|
06-08-05:
Happy birthday to my beautiful, smart and creative wife, June!
I now have an account at
Blogger, so from now on, my infrequent postings will
be found there. Here is the link:
http://fdmundo.blogspot.com/
05-27-05:
I think I've finally recovered from my trip to Los Angeles enough to write
about it! I was down there May 7th through 14th. This was my first real trip
back to Southern California since June and I left there in 1989.
Impressions:
- Well, it seems to me that they have not repaired any of the
freeways since I was last there. They have gotten very, very ratty.
- Governor Ah-nold is on TV all the time. I don't know who's paying
for it, but every single commercial break on every channel has at least one
ad with him imploring the populace to "Help me to fix Calli-fawn-ya."
- During the day, you can get a break from soap operas by watching one of
the many car chases live on TV. This has become such a big draw that the TV
stations compete with each other for who covers car chases the best. Some
stations have equipped their choppers with HDTV cameras, so you can get a
really good look at the perp when the cops shoot him. And yes, they will
definitely shoot him. If there's anything they understand down there, it's
the importance of the "money shot."
- More than half the broadcast TV stations are non-English, particularly
in the UHF band.
Not that I actually spent much time watching TV. I spent the majority of each
day hanging out with my 87-year-old Mother-in-law, running errands with her, and
swapping stories. She's a terrific person, and I'm glad I got to spend so much
time with her at the retirement home she lives in. He home is in Alhambra, which
is south of Pasadena. Alhambra has become a largely Asian community in recent
years, and at one local market I was able score some rather rare Chinese spices
for June to use in cooking (which, of course, benefits me directly!).
In the evenings, I got to visit with some old friends from my LA days. It was
very interesting to me that -- almost without exception -- each of these folks
seemed to be at or getting close to a turning point in their lives. These are
all people who are very special to me, and it was a wonderful gift to be able to
spend time with them, share a few laughs about the old days, and catch up on
what's been going on in the last few decades.
I'll try to get some pictures posted soon.
04-02-05:
Upcoming gigs: I'll be playing every Saturday in April with
Darren Littlejohn and Black Samba at Fireside
Coffee Lodge, 1223 SE Powell Blvd in Portland (near the Aladdin Theater).
The same group will also be appearing April 22 at C-Bar, 2880 SE Gladstone in
Portland.
Also, I'll be performing with the 7th
Street Jazz Band in a public concert at Tigard Community Church on May
21st.
See the 7th Street web
page for more details
Check my online calendar for
other appearances!
02-24-05:
Lots of music happening these days! Of course, I'm still playing regularly
with the 7th
Street Jazz Band. I've also started playing occasionally with a fine local
guitarist named
Darren
Littlejohn. He runs a regular
Tuesday
evening jazz jam at the Bethany Village Grill, and plays most Saturday
nights at the Fireside Coffee
Lodge in Portland. Lots of jazz standards, and there are always great local
musicians sitting in.
Well, winter has turned out to be a non-event! We've had hardly any rain or
snow. Los Angeles got all our weather this year! Frankly, it is a bit of a
worry, because without our regular winter snowpack in the Cascades, there will
most certainly be a shortage of drinking and power-generating water this summer.
Blackouts and forest fires are the likely result.
01-01-05:
Happy new year, everyone. There are a number of things to talk about now.
First of all, it is clearly NOT a happy new year in southeast Asia. I hope a
lot of people will donate to the groups that are helping out. Links to two
worthy groups are on the right. Northwest
Medical Teams is a particularly good group -- about 96% of your donation
goes to direct relief.
Well, I've finally released The
Ivory/Bobbidazzler Archive Project. This is a 3-CD set containing -- as
far as I know -- all of the material released on vinyl by the 70's groups
Ivory and Bobbidazzler, including singles and a strange hybrid project called
"Departure." There's also some fun "bonus material" on the
CDs. I've been collecting the vinyl records for several years, and finally had
enough material to complete the project. I am more than happy to send copies of
this to anyone who requests them.
Speaking of the old band(s), I've had terrific phone conversations with some
of the guys from Ivory lately. That was a very special time in my life, and I'm
really happy that I can still talk to these folks who meant so much to me, and
still do. Brian Whitcomb, the pianist from Ivory and Bobbidazzler, just sent me
a copy of his new CD, and it's terrific! He's taken a group of songs and
re-worked them into very beautiful, simple arrangements that are both very
accessible and musically very solid. Brian has a knack for finding the beauty in
songs that others may have missed. I can also send copies of Brian's
CD to anyone who requests it.
I'm still recovering from my back operation, and I think I've stabilized to
the point that I can function pretty well, and know my limits. At least I can
carry my own instruments into rehearsals now.
