Just love calling it that.

Today was the first day of lessons, and I gotta tell you, I’m stoked.  3 students, varying degrees of ability, totally different backgrounds…it’s a blast!  This is really a great change of pace for me, and, hopefully, a springboard to more music stuff to come.

I was telling Mary that I’ve always been on the outside of the “music scene,” whatever that is.  Being mostly a church drummer, I always felt a little deficient in my music knowledge and experience.  But I realized that I have had one of the best teachers I could have imagined.  You know who you are!  I am so prepared for this.  Actually, I think I’ll write him an email, so I don’t have to write the rest of the blog entry in code .

Anyway, I’m grateful to not feel totally over my head.  Good times.

Just finished my 3rd-to-the-last rehearsal with GFC and the experience has moved from absurd to heartbreaking.  We talk a lot about love, and the “why” of music, and here is a situation that is (or used to be) all about love and community and relationship.  This is a gig I’ve been playing for 15 years…every tuesday night rehearsal and every sunday almost without exception.  Even when it was a strain on my marriage and family, I was there, right or wrong.  And so now, nearly at the end, I find myself in the position of having to pull away from the very thing that sustained me, musically and spiritually, through those years.  Cutting the strings of a real family that has been forming for all the right reasons, and simmering over time.

Now, we believe there are good reasons for doing so, and there are brighter paths ahead…and certainly the experience is not what it was, but it is still hard.  It feels like a self-appendectomy: I know the thing needs to come out, but it still hurts.

Had a chat with Bill (sound man and good friend) and it just made me sad that these little conversations about him and his family are going to be gone.  These things that are familiar and comforting are staying here, while we go somewhere else.  It’s hard because these are things that you work towards, this is community that doesn’t just happen over night.  Now we have to go start somewhere else.

Anyway, it’s bittersweet, to say the least.  but the set is going to absolutely jam this week.  Funk Hallelujah Chorus, He Reigns, Say the Name… merry Christmas everyone!

-Adam

Post Mortem on the Grille 116 gig goes like this: we’re finding our legs, but we’re doing it together.  Now, for the details.  First, the whole finding the sea legs thing.  I love the phrase, by the way (like, “where did I put those sea legs again?”).  It has just been a process to play at a whisper for at least the first half of the night.  I mean, literally, I’m playing brushes for 2 hours, and I always question when is the right time to bring out the sticks.  Even then, the first swing tune I play with sticks is invariably too loud (I think).

Anyway, we’ll figure it out.  But it is fun, once again, to play under those constraints and try to find a way to groove.  Just a little awkward for me, sometimes, since I don’t have a volume knob.  Playing softer actually requires a different kind of playing…different muscles and techniques.  Totally different, say, than the stage at GFC, where I’m basically bashing for 20 minutes a set.  Like it’s a totally different instrument.  I look forward to having a couple nights a week to figure out how to play this new instrument.

I had a friend and his wife come by to hear the band, which was super cool.  Great time was had by all.  But he made a curious remark that I have been thinking about ever since.  I forget how it came up, but he was talking about our set and said it was pretty much “realbook” stuff.  What he meant was that we pretty much play standards and more conventional jazz tunes, vs. whatever his band is doing (like arranging pop tunes in a jazz context).  He was totally right, and it wasn’t meant as something offensive, although it could have been taken that way.

Some people will put us in the category of “realbook”  jazz, as a way of saying that we aren’t charting any new ground, or stretching any boundaries.  And while we aren’t stretching any harmonic boundaries, or pushing the artform, we are playing what we love.  The boundaries we are breaking are relational and emotional boundaries.  We are striving for an intense and deep connection to the music we are playing, and the musicians we’re playing with.  These are more subtle and often more difficult boundaries to cross because playing increasingly difficult and progressive music can actually inhibit this kind of relationship.

I’m not suggesting that playing “realbook” jazz is the only way to develop relationship, but maybe it is for us.  These tunes are conventional, sure, but they are like comfort food.  They are as conventional as a warm slice of pie, or homemade spaghetti and meatballs.  We play music that people like to listen to, and that also challenges us in other ways…it challenges us to serve one another, to play more honestly, to really care about the community of it.

We may not be breaking any musical ground, but we are having the time of our lives.  We are playing from the deepest parts of the soul, and are continually working to become a single organism that works interdependently.  You don’t learn that in school.  There are other contexts and other people who are more willing and capable of stretching musical theory, and pushing to the furthest reaches of the musical galaxy.  And, honestly, we are indebted to them because the further they push music outward, the more space is created in the middle, where we live.

Didn’t think that innocent, little comment would produce so much philosophical musing.  Cool.

Also, we named the band, Trio 116, because we are awesome.

