BAM

Nicolas Payton being interviewed by Willard Jenkins.

Nicholas Payton is right on and makes sense. I would consider myself a BAM professor and Jazz specialist in academia. Great interview. Willard, as usual, does a great job. I would have to say in essence the term  BAM is academic. Could jazz be a subset of BAM? I have a little school show I do called "The Creators Of Jazz".  We cover: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. I have a power point going that has lots of pictures of the artists.  So they get the picture.  Teaching jazz is not really a classroom endeavor but more of a hang playing tunes. His thoughts on that are great. It's so true. I teach like I learned. We play tunes and lots of blues. I tell them if they don't listen to the music they'll never play it.

veto, neato and whatchamacallit.

I Found The Dead Sea Scrolls and heckled the band.

Sometimes gigs can get a little strange. I was playing The Big Chill a fund raiser for The Shalom Project in Winston-Salem, NC. We were playing in the Gazebo in Grace Court Park Sunday 7/18/10. I was playing with Ken Rhodes-piano, John Wilson-drum and Diana Tuffin-vocals.

Everything was going along fine. We were playing jazz standards and such. The weather was threatening in the West and then the threats were real. Rain and lighting, a big storm. We packed and were huddled in the middle of the Gazebo trying to stay dry and alive.

This fellow came running in from the rain. No problem. He took his shirt off and wrung it out. He was kind of talking low and I wasn't paying much attention. I kind of looked at him and he says, looking at me, in his British accent; "I found the Dead Sea Scrolls". I tried to be cool. I thought, OK, this will get interesting now. Then it starts:

"You Christians do not want to see the second coming of Christ. Oh No. Father Son and Holy Ghost. You do not want to see it." He went on about that for a while and then: "You need to play" I kind of looked up and waved my hand around. It was raining and lighting. He said "You need to play! Play! Play like an Englishman!" His voice was rising. "Play" he shouted "Play like the Englishmen on the Titanic did. Play!!" This goes on for a while. Then he walks swiftly and resolutely through the park shouting at us to "Play! Play like real Christians. Play!!" until he disappeared across 4th street heckling the band into the sunset.

Speakeasy Open Mic Night "Broadway"

This video is from 2005 or 6. It was an open mic night at The Speakeasy in Winston-Salem.

Sammy Anflick is playing drums. R.I.P. Sammy. Melva Houston is singing, Dave Fox is playing piano and Matt Kendrick , that's me, playng bass.

Happy New Year

It's slow winter time now. I had a new years gig in High Point. It was a dinner thing that was over at 10. Trio with Wally West sax and Mark Freundt piano. We played a bunch of standards. We got a very nice meal with this gig too. After that I went to a party with my wife and saw a lot of old friends. I had me a real good time.

Saturday 1/2/10 was wedding reception for a bunch of musician/educator types. We played jazz. I got to play through one of those Bose tower pa things. It was pretty cool.

Wally, Mark and John Wilson on drums. It was in Greensboro.

09 was a decent year.I played a lot and some artistic success. I am hoping for good 2010. I want to record some new stuff.

I'm Dreaming of some new tunes

Here is the gig info for Dec 14,15,16,and 17th. The weekend was snowed out. I didn't have much on the weekend anyway.

Monday 12/14 was the big gig for the hospital trio. Wally, Wiley and Matt. I played my upright electric bass and used a chorus effect some for the big smooth jazz sound.

The urb is like Jaco on steroids. The chicken wings were really good.

Tuesday 12/15 I played a Christmas party at Nobels Resturant in W.S. They closed the place down for these people. Very loud and great food. I had Salmon and Cream of Tomato Soup. It was a trio, piano,bass and drums. Karen, my wife on piano and John Wilson on drums.

Wednesday 12/16 was an old folks home in Greensboro in the morning. They had a good time with the quartet of piano,bass, drums and sax. We played White Christmas twice and the same guy was still asking for it. That night I played at Knollwood Baptist Church with 2 guitars and drums. It was their Jazz Christmas dinner. Greg Hyslop sounded great on guitar as did Ken Wilson. Bill Poole did a fine job on drums.

Thursday finished things up for this very busy Holiday Season. I played a hospital up in Reidsville with the Hospital trio. That evening I played for the Urban League's Holiday

party with John on drums and Wiley Porter on guitar. The gigs were all Christmas all the time.

Merry F'in Christmas.

xmas gigs xmas gigs xmas all the way

This was a busy week. Monday the 7th was a rehearsal for Swingle Bells. Tuesday the 8th was the show. This was a Christmas concert with the Giannini Brass Quintet, Vocalist Martha Bassett and The Christmas All Star Jazz Trio. That's me, John Wilson Drum and Fred Pivetta piano. The show was sold out and a big success. We had some especially great arrangements by Roger Pemberton.

Wednesday I played at a hospital in Greensboro with the "Christmas Tree-o". Wally West and Wiley Porter, sax and guitar. we play lots of Holiday music.

Thursday was another Hospital gig with the same guys. After that I played an old folks home. They had a good time. More Christmas.

Friday was a luncheon gig for a rotary club. Bass, drums and guitar. more Christmas

Saturday I did a wedding reception with Wally, Fred and John. Four For One. I like this group. We played at the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro. What a cool hotel.

We got treated very well. More Christmas Music.

Sunday was a Christmas Cantata in Mt Airy. It was a double on Upright and Electric.

The orchestra was 4 violins, 2 Violas, 1 Cello, Me 2 Trumpets, Oboe, Flute and Keys.

There was a Chorus too.

Later that day was a gig a car dealer with Fred and Wally. Christmas.

It was a good week.