11-08-04:
If the weather of this past
week is any indication, we will have a very cold winter. It has been in the 30s
every night for the last week or so, and we've made our yearly shift to the
flannel covers and down comforters. This is particularly good news to our cat
Ollie, who likes to sleep on the pillow just above June's head, but ONLY if
there's a flannel pillowcase on it. Healthwise, the news is mixed. I had my back
operation in September, and felt really good for a few weeks. Now, however, the
same old symptoms are reappearing. I'm definitely in better shape than I was
before the operation, but it seems that I'm regressing. I can still walk without
a cane most of the time, but that may not last. I'm still having fun playing
with the 7th Street Jazz Band. We could use a few more horn players,
particularly trombone, but it's still a lot of fun to play those old tunes. It's
good exercise for my sight-reading, too. I've also started doing a few more
casual jam sessions, which is great fun. I have a number of side projects in
motion, some of which I can talk about and a few I can't. I just finished
mastering 3-CD set of a live recording from Paul Bass' 50th birthday party. This
has been a long-term project, and I'll manufacture and ship as many as are
requested, in honor of my late music partner. I'm also about halfway through
archiving all of my recorded song demos to CD. So far, this amounts to about 30
CDs. Some of the tunes are not too bad! I also want to transcribe as many of my
tunes as possible to leadsheets. I'll probably get a high-end notation program
like Finale or Sibelius next year to help with this. It'll be a rather large
book, tentatively titled, "Steve Pinkston -- Less Than a Fake Book." Those
familiar with Charles Mingus will get the joke. MORE...
07-23-04:
Hot weather comes to the Pacific Northwest! Today's high will crack 100
degrees. Fortunately, this kind of weather never lasts very long here. A few
days, then it's gone.
The big-band work continues to be fun. The band is called the
7th Street
Jazz Band. My buddy Ethan Richardson got the guitar chair in the band, and
he's turning in some excellent Freddie Green comping and some tasty soloing when
he gets the chance. We've played a few outdoor festival-type gigs and we've
gotten good feedback from the audiences. Of course, my bald head takes a bit of
a beating from the sun at these gigs, but I got permission to wear a hat, so
that helps a bit.
Fortunately, I get to sit down to play with this band, since I cannot stand
or walk for more than about 10 minutes at a time now. My doctors have made a
diagnosis, and I will be having an operation to de-compress a pinched nerve
bundle in my back in mid-September. I'll have to miss some gigs, though, so if
anyone knows a bass player in the Portland area who can read and works cheap,
please let me know!
04-18-04:
Lots going on this Spring! First of all, the new Proto-Kaw album is finally
released. No, I did not have anything to do with it, other than attending the
release party, but some of these guys are old friends of mine, and I think
you'll enjoy the album. It comes in two flavors -- a standard edition and a
"Special Edition." By all means, get the Special Edition! You can buy
it from Amazon.com
or several other sources. Go to the Proto-Kaw
website for more details.
Also, I've started playing regularly with a jazz big-band out of Oregon City.
It's pretty much just a bunch of folks getting together for the love of music
once a week, and I'm having a ball. There's lots of chart-reading involved, and
I'm pretty good at that.
Last week I purchased -- off of eBay -- an album put out in the 1970s by a
group I didn't even know I was in! The group was called "Departure,"
and I'll post more details later.
CNET is launching a service similar to the erstwhile MP3.com. Today I
uploaded 8 tunes of mine and 3 tunes of Paul Bass' which should be available
soon for download.
On the downside, I've been having a tough time getting around lately. I have
to walk with a cane all the time now, and I think someday soon I will have to
have a hip joint replaced or repaired. Aging totally sucks.
01-31-04:
Photos form my Kansas trip are up! I'm expecting
a few more over the next few weeks as people get their film developed. I'll post
them as soon as I can.
01-16-04:
A belated Happy New Year to all! I'm finally catching my breath after last
week's trip to Kansas. Why would anyone take a vacation in Kansas in January?
The simple answer is, family, friends, and music.
First, and most important, I went to visit my sister, Dana. She's a very
talented and creative person, and I spent a wonderful couple of days with her in
her art-filled house in Leonardville, near Manhattan. Then I spent three days
with my old buddy Dave Zerfas (aka Zerf) and his family (Kim and Karl) at their
home -- "the K Z Ranche" -- near Manhattan. They are terrific folks
and made me feel very welcome. Zerf and I ate at some of our old haunts like
Taco Hut and Vista Burger, and took in a K-State women's basketball game.
