The Hearts of Men

Working with Danjuma Mallum and his actor for the short film The Hearts of Men. We worked on the movie's heavy voiceover as well as some dialogue replacement in the overdub booths @ London Bridge Studios. I am also currently scoring the movie 15 minute short.

Long Time No Blog

Long time no Blog. I've been pretty busy this month, but the next couple of posts are some of the highlights.

Gig @ the Sundown Saloon w/ Christian Smith

I played tenor last night in a newly formed group with Christian Smith on guitar, Vern Lawton on drums, and Ken Strong on bass. We played all original music by myself and Christian in 3 hour long sets.

Seattle Symphony - Sibelius, Rachmaninov, and Adams

Last Thursday I went to the symphony and saw some great music. Guest conductor Robert Spano is intense and emotive (what more could you ask?). Sibelius' "Pohjala's Daughter, Op. 49" was beautiful. Then guest pianist Dejan Lazic killed on Rachmaninov's piano concerto #2. The piece demands an aggressive player, and Lazic got the job done. After the intermission (after 1/4 of the audience skipped out to miss the discordant Adams' piece) was "Harmonielehre." If kind of made me laugh because after the first movement, there was the little old lady rush for the door... "oh no... so crazy... must leave..." To me the harmonic language was barely on the brink of being out. The orchestration is beautiful... I loved the unison harmonics and false harmonics in the strings. The end of each movement seemed to me to have a nod to the minimalists. Very good concert, and if you're reading this and didn't go... you missed out!

Antonio Hart and Lisa Henry with the LACHSA Jazz Sextet

I saw a pretty cool concert last night at Jazz Alley. The Thelonious Monk Institute travels with high school kids and has them teach other highschool kids about jazz. This week they're in Seattle working at some of the high schools in the area, and to kick that off they had a free concert. The highlight of the night for me was Antonio Hart's playing. I haven't seen a sax player like that in a long time... huge round sound! Also performing with the youngsters (can I say that?) was Lisa Henry and her beautiful voice.

Jessie Anderson @ lbs

Jessie Anderson came to the Bridge last week to track some straight ahead jazz songs for a senior project. He got 3 great sounding songs. I was blown away at how well his band (all high school kids) played, and how well they worked in the studio environment. Check out Jessie below listening to a mix.

Crack Sabbath and Stuck on a Bus @ High Dive

Last night I saw Crack Sabbath perform for the first time. I was really blown away by the depth of musicality of the group.... They effectively move from Mingus to Nirvana to Joshua Redmand to Led Zeppelin. Thanks for the great show.

The other surprise of the night was school of rock kids calling themselves Stuck On a Bus tearing up old standards and a few originals. 13 year old kids or so should not be that good!

Far Corner @ lbs

Avant garde jazz quartet Far Corner was at lbs last night tracking a few songs live. Check out the pics... recordings to be posted soon... Please check out their website: http://www.dickvalentine.com/FarCorner/index.html

"I'm Free" - Recording

GO HERE TO LISTEN TO SOME OF MY MUSIC
Excerpt from an Impromptu session after a canceled Marc Smason gig 1-22-10: Marc Smason - Trombone......... Ken Strong - Upright Bass...... Diane Peterson - Flute .................. Greg Vinson - My old beat up acoustic guitar ....................... David Miner - Sax, Keys anything else he could find................. Sounds engineered and mixed by Vern Lawton

again: http://ia361309.us.archive.org/15/items/ImFree/ImFree.mp3

Cody Beebe and the Crooks @ lbs

Helped out producer and studio owner Jonathan Plum on Cody Beebe and the Crooks these past 5 days. Great group of guys, and great music. I stole these photos from some posted on facebook.

Seattle Symphony Pictures of an Exhibition

Saw the Seattle Symphony a couple of weeks ago, and I am only getting time now to post about it. I was almost late! I found a parking spot at 7:50 ten blocks aways, so I ran 10 blocks, and when i got there I ordered a perrier and I had to pay for it ($3) in quarters. At that time, I asked an attendant to help me find my seat, and I was 4 rows back! Then the show started. Thank you Valerie Leslie for hooking me up with this great seat.

