(… or the new quiver in the bow, the new brush in the paintbox…)

Saturday I picked up a Squier Esprit guitar. These guitars were part of the Squier Master Series, made in Korea for only a year or so around 2005. It has a double cutaway, chambered mahogany body, a carved mahogany top, a 22-fret mahogany neck with a rosewood fingerboard, 24.75-in scale length (like a Gibson Les Paul or SG, and unlike most Fenders, which have a 25.5-in scale length), with 2 Duncan-designed humbucking pickups, a three-position switch, and a pair of volume and tone knobs, one per pickup. This model was based on the Fender Esprit/Elite models made by Fender in the 80’s, and famously endorsed for a while by Robben Ford. The Squier sports a slightly different headstock, and the pickups are not wired so that you can split the humbucker’s coils.

This guitar was previously owned by my pal Dave Workman, a terrific Bay Area blues guitarist, so it’s got some built-in mojo.

Guitar Player magazine reviewed it back in the August 2005 issue, and gave it the Editor’s Pick nod.

I played it a bit when I got it home. After a couple of weeks of only playing my Telecaster (with a 25.5-in scale length), it was quite different in feel, and it took me a while to get comfortable, but the sound was inspiring from the get-go. Played acoustically, it is rich and vibrant, which is always a good sign. Plugged in, it sounds marvelous. Played through a clean amp, it sounds like a good jazz guitar, with a complex character and great definition. Crank up the gain, and the humbuckers sing like a sweet Les Paul or an ES-335. I was impressed with the clarity and definition even when you roll the highs off.

Sunday night I brought it with me to one of the jams that I frequent (Stan Erhart‘s “Killa Jam” at the Old Princeton Landing out on the Pacific coast) and got to play it into a couple of very fine amplifiers (a blackface Fender Vibrolux and an Allen Brown Sugar) through a couple of different pedals. It sounded very inspiring, was comfortable, and a joy to play.

“In the Bleak Midwinter” often appears on Christmas recordings. But Christmas is only a couple of days after the first day of winter. What’s up with that? By my reckoning, midwinter is around the first of February.

Speaking of Christmas recordings, got a couple more this year. Somehow I missed the fact that the amazing guitarist Tuck Andress recorded a CD of Christmas music in the early nineties… so I got that. Also, I heard a small sample of  a recording entitled performed by Christmas Music from Medieval Hungary by Anonymous 4 and thought that, like the review blurb on the album cover, it was “sublime.” So I got that, too.

Speaking of sublime, the other night I watched some of the Crossroads Festival 2010 DVD that I got for Christmas. The first track on disk 2, “Midnight In Harlem” by the Derek Trucks/Susan Tedeschi Band, is just wonderful. Other highlights include Jeff Beck‘s performance of “Hammerhead” and “Nessun Dorma” (yes, the Puccini aria from Turandot). I was also pleased with Eric Clapton’s performances with Steve Winwood — playing with his old friend and collaborator brings out the best in old EC. (Check out “Voodoo Child” if you’re so inclined…)

Since last posting here I’ve been busy with the usual stuff… playing at the Club Fox jam and at Stan Erhart‘s “killa jam” at the Old Princeton Landing as often as possible, and played a few gigs as part of the thrown-together jazz combo at the Turtle Bay Seafood & Grill restaurant in Foster City.

I hope that 2011 will be full of great things — more and better gigs, maybe I’ll finally get one of my recording projects moved forward, and of course more great stuff to listen to (like the soon-to-be released David Binney CD, Graylen Epicenter, with sax maestro Chris Potter and guitar wizard Wayne Krantz.

I’ve read a couple of music-related books over the past couple of months.
First I read Bill Bruford: The Autobiography by the excellent and erudite master drummer and former member of Yes, King Crimson, UK, and his own bands Bruford and Earthworks. It was a delightful survey of his life as a musician.
Next up was Power, Passion and Beauty: The Story of the Legendary Mahavishnu Orchestra, by Walter Kolosky. A bit raggedy in presentation, looking somewhat like a ineptly-done desktop publishing job by someone not very good with their tools, but a very enjoyable book. I loved this band as much as the book’s author obviously does and so I was probably destined to like the book, and I did.
This week I started working through Miles Beyond: The Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967-1991, by Paul Tingen.
All of these books inspired me to re-listen to the music I was reading about. I listen to it fairly often anyway, but it’s interesting to listen to it with some new perspective brought about by the discussions in the books.