On Friday, we drove to Kansas City for a CD release party and concert by the
band "Proto-Kaw." This was a
night to remember! Proto-Kaw is the band that was called Kansas in the '70s.
Go
to their website to read the whole story. A couple of old bandmates of mine
are in that group, and the evening was a bit of a musician's class reunion. I
saw folks there that I had not seen in more than 30 years. I'll get some
pictures up as soon as I can scan them.
Oh, yeah...I even got a chance to crawl up on stage and do a set (on guitar!)
with Zerf, Tom Bolton, and Derek, as a reconstituted version of Zerf's band
Plastique. And as a bonus, Lynn Meredith from Proto-Kaw got up and did a couple
of numbers with us! Lynn is still one of the most soulful singers I've ever
heard.
It was an exciting week. Of course, the weather helped with the excitement.
Blizzards in Oregon just as I was getting ready to leave threatened the trip,
ice storms and extreme cold in Kansas made travel somewhat of an adventure, and
more snow and ice back in Portland kept the airport closed until just before I
returned. I was very fortunate through the whole trip that nothing bad happened.
12-03-03:
Well, MP3.com closed its doors yesterday, so you can't find my tunes or
Paul's there anymore. They have promised to open a new music hosting service
early next year, so we'll just have to wait and see.
Proto-Kaw (nee Kansas) is releasing their new CD Before Became After on Jan.
9th in Kansas City. Read all about it and hear some samples of the amazing music
this band has made at www.protokaw.com.
11-05-03:
Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder treason and plot.
We see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Those lines are a mystery to most Americans, but very familiar to most Brits.
They refer to Guy Fawkes Day,
November 5th. Read up on it, then go light up a bonfire!
In my last entry, I was complaining about the heat. Now it's pleasantly cold
and wintry here in the Cascade foothills. We had a very rapid season change this
year. We went from record high temperatures (mid-70s in late October) to frost,
snow, and record low temperatures within about a week. Essentially, we skipped
Fall this year.
I've been having a great time playing with the jazz fellows -- Bob, Steve,
and Neil -- on a semi-regular basis. We've made some rough demo recordings and I
can see a lot of potential. These guys are all very talented and easygoing. The
hardest thing is coming up with a name for the band, oddly enough.
06-29-03:
It is too bloody hot! Oregon is NOT supposed to be like this! Actually this
is probably the worst it will get, with temperatures in the 90s. We are
generally blessed with mild weather year-round, with just a few really nasty
cold days in the winter and a few nasty hot days in the summer.
I recently heard from my old friend Dawayne that there was a possibility of a
second Proto-Kaw album coming out later this year. That would be very welcome
news. If you haven't done so yet, check out the first Proto-Kaw
album, and read the whole history of the band(s) we know as Kansas.
06-18-03:
It occurred to me that I don't update this listing often enough to really
call it a 'blog,' so I'll stop calling it that, and I'll just put in stuff when
I feel like it, which seems to be about every 2-6 weeks these days.
Summer solstice is just a few days away, and the weather here in Oregon has
indeed been summer-like. The grass is not growing as fast, which is good news.
Some folks complain about mowing their back yards, but our back yard is about
5-7 acres. I enjoy mowing it -- it's somewhat meditative to go around and around
with the sound of the motor droning like a mechanical monk. That having been
said, I am also appreciative when the intervals between mowings start to
increase.
Musically, things are still moving along. I'm still writing new tunes
occasionally, recording demos, and jamming with some good guys out in the valley
from time to time. I have not been getting together with other musicians quite
as often as I'd like to, but I think that will work itself out. I recently
repaired my old Kramer bass, and I think I'll
use that on the next jazz jam I go to. It's interesting how using a different
axe takes you in different directions musically. The Kramer is a bit longer
scale than my Les Paul bass so I have to
work just a bit harder, but it has a nice funky sound that I like on some tunes.
05-17-03:
I was going though some old boxes and found a couple of pictures that you
might find amusing. There's an unused
promo shot of the band Ivory, and a snapshot
of Paul and me when we were on the road in 1973. I added them to the Pictures
section with a little more background info.
05-14-03:
Well, it has been an interesting 5 days. June went to California to visit her
mom for Mother's Day, and I've been looking after the 3 dogs and 5 cats while
she's away. They are all very sweet animals, and except for one
"jailbreak" from the kennel this morning all has gone relatively well.
These little absences always help me to realize how much I depend on June and
how hard she works keeping our little piece of Oregon running smoothly.
Several entries back, I mentioned the Big Fake CD, which compiles a dozen
well-known fake books on one CD. For my own convenience, I built a master index
for the CD in PDF format. It occurred to me that anyone else who has this CD
might like to print this out. You can download the BFCD
Index by clicking here.
