More Keytar!

Sunday I went to see the Thelonius Monk International Jazz Trumpet Competition and Tribute to Herbie Hancock. The Monk Competition is essentially American Idol for "the jazzers" except Al Jarreau played the part of Paula Abdul (well-dressed but possibly totally insane).

I didn't know this beforehand, but my friend Ambrose Akinmusire was one of the three finalists for the competition. Ambrose played in my "Roller Derby" band at the Key Club last year. At the competition he played an original composition, and survived a tune with the aforementioned beret-enthusiast-skoobedoobee-scat-singing Al Jarreau.

"Take this Ambrose!"



After the three trumpet finalists performed there was a star-studded tribute to the legendary Herbie Hancock. At one moment four of my favorite musicians were on stage at the same time. Wayne Shorter, Joni Mitchell, and Sting were holding hands on stage to present Herbie with a humanitarian award. I had a total comic book guy moment, "best musicians ever!" Happily I avoided weeping like an old-timey Beatlemania victim and avoided the temptation of leaping from my balcony seat to the stage to seize the moment (or Wayne's saxophone reeds). The good news is Sting didn't appear to be any less muscley or flexible after his recent award for, ahem "Worst Lyricist Ever". Although I might give him a second "worst" award for some gentle mutilation of the melody to "My Funny Valentine". Don't worry Sting, we'll always have Dream of the Blue Turtles.

To make a longer story shorter (Wayne Shorter, if you will), Ambrose won the competition and joined the other jazzy folk on stage for "Chameleon". Herbie played what was undoubtedly the finest keytar solo of all-time (which really is an all-time category along the lines of "tallest midget", but who am I to judge?).

Friends don't let friends use one of these unless your first name is Herbie:



Last night I continued my assault on the jazz world and ventured to the dicey territory of an open jam. In New York jazzy jam sessions can be the worst of the worst of the worst. Your evening at a session in Small's could be filled with what seems like weeks of meandering 8th notes from every janitor-turned-saxophone player in the tri-state area. Your reward for surviving till the bitter, 6:00 AM end of one of these is to see people out for an early morning jog before work as the sun comes up in Manhattan.

Yet I digress, the jam session at The Mint has been berry, berry good to me (it only goes till 12:15 AM, which helps with the "what-am-I-doing-with-my-life-and-why-am-I-here" factor). Case in point, the surprise guest at last night's session was one of the judges for the Monk Competition, trumpeter Roy Hargrove. Roy sounded great, wore fancy jeans, and claimed to not know the tune "Inner Urge" which he then played with aplomb.

Now I'm back to the work of harassing Austen Risolvato on the home-stretch of the artwork for the new album. We've got the cover picked out and all we have to do is photoshop my head onto Sting's body!

I'll be playing a CD release show on December 20th at the Hotel Cafe. More details are forthcoming.

Also, I'm playing a free show at the Ocean Avenue Brewery in Laguna Beach on November 7th. Here's a flyer: