The Lucky No.1 Band will be in Colorado in May. Since each of us live in different parts of the country, we are very much looking forward to playing together and sharing our music with some great audiences in the Boulder and Denver area. Matt Plummer (trombone) will be coming in from New York City to do these gigs and I'll be coming from the "other" coast to meet up with my favorite musicians in the Mile High City. Please come out and support live music if you're in the area.  

• May 20, Tuesday--Laughing Goat, Boulder, Colorado http://thelaughinggoat.com/
• May 22, Thursday--Alto, Denver, Colorado http://www.altodenver.com/
• May 23, Friday--Dazzle's, Denver, Colorado http://www.dazzlejazz.com/ 
•  

 And if you're in Boulder for the Bolder Boulder, you may hear us there too! 

Recently, I began playing with a group that I'm really excited about. It's a project started by trumpeter/drummer/keyboardist/composer Gene V. Baker (http://www.virb.com/genevbaker)

The music is aptly summed up by the band's name: R&B Freejazz Gospel Supreme 80. And the musicians, I must say, are wonderful players.

I'm looking forward to playing the shows that the group has coming up. Come check us out. Seeing a 7 piece horn section with two bass players, two guitars, steelpan, a couple of keyboards, maybe two drummers and various parties doubling on vocals, is a can't-miss kind of opportunity.

November 15: The Attic, Santa Cruz, CA http://www.theattic.com

November 16: The Starry Plough,
Oakland, CA
http://www.thestarryploughpub.com

November 20: The Hemlock Tavern, San Francisco, CA
http://www.hemlocktavern.com

There is something paradoxical, at least to my mind, about a silent film star playing the saxophone. Anna Q. Nilsson, in the advertisement, was both--a silent screen star and an aspiring saxophonist--and any chance of hearing her evaporated long ago. Yet we are heirs to this document: a photograph taken in 1926 for a York saxophone advertisement, evidence that she was popular in that way that sometimes influences people to do or to buy.

In our present day and age of multimedia blitzkrieg, a photograph is a silent affair. Bordered on four sides, the eye can only wander so far and so it is that our minds must wander instead. We can supply a narrative of our own making: a soundtrack of our own design.I found myself doing this with Anna Q. Nilsson's photo.

Anna Q. smiles, not quite at the camera, but more probably at a roomful of admirers, all eagerly waiting to hear her blow a few notes.Did she play? Did she talk about her horn or reed problems with Mary Pickford or Lillian Gish, her silent film cohorts? Did she like the Paul Whiteman band? Was the saxophone so new that even a woman in pearls with flowers in her hair was encouraged to play it? And paid to advertise it so that other women might take it up?

Time will tell that the latter didn't quite happen.The years during WWII however did show off quite a few female saxophonists, trumpeters, trombonists, and percussionists for a short time. It wasn't until the 1972 passage of Title IX (it wasn't just about sports...) and the following years that young women began playing instruments that had somehow become "male identified."

It would seem that Anna Q. never heard that message. In 1927, a year after this photo was taken, she made a film with Babe Ruth called "Babe Comes Home". In 1928, The Babe is pictured playing a saxophone for his team mate, Lou Gehrig. I wonder if Anna Q. and The Babe spoke of their common saxophone interest on the movie set. Photographs, like silent films, can speak volumes...

(Psssst.Not baseball, but lead alto!)
One of my favorite playing situations is to play lead alto in a big band. In September I had that opportunity with the Montclair Women's Big Band and it was great fun. What made it even more special was the fact that the gig I had been contracted to do with them was with Vicki Randall.

Vicki Randall, as most know, is a regular in the Jay Leno Tonight Show band. Her skills as a percussionist have always been in demand, but her skills as a vocalist ought to have her in even more demand. After hearing her live that night, she definitely reminded me of some listening I had done a long time ago.

My mother, having come of age during WW II, had a large collection of big band records. Despite the Beatles and Al Hirt being the rage when I came along, she remained faithful to her collection. Being exposed to those sides made a deep impression on my musical psyche. Hearing those bands punch and swing their way through arrangements always enthralled me.

Marshall Royal, lead alto for the Basie band, quickly became my role model: he could put so much attitude and love in every note he played, it would just kill me. The vocalists on those records were just as memorable. They added another equally important and complex dimension to the music and the story that was being told.

Ms.Randall brought back some of those memories I had long stored from listening to my mother's collection all those years ago. Her phrases swung with great vitality and easily meshed with the roaring 18 piece ensemble that sat just to her left. Her ballad singing was equally impressive with creative melodic shaping that had an overall honesty that, I think, some vocalists are not able to impart.

Playing lead in such a situation is both challenging and tremendously rewarding. How you approach the stylization of phrases for a Basie arrangement is going to be very different from how you approach a Glenn Miller chart. Vibrato can say so much about an era and so can articulation. Using both appropriately really tests a player's knowledge of the music. And , if I haven't already said so, it is very fun to wear those different hats, so to speak.

The only disappointment was the audience. The gig was basically a fund raiser and the band, as is most often the case at such events, background music. As far as I was concerned, I had the best seat in the house and witnessed a fantastic performance! Unfortunately, the audience didn't know what it had missed.