05-01-03:
Happy May Day to oppressed workers
everywhere! I'll take the oppression of work over the oppression of poverty any
day.
And Happy Birthday to Judy Collins,
too.
My friend Jade from Santa Cruz -- a fantastic singer, by the way -- was in
town last week. Although we didn't get to play any music together, we had a
great Indian lunch at Abhiruchi restaurant (3815 SW Murray Blvd. in Beaverton --
(503) 671-0432). Give this place a try sometime; the lunch buffet is moderately
priced and delicious. They open at 11:30, and if you get there too late, you
have to get in line with Nike employees lunging for the Tandoori chicken.
June and I have been watching Manor
House on PBS this week. This is another reality-show, but in this one,
modern Brits get to experience what life was like in 1905. Of course, for the
rich "upstairs" folks, life was just peachy, save the occasional fit
of 21st-century class-consciousness. For the poor slobs "downstairs"
it sucked big-time. "Oh dear, it's time to empty Milady's chamber pot
again." It occurred to me that they had the wrong family upstairs. They
really should have cast the
Osbournes. They're rich, clueless, cute, and they're used to living in a big
house with servants all around.
04-22-03:
Happy Birthday to Charles Mingus, born this day in 1922. Read more
about this troubled genius of the bass at:
04-17-03
I know, I know...I'm not really updating my blog as often as I should. It's
just that so many other things keep coming up that are more interesting to do.
Like watching TV and taking naps.
Last weekend I jammed with the jazzbos again, and we covered some interesting
material, like Steely Dan's Josie and Paul Winter's Icarus. We're
taking about a month off due to other committments, and getting back together in
May.
I've been looking through the leadsheets in the Big Fake CD, and it
very interesting to look at the different transcriptions of the same tune. Often
the same tune shows up in 2, 3 or 4 different books. Take the tune Bluesette,
for example. In the Real Book, it's just 24 bars -- once through the
head. It's much the same in The Book. But the Jazz Fake Book has 4
full verses with lyrics, including the eight-note "bridge" section and
an out-chorus with ending. So, it pays to look at all the versions. I've been
thinking about printing out all of the books and either binding them separately
or just adding them to a 3-hole binder. I did the math and found that the CD
contains 4067 leadsheets (although, as mentioned earlier, some are duplicates),
on 4677 pages. If I print double-sided, that would be just under 2500 pages, 5
reams of paper. I think not.
A band I'm hearing about more and more is the Robert
Randolph Family Band. If you thought pedal steel guitar was only good for
adding a whiney background to country music, give these guys a listen. They are
hot, bluesey, and soulful.
Mar 31, 2003
I had another fun session with the jazzbos on Sunday. This time it was just a
4-piece group -- no singers and no sax player. It looks like the group may
stabilize in this form, and it also looks like they may have decided that I'm
not all that bad a bass player and can stick around. We played tunes in a number
of different styles, from standards to guitar-hero fusion stuff. I even got to
call a tune, and picked Goodbye Pork Pie Hat by Charles
Mingus.
I purchased something very cool off the net this week. I had been thinking
that I should scan my copies of the Real
Book into the computer so that I could just call up charts whenever I
wanted. Once I realized that this would be 1200-1500 pages of scanning, I got to
thinking that -- if this was such a good idea -- someone must have done it
already. I did some searching on eBay, and was soon in possession of what I'm
calling the Big Fake CD. It contains the entire contents of TWELVE
popular fake books, including all of the Real Books. If anyone is interested in
a copy, let me know.
I've been totally depressed by this war. All wars are stupid and this one
seems especially so. My heart aches for those kids over there for what they are
having to go through. I believe that the real tragedy of war is not that
young men (and women) have to die, but that they have to kill. How do you come
back to a civilian life knowing that you killed someone, regardless of the
reason? It must be incredibly painful and difficult for them.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we were blessed with three days of beautiful
Spring-almost-Summer weather, including that rarest of occurrences here in the
Northwest: two perfectly clear weekend days! I took advantage of it on Saturday
to mow all the grass for the first time this season. For those who don't know,
"mowing the grass" is a fairly large endeavor at our place, and takes
me about four hours on our riding mower, while June spends several hours edging
with her DR
trimmer.
Mar
19, 2003
I don't know what
it was, but I've been sick for two days, and just started feeling
better today. It might be pre-war jitters or a bug I picked up, but
I felt really awful on Monday and Tuesday. June helped me by
preparing simple foods for me -- mainly rice and juice -- and being
wonderfully understanding (as always).