More good news came in last week. The weekly blues jams at the Club Fox (formerly the Little Fox) in Redwood City will be back on line starting Wednesday, November 17. The jam went dark about ten months ago, and it’s wonderful that it’s coming back… it’s a great jam in a great space with an enthusiastic audience, and it’s been much missed.

The first jam will be hosted by Daniel Castro Band…

Just a short note to mention that the weekly Sunday night “pro” blues jam at the Old Princeton Landing returns this coming Sunday evening, September 12.

The OPL changed hands at the end of July and was closed for about a month for renovation.

Here’s hoping that the jam resumes and continues as successfully under the new regime as it has under the old one for nearly a decade…

My son David has started playing the drums this summer. My other son Ian had been playing for a while a couple of years ago. So when I read that Lenny White‘s new jazz-rock band featuring guitarist Jimmy Herring were going to be performing at Yoshi’s in Oakland, I asked them if they wanted to go see one of the all-time great drummers, and they were agreeable.

The band was billed as Lenny White and Anomaly, which is the title of White’s newest CD.

So I came home a bit early that afternoon (Wednesday, August 25) so that we could get across the bay in time to get some good seats and grab a bite to eat before the show.

As things were we didn’t have to worry about seats, as the place was sadly only about 1/4-1/3 full. I was surprised that it wasn’t better attended, but maybe I shouldn’t be.

The music was pretty squarely in a electric guitar-soaked, technically adept, Return To Forever jazz-rock mode. I love this kind of stuff when it’s played well, and this group played it well. At the base of it was Lenny White’s drums driving it all along with power, finesse, and earthiness. Lenny is one of those ageless people that looks pretty much the same today in his early sixties as he did when I saw him with Return To Forever in his late twenties. The bassist, Richie Goods, locked in tight with Lenny. On keyboards was the very impressive Vince Evans.

On top of this were two electric guitarists. Jimmy Herring was the big draw for me – I’ve known of him for years through hearing him with Project Z and Jazz Is Dead, guesting on one of Derek Trucks‘ early albums, Out Of the Madness, and last year’s Lifeboat, his solo debut.

The other guitarist was new to me – Tom Guarna – but I was very impressed. He can play this kind of stuff about as well as anyone I’ve heard.

It struck me as a bit odd that the band would feature two guitarists with such similar sounds and styles, but it worked.

Herring and McKellen-separated at birth?

Lenny White was amusing in some of moments of talking to the audience. He introduced Jimmy Herring and said he’d known of him for a while and had been pleasantly surprised by how good he was as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. He teased Tom Guarna about having a Masters from Julliard. After his first drum solo, a rather sparse, subtle and low-volume performance on his kit over a simple repeating pattern from the band, he said “Now that’s an anomaly -a quiet drum solo.”

My sons thought it was a cool show. It went over better than when I took them here one Sunday afternoon many years ago when they were pretty small to see Bill Frisell.

On a cool summer night (Friday, July 31st), I took in the Larry Carlton Trio at Yoshi’s in San Francisco. Sitting with a couple of my guitar buddies in fantastic seats, we watched the legendary Mr. 335 play his namesake guitar in the company of his bass player son Travis Carlton and drummer… dammit, can’t remember his name! and I can’t find him listed on either Carlton’s site or Yoshi’s. Maybe someone that reads this can remind me, or maybe I can dig it up in my email sent messages folder…

This was actually the first time I have had the pleasure of seeing Larry Carlton live. He was a big influence back in the day when he played so tastefully on those Crusaders records and so many others. His guitar parts on Steely Dan’s “Kid Charlemagne” are legendary and universally lauded (Rolling Stone labeled his solo one of the three greatest in rock history). But ever since he began a solo career, he seemed to put out rather dull records – glossy, heavily produced, with little vim and vigor – a progenitor of the sort of music that’s come to be known as (excuse me as I try to control my facial expression here) smooth jazz. After buying his first couple of LPs, I kind of stopped paying attention to him.

But as his recent duo CD and DVD with Robben Ford aptly demonstrated, he is as ever a masterful musician. The Yoshi’s show bore this out in spades. His touch on the fretboard and the finesse of his right hand are phenomenal. By turns delicate, sassy, growling, tender, always soulful, he stated melodies, improvised solos, and brushed harmonies when his son Travis took solos. As icing on the cake, his tone was also just about perfect, just gorgeous. Me and the gents at my table were all smiles the entire performance.

