Headed to the 2026 Jazz Education Network conference in New Orleans! Looking forward to seeing friends & colleagues, doing a couple clinics for the JENerations Jazz Festival, and hearing some great music!
Happy Thanksgiving! Vince Guaraldi (piano/composer) with Tom Harrell (trumpet) and Mike Clark (drums)
youtu.be/Vp1a1S7QS2Y?...
Thanks Steve! I guess Rhyme is my "hit" 😆 I'm a big fan of your writing and playing as well - Lab 86 and "The Miles Files" was on constant repeat through high school!
Sorry to hear that the pianist/composer/arranger Jim McNeely has passed away. His music had a profound impact on myself and many others. I am grateful for several interactions: a guest artist visit to Eastman when I was a student and the 2024 ISJAC Symposium where he stopped by my poster session.
It's official, I've been promoted to full professor at Valdosta State University! Thanks to all my colleagues and students, past and present (and future), for making this a most enjoyable journey. I am looking forward to many more years and only feeling a little bit old 😁
Tonight at 7:30pm! We are excited to present a wide variety of Latin Jazz compositions with fantastic arrangements by Eric Richards, Mike Tomaro, Michael Philip Mossman, Fred Sturm, John Clayton, and Bob Curnow.
The concert will also be livestreamed at: youtube.com/live/Ilbsj44...
Working on a Horace Silver transcription - Walkin’
Very happy to have this new book about my favorite musician/composer Kenny Wheeler!
Doing a thing in Los Angeles
Here’s my original composition “Nothing but the Truth”, dedicated to the late Shaun Martin.
At the time I wasn't very knowledgeable about the American 4tet, so I didn't have an idea about what could have been with Paul on drums. It was unusual enough to hear Keith play some super swinging medium grooves ala Red Garland & Ahmad Jamal. That fact that it was so straight ahead surprised us.
Yeah I remember that being a bit strange in the moment. I think Keith and Gary played the tune straight with Jack and they weren't willing to adapt to what Paul was contributing. Maybe why the solos are relatively short and they get into a long vamp to finish out the tune?
I was in the audience at the Deer Head Inn gig in 1992 and wrote a little about it here. Thought you might be interested 😀
bsky.app/profile/dave...
Wow, thanks so much Nate! I'm a big admirer of your writing and "chronicling", so that means a lot! It was a pretty special night to be there in the room and we had no idea it was being recorded until ECM released the first album two years later!
Listening back just now, I think I was referring to the suspended chord Keith initially plays at the final cadence (at 9:31) before eventually resolving to a more "normal" tonic. Keith plays a similar ending on the Bye Bye Blackbird studio record from 1991. It must have been his thing for that tune!
Comparing my scribbled set list to the ECM releases confirms that all the music performed on that memorable evening has now been released - At the Deer Head Inn (1994) and The Old Country - More from the Deer Head Inn (2024).
Gary and I did a pretty good job identifying the tunes the trio played that night. Many were familiar from the Standards Trio recordings. The “unknown standard” in set one was Everything I Love and the blues in set three was Chandra by Jaki Byard.
Both ECM releases list the date as September 16, but I definitely remember it as a Saturday night (being grad students we could only have traveled to get there on a weekend). The Deer Head calendar confirms this so it must have been September 26.
I grew up only 10 minutes from the Deer Head, so when I learned of this rare performance (with Paul Motian in place of Jack DeJohnette!) in a small, intimate venue, I knew I had to make it there. Gary Versace and I were classmates at Eastman and huge Jarrett fans, so we made the road trip together.
The recent release of more music from Keith Jarrett's September 1992 performance at the Deer Head Inn prompted me to dig into my archives where I found the calendar of events from that week and my hand-scrawled list of the tunes they performed. A $10 cover for three sets of amazing music!