Sunday's session
with the jazz group was great fun, as were the previous two
sessions. This time, a second female vocalist joined us for a few
numbers. I'm not sure whether this particular configuration of the
group will endure, but individually they're all terrific players who
could pretty much play with whatever kind of group they wanted to.
In this last session, I felt like I was starting to get a little
deeper musical connection with some the players, starting to tune in
to their direction a little better rather than just playing down the
changes.
Mar 16, 2003
I reworked the Links
section of the webpage for a little cooler appearance.
Mar 14, 2003
I got a callback
last weekend to rehearse again with the same jazz group I mentioned
in my last posting, this time rehearsing at the keyboardist's home.
As before, I had a great time. This time, we were joined by a
vocalist, so that added a nice new dimension to the music, as well.
I really enjoy playing behind vocalists, particularly female
vocalists. The accompaniment style is quite different -- the backing
musicians need to rein in their tendency to play off each other so
much, and must do their best to help the vocalist be the center of
attention when she's singing. There are opportunities to do some
riffing between vocal phrases, but that can be overdone, too (if
you've ever heard Willie Nelson's band live you've heard one of the
most egregious examples of a bored old band riffing furiously
between each vocal phrase).
I'm going back for
another rehearsal with the jazz group this weekend. I went ahead and
picked up copies of the fake
books they use (mostly the old Berklee-era Real
Books) and a nice heavy music stand. Maybe if I just keep
showing up, I'll get the gig by default!
Mar 4, 2003
I had a great time
this weekend. I've been looking for a group to play with since I got
my new amp about a month ago. I answered an ad in Willamette Week,
and on Sunday I auditioned for a jazz group. As luck would have it,
the drummer lives nearby in Molalla, and that's where the audition
was. The group was all good players -- keys, guitar, sax, and drums
-- and I think I did a reasonable job of keeping up. We played jazz
standards, some funk, and at least one original piece. One thing
that was a new experience was that the drummer played electronic
drums. They recorded everything I played, presumably so they could
take a close listen to my playing afterward.
I have not heard
back from them yet, but in any event, I had a great time and I hope
I get to do more playing like that. If this doesn't work out, I'll
answer some more ads.
Feb 28, 2003
This week I reached
a milestone of sorts. I paid $1.99 per gallon for gasoline. This is
exactly 10 times the least I ever paid for gasoline. One day some
time in the mid 60s, I heard on the radio about a gas station in
Topeka that was in a "gas war" (hmm... it seems that term
could also be used for the impending conflict in Iraq) with the
station across the street, and had lowered its price to 19.9 cents a
gallon. At that time, gas was normally in the 24-25 cent range, so
it seemed worth it to drive an hour to Topeka to fill up the tank of
my 1956 Chevy, which got about 8 miles to the gallon.
I'm not really all
that upset about the prices we pay today, actually. If you look at
the price of gas over time vs. inflation, I think it's remained
pretty steady, with some temporary jumps up and down over the years.
Of course, the price of petroleum-derived energy is probably one of
the component that drive inflation so I may just be ignoring the
obvious.
Feb 23, 2003
I wrote a couple of
new tunes over the last week, just bass and drum-machine so far. The
title of the first one was suggested by June: Uwajimaya. We
had spent an afternoon shopping at the
wonderful pan-Asian market in Beaverton by the same name, so I
guess the mood stuck with me. It's amazing to see people from many
cultures shopping there, and to see so many foods that I have no
clue what they are. I can usually recognize chocolate, especially if
there is a picture of it on the label, so I bought a Crunky
bar, just because the name sounded cool. The second tune I wrote is
called Galanga, a bit of produce June bought there.
Feb 14, 2003
It's my birthday
today, so I'm taking a day off from work, just goofing off.
June gave me
terrific birthday presents: Three bass-themed T-shirts, a CD of
"Standing in the Shadows of Motown" (she gave me the book
as a gift several years ago, too), two bass-related books -- The
Fender Bass, an Illustrated History and How the Fender Bass Changed
the World. Yes, I'm a die-hard Gibson player, but these books are
very interesting to any bass player.
Another gift is one
I bought for myself with June's encouragement a few weeks ago: a
brand-new SWR Workingman's 15 bass amp. It sounds great, and has
inspired me start practicing again regularly. My next step is to
find a music group to play with and get those creative juices moving
again.
And, with time on
my hands, I was finally able to finish up this re-designed web page!
As of February 1st,
MP3.com is allowing only three songs per user for free. I went ahead
and signed up for the premium service on my MP3 page so that I could
post more songs, but I allowed Paul Bass's page to default to the
3-song maximum. I'll rotate some of his songs through there from
time to time, and if there is enough interest, I'll go ahead and
expand it to the premium service later.
|