Aside from his musical gifts, Larry is also an open, affable, warm, humorous and eminently likable performer. One amusing exchange took place where he mentioned that someone had emailed his manager and insisted that he mention his anniversary from the stage. First pretending to be dismissive and a trifle annoyed by the request, he then proceeded to ask the man to stand in the audience, and said he would play “Happy Anniversary” (which is the same song as “Happy Birthday”) for him and his wife and that he could choose the key. The man called out “B minor.” With an amused raising of eyebrows and a few comments about how strange it was to ask for it in a minor key, he said “whatever” and proceeded to play a harmonized and minorized version of the tune, stressing every point where what was normally a major third or a major seventh was now flatted, and making an amused stinky face. The audience was howling.

Some news about some of the local jams, none of it particularly good, but not all totally grim either:

• The Old Princeton Landing over on the coast just north of Half Moon Bay is now under new ownership. It will be closed for several weeks as the new owners spruce it up. Word is that Stan Erhart‘s Sunday night jam session will resume soon… hopefully that will turn out to be the case.
• The Little Fox in Redwood City, now called the Club Fox, has reopened officially for a one-off show the evening prior to the Redwood City PAL Blues Festival, but whether or not the Wednesday night blues jam is going to be reinstated, and when, has yet to be announced.
• The jazz jam at Angelica’s Bistro in Redwood City that I mentioned below was killed off after a mere two weeks, and restarted under new direction. I have not been back yet, so no word on whether it’s worthwhile or not…
• Finally, to end this somewhat dreary litany of not-so-great news, I’ll end on a positive note – the Wednesday night jazz jam at the Milan Pizza Restaurant in Mountain View has really been going strong, with a healthy crowd, an excellent house trio, and some good players sitting in – hats off to Marty Honda for pulling it off.

Once again I’m killing a few minutes before heading over to the jazz jam at the Milan Pizza Restaurant in Mountain View. I’ve continued to go almost every week since it started, and it’s been kicking my ass, but it’s been good for me despite the pain.

The band SNUG has a gig coming up, this Friday evening in Redwood City. I’m looking forward to it.

I’ve been enjoying Bill Bruford’s autobiography the last week or so. He’s quite a good writer and it’s a thoughtful look at the music business from his personal experiences within it for the last 40-odd years.

Looking forward to seeing Larry Carlton’s trio at Yoshi’s San Francisco next week…

That’s all for the moment, gotta run.

As I write this I’m anticipating heading out from the office around 6:30pm and heading over to the Milan Pizza Restaurant in Mountain View to participate in a new jazz jam session that’s been going on there now every Wednesday night for the last month. I went last week and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The house band has some great players, and lots of folks showed up and played – there was a sax player and his brother on flute, two trumpeters, a trombonist, a pianist, and a couple of bass players and drummers. The horn players typically come up one by one and each call two tunes before making way for the next player. Rhythm section players get to play more. In my case I was treated like a horn, so I called my two tunes, played the heads, and soloed.

Now, to be honest, I’m still a bit out of my depth trying to play jazz. While I’ve been fluttering around the edges of it for decades, and been a heavy fan and listener since my teens, to this day I have not gotten past the fooling-around stage. But oh-so-gradually I’m getting better at it, which is somewhat gratifying, though the pace is glacial. And really the only way I’m going to keep improving and approaching being able to execute what I hear in my head is to keep at it, as often as possible. The blues jams I’ve been frequenting are great fun, and lots of times the music is entirely gratifying, but I really feel the need to push out of my comfort zone and be able to do this jazz guitar thing with some style and grace and gravity.

As I wrote about not too long ago, a good part of this is what I do with my practice time, especially since as a working slob with a family, I have so little of it. I’m pleased to say that for the last four or five weeks I have made a concerted effort to play with backing tracks as frequently as I can manage, and it’s starting to feel like it’s beginning to register an effect. I still have not done any regular transcribing, but… all in good time. Whereas back there in January I gave myself a D+, I think I’ve definitely moved up to C+, or maybe even B-.

To help keep the momentum up, I’m thinking seriously of taking three or four of the workshops that are offered from time to time at the wonderful JazzSchool in Berkeley. For example, on Sunday Anton Schwartz is doing one of his Playing the Heck Out Of… series of workshops, each of which focuses for a couple of hours on one commonly-played iconic tune. This one is on “Autumn Leaves.” Later in the summer are Playing the Heck Out of “It Could Happen to You” and Playing the Heck Out of “So What” and “Impressions.” There are also a couple of workshops from guitarist John Stowell coming up. Mimi Fox is also doing a week-long jazz guitar intensive that goes from 9am to 4:30pm every day for a week in August.

Maybe taking some of those workshops will inspire me to take another class or two at the school, as I did back in the early aughts. What a great resource, and the faculty is great. Too bad it’s all the way across the bay and north… hard to do week in and week out.