Adam

This new trio gig at Grille 116 is great for a couple of reasons.  It came at the perfect time for the band.  Even though Matt and Al and I have been playing together for a while now (10 years or so for Matt, and even longer with just Al), we’ve always wanted a regular gig where we could just play and work things out together.  The timing just has never been right, nor the venue.  Then, in the wake of the uncertainty at Grace, suddenly, one of the lines in the water bobs, and you think you might have something.  This was it.  Perfect time for the Grille, and perfect time for us.

The gig was perfect timing for me, personally.  At this time in my life, I have committed to pursuing music, with the mindset of following any reasonable lead that comes our way. Now, a regular night gig is a little challenging for a guy with a day job and a family of 6.  But I’ve talked with Mary, and we are in this together.  She knows that the schedule may be weird, but we won’t sacrifice family time.  We’ll just find it in other places.  She’s cool.  We’re happy.  As long as I can manage it well, it feels like it will work out.

Beyond the timing aspect, the gig itself is a fun one.  Saturday nights are super-intimate (I have a 3-piece kit, once cymbal and hats). I play the gig almost exclusively with brushes, until the room fills up, and starts drinking.  I am so used to rocking out on the big stage, playing virtually as loud as possible, so I was a little worried that this wouldn’t be as fun.  Happy to be wrong about that.  It’s a blast playing with some restrictions.  There are no temptations for fills and complication…the gig calls for the utmost in simplicity.  We simply have to find the groove with as few moving parts as possible.  I love it.

Playing quietly (but intensely) is a lot of fun, and it also provides a great bed, hopefully, for the soloists.  Matt and Al are freed up to just let it rip, which is great.  They’ve been playing as well as I’ve ever heard.  It’s fun to be a part of making that happen.

But, man, I’ve been using some different muscles, for sure.  Funny thing happened last week.  We were playing a kind of Brazilian samba and I was playing a shaker pattern (16th notes) with a continuous up-and-down swipe with the brush in my right hand.  Then, I played a clave-type beat with my left.  I thought it sounded great, once we settled into it.  I had never played that beat, that way….ever!  So, I was really sweating it for most of the song.  Then Matt looks over at me, then at Al, and they give me a break for a solo!  I’m thinking, “NOoooooo.  I’m barely hanging on here!!”  It was so funny.  No solos for the whole night, except for the one song where I’m improvising a beat.

Those little moments seem more visible for some reason.  It’s kind of like the detail you pick up when you walk along a street that you normally only drive on.  I’m glad I don’t only play at that volume level, but it is certainly an expression that I’m having fun exploring.

Can’t wait for tonight.  See you at the Grille.

Adam

dinner funk

back on the horse.

Couldn’ t help but notice this video floating around.  This is so true of many aspects of life, not just music.  It’s stuck with me all day.  I just keep trying to figure out why it seems so right on?

Then it occured to me that “why” is exactly the right word.  It’s the one thing that is missing, particularly in music.  Why do we pick up a sax or guitar or pair of drumsticks?  Schools do not focus nearly enough on the “why” but merely the “how.”  We are so good at the techniques, and strategies.  So good at the practical, but we don’t know why we’re doing it.

Most musicians have no idea that their instrument has the power to heal the sick, bring hope and joy to the desperate, fight injustice, destroy racial boundaries, unite fathers and sons, touch deep human emotions, and enlighten the soul…all before a word is sung.

Their souls have not been rescued by music.  They have never been desperate to hear a song again, and again, and again.  Yet they fill music schools, lesson rooms, and our radio airwaves, with highly technical and polished music of no consequence.

There’s more here, but if I keep going, I’ll end up in full on “rant” mode, and that won’t help anyone.  My only plea is for musicians to figure out WHY music exists, and pursue that with all you have.

Miles Davis – Kind of Blue 50th Anniversary

At about the 5:10 mark, Herbie Hancock gets at why this album is so special: the spirit of discovery. These players were the best of the era, yet they had never played this kind of jazz before. “Kind of Blue” is the record of experienced travelers seeing new lands for the first time.

Funkydrums1 with music

Ok, let’s start talking about Chaka Khan.  This won’t be the last time she gets mentioned, that’s for sure. I’m pretty sure Mary is ok with my secret love affair with Chaka Khan from the 70’s and early 80’s.  It’s just like my experience with funk, r&b and soul in general: there is just a connection there.  Something deep.

I think my first experience with Chaka Khan was “Through the Fire,” from I Feel for You in 1984.  Even then, I thought she was totally unique.  That controlled screech, the vocal range, the sensuality, the musicality was all there, and connected instantly with me.  It was one of those songs I instantly turned up when it came on the radio.

