10/15/2003 12:00:31 PM|||Brian Fending|||

Well, another season has come with all of the usual small changes you'd expect. And a few surprises.

JAZZ HAPPENINGS

The trio is now a quartet with the addition of Ken Kuriscak on saxophones. It's really starting to smoke, but don't take my word for it: come see it in action at 2-5pm on Saturday, 18 Oct 2003 @ the Seneca Niagara Casino. Two long sets of burning, grooving jazz. I haven't been this happy playing with a small group since, well, a long time ago. There are more dates forthcoming with this group, so keep looking at the calendar.

CANINE ATTACKS

Reba had a little, er, incident a week ago, wherein a German Shepherd lost his "bite inhibition," as they say, and tore open her left foot. A good scratch on top and a gouge so deep underneath from a lower canine that three staples were necessary to close the wound. She's getting around pretty well one week later, but those staples are going to be an infection hazard for another week or so. And we thought that *she* was going to be the kid destined to be kicked out of school for bullying. More on that as it develops, particularly if the end result isn't satisfactory.

GOOD HOUSE HUNTING

...has been postponed. We looked at several properties and had quite the experience looking at a house in North Buffalo. After that, we decided to can it for a little while until such time as the market levels. Yehyehyeh, "interest rates, perfect time, buyers market," we've heard it all. I did a little math and several months to save and wait for the realtors to stop pumping property prices won't hurt. In fact, I wish everybody else would do the same and let the market level out a little, but there's little to be done about that.

CIPA

I was sufficiently roasted for my comments on CIPA in the last blog entry. My convictions remain solid, but I really took a beating from civil libertarians across the country. To all of those people: please stop emailing me to tell me that I should move to Canada. I'm close enough to visit, so the suggestion doesn't have a lot of impact. A revised set of recommendations will hit this site in the near future, at which point you can get out your clubs and starting waiving them again. Careful, though: I'm wiry.

PLAYING WELL WHEN TECHNOLOGY REARS ITS UGLY HEAD

Okay, so I'm playing a one-man book for a Sondheim show (Into The Woods) right now. Drumkit, traps, sound effects, xylo, bells, chimes, nightingale call, sandpaper blocks, anvil, *electronic drums*, etc... It's not that this is an unusual array of stuff (except for the electronic drums, which are gratuitous); in fact, Me & My Girl has a massive, 43-instrument setup for just the Percussion II book.

But in this case, there really is no good way to play the book without electronics. Sound effects can be done the old-fashioned, Spike Jones way in such an implementation, but getting between the larger instruments - hell, having all of them within walking distance, let alone playable at the same time - requires one to be rather, uh, drextrous. Changing patches on a couple of sample-based instruments, however, makes it all a walk in the park. Five patch sets on the drumming instrument, three on the mallet instrument, