Wednesday, October 31, 2007

- Bill Evans: The Days of Wine and Roses -

I could listen to Bill Evans all day long. His smooth improvisations, harmonics, and technical excellence really appeal to me. (click on arrow to see the video)

Thursday, October 25, 2007

- SATIN DOLL -

"Satin Doll" was written by Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899-1974) for and with pianist William Thomas "Billy" Strayhorn (1915-1967) in 1967; the lyrics were written by Johnny Mercer (1909-1976).

I played it on a M-Audio 88 midied into a Mac running GarageBand. Then I dubbed in the bass track. I'm shooting with an old Panasonic palmcorder that has terrible sound, so I have to sync the sound track from GarageBand into Imovie.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

- Here's That Rainy Day -

Here's an arrangement that I did using GarageBand of this nice old jazz standard. It's title is a perfect description of today's weather here in Cottonwood.



Wednesday, October 17, 2007

- MISTY -

Erroll Garner was instrumental (no pun intended) in getting me to play the piano. I had piano lessons at an early age, but left music to do art and then came back to it with Erroll in my teens. Like Erroll, I don't read music, and play completely by ear. I saw him perform once at the 'Mogambo' night club on the old Sunset Strip. Here is a video of my version of 'Misty'