and the way you guys play, I’m comfortable around it. So it makes me feel good to be able to go there because it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. […]
Now Mitch Watkins is essential to Austin, Texas music. It’s hard to imagine this town, and its music scene, without him. In his on and off 40 plus years on the Austin music scene, Mitch has made everyone he’s played with, produced, and mentored, sound better and grow as an artist. The first recording below was made with […]
My musical adventures include a brief stint with The Bobby Clark Show (named changed to protect the guilty) during the summer of 1981. The BCS was a little Vegas rip-off act that traveled the southwest during the early 1980s. I met Bobby after being called as an emergency sub for his gig at the Hilton Inn in Amarillo, Texas in […]
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. ― Plato I’ve been pondering the crisis that many professional musicians are facing — a crisis, not only of income but of artistic survival. A few years ago I watched a YouTube video of songwriter/performer Marc Cohn in a reflective […]
I spent countless hours, as a developing drummer, playing along with Weather Report and Jaco Pastorius solo albums, hoping to catch a mustard seeds’ worth of the genius that emanated from those sessions. During my ’85-’86 pilgrimage to the Big Apple jazz mecca I actually got to play with Jaco for somewhere between 15 and 28 […]
Let’s bow our heads, together, and groove! I’ve imagined those words, more than once, emanating from an invisible pulpit on Monday nights at the Continental Gallery in Austin, Texas. What happens there every Monday between 8:30-10pm, and has for the last two years, would not meet any traditional definition of church. No one in attendance expects […]