On to the concert:
1) Leos Janacek "Suite from The Cunning Little Vixen".
2) Sergey Prokofiev "Piano Concerto No. 5 in G Major, Op.55" - awesome guest artist Alexander Toradze on the Piano.
3) Maurice Ravel's Orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" - I love any orchestral music with a saxophone in it. I also decided while watching this that if I died and came back as another instrumentalist, it would have to be a cymbal crasher or low brass player.

Colonies Show @ Neumos 3/25/10

Saw the Colonies the other night with Tu Fawning, The Mopes, and Conservative Dad. The surprise of the night for me was Conservative Dad whose songs were well conceived. Thanks to my friend Adrian Centoni, who was the drummer in my first ever band Pr What, for inviting me. He is the drummer in Colonies. Check out their myspace: myspace.com/colonies.

Colonies in concert @ Neumos 3/25/10.

Pr What logo from ages ago.

JJ Chen Sax Quartet Recording Session

Last week I spent some time recording some saxophone quartet music I arranged for the composer Jasper James Chen. Below is a pic. I'm in the midst of editing the tracks (3+ hours of recorded material!). I want to thank Matt Lanka - Bari Sax, Mark Claassen - Alto Sax, and Fred Winkler - Soprano Sax.



I also want to thank Rick LeDoux - engineer, and Jim Davenport - Pictures.

Medeski, Martin, and Wood

Medeski, Martin, and Wood were awesome tonight at the Showbox Market. Check out a couple of pics I took.

MMW right before the startup.

Medeski!

Skerik made an appearance.

Jasper James Chen project

Check out all the parts I've done in the last day. Parts for 10 saxophone quartet pieces! Now I've got to have a private little taping party to get everything prepared to send out to my players. The recording session is going to happen in the middle of March, I'll post more about this as it happens.

 

Electrokitty horns tracking

Worked with Gary again yesterday. I put some saxophone lines down earlier in the day (some straight to tape!), and Jon Hansen did some tuba work later in the evening. Tuba has so many magnificent qualities. Jon brought both his regular tuba and an F tuba (which I learned the hard way is written also in C). The F tuba can get up there and can even be used in a pinch to replace lower trumpet parts. Adding saxophone (blended down so there is only a vague perception sax is there) w/ tuba can get you really close to a great rock horn section sound.


Jon doing his thing out in the live room.


Gary hard at work listening.

Mudhoney at Neumos 2/8/2010

It was a lot of fun to see Mudhoney tonight at Neumos..... If you weren't there, you missed out... I can't believe there is already a movie up on youtube... hehe....

Danny Pentin Strings Project w/ Eric Aho (Arranger)

The last couple of days I've been working with Eric Aho vetting and cleaning up parts in Sibelius (which I bought and learned on Saturday!)... I also helped out during the recording session by reading along with the score and making sure we were getting good takes of everything.


Simon James was the string contractor as well as first violin. Here he is with Jonathan Plum (the producer and engineer) in the control room at lbs.


Here is Eric Aho conducting the strings, and my vantage point on the whole activity.


Here is Eric w/ JP listening back to some passes during a 10 minute break.

Gary Reynolds and the Brides of Obscurity @ the Skylark

I played with Gary Reynolds tonight at the Skylark. I've got to hand it to Marc Smason for putting the trombone stuff together on one... ONE... rehearsal! Thanks Marc. Maybe is some videos get put up on youtube I'll post them here... This picture was taken with my g/f Erin's phone.

Danny Pentin Horns Session at LBS

I've been working with Danny Pentin writing some horn parts for his recording project at London Bridge Studio. Jonathan Plum is engineering and producing. Danny is playing trombone himself on some stuff, Steve O'Brian played some trumpet, and I have played some saxophones (bari, tenor, and alto) as well as some flute. Check out some pics....


For the tenor sax, I used a U47fet, with a CV12 blended together (favoring the CV12) and AKG460s for rooms. JP mixed the wet/dry into a stereo track straight to pro tools. LBS has a great and distinctive sounding room great for tracking woodwinds and brass.


Same setup on the alto.


Same setup on the baritone.


For flute I used a sure beta58, and the AKG 460s for rooms, blended pre protools into a stereo track.

For all of the overdubs, JP changed the panning of the dry source in the room/stereo perspective to create a wide stereo image, and the picture of a section in a room.