As I began to play funk, and understand that the roots were planted in the late 60’s and early 70’s, I was kind of shocked (and delighted) to find out that Chaka was a huge part of the funk movement.  I honestly had a whole world of music to discover.  It has been a ton of fun to find Chaka around every corner of the journey.

Part of Chaka’s appeal is the music she performed, bands she played with and producers who all had a hand in making Chaka.  This kind of convergence is something I think about a lot. I mean, you have to have talent, for sure, but there are plenty of people who have talent.  It’s just something that happens every once in a while…the right social climate, the right musical context, the right players (Rufus, in Chaka’s case), and a little magic thrown in.

For example, what if the Beatles had hit 10 years later, or earlier.  Same for Michael Jackson, or Elvis, or any one of the handful of people who changed the landscape of music forever.  Maybe Chaka isn’t in that class, but she was definitely riding the wave of Funk that was truly becoming a new genre and musical expression.  Funk had not existed before, and without performers like Chaka, it might not have lived on.

In my journey backwards in time, I began to see Chaka Khan as the most dominant female voice in the funk world.  There were plenty of disco queens, but very few women who could hold their own with Sly, EWF, James Brown, George Clinton, and all the other strong male voices of the era.  She had something unique.

I hadn’t thought of it until I started writing this, but I don’t know why there weren’t more female funk singers.  The roots of funk are really gospel, soul, jazz and r&b music, and there has always been an association with sexuality, which was a perfect match for the climate of the late 60’s and early 70’s.  I guess most female voices either stuck with gospel and soul (like Aretha) or just waited until disco to make their move.  Maybe there was a toughness, or an intelligence required for funk that other singers didn’t have.  I honestly don’t know.  But when you look back, you won’t find a female funk singer whose legacy has remained to today.

Now Chaka did venture into disco, and the pop sensibilities of the 80’s with hits like “Ain’t Nobody” and “I Feel for You,” but she always maintained that mix of sensuality and toughness born decades earlier.  Yeah, her jazz phase is kind of a mess, and currently, she’s more of a figurehead than a producing artist, but if that’s all you’ve experienced, you are really missing out.  Even if you just go back to “Through the Fire” or her backup vocals on Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” or even the various remakes of “I’m Every Woman,” you still have no idea.

Go all the way back to 1974, when she and the band Rufus put out 3 earth-moving albums within 2 years.  Those 3 albums, contain the seeds of what was to come, and they just might change your life all by themselves.  Incidentally, I just learned that the third of those albums (1975’s Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan) featured Tower of Power horns (If you don’t know who they are, then definitely stay tuned…you won’t have to wait long on this blog to hear about them)  This was just a perfect mix to define the next decade of funk.

Then you throw in songs like “Tell Me Something Good,” written by Stevie Wonder, and you’ve got a bona fide star.  And the start of a movement.  And, even more importantly for me, you have a genre that has given me so much joy.  Deep, deep joy.

Oh, and then, as if there weren’t enough reasons to love Chaka Khan and her legacy, I found this:

A great friend once told me that every musical genre has a soul.  I always wondered if Soul music has anything but.  My musical tastes were formed early, by my brother’s purchase of a 3 album set of Motown classics.  Stevie, Tops, Temptations, Diana Ross, all the greats of a generation ago.  I don’t know how or where he got it, but (I haven’t properly thanked him) it changed me forever.

I have since longed to recreate the feeling I heard on those early, influential songs, if not in actual style then at least in spirit.  My musical tastes took a turn toward heavy (speed) metal, through pop, and eventually to Jazz, which, in high school, was like a beacon calling me back to that eternal soul of music.  This is where I have stayed for much of the remainer of my life up to this poing, but as a drummer, I have always maintained a tie to Funk and Soul music.

These are the comfort foods of my playing, although I have been too elitist at times to admit it.  I once fancied myself a jazz player, and I do enjoy it, but there is nothing like an EWF tune to make me smile.  As I have gotten older, I realize there are many diversions off the path…diversions into a particular style, or a preoccupation with gear, or whatever.  My mission is pretty simple from here on out: play music you love with people you love.  That’s it.

I love the exchange between Anton Ego and Linguine in “Ratatioulle” where Linguine says, “you’re thin for someone who likes food.”  Ego replies, “I don’t LIKE food. I LOVE it. If I don’t love it, I don’t SWALLOW.”  That’s exactly what I’m after…without the soul-crushing cynicism, of course.

Some other day I’ll talk about how few kids are really learning how to play instruments, and how few musical role models there are, and even then, how few people are learning to really tap into the soul of music for its own sake first.

For now, I’ll start with my journey through the music that I love.  I’ll spend my time talking about my heroes, and my experience playing through those well-worn paths laid down over the last few decades.  I’ll encourage you to do the same.  If you’re like me, it just might change your life.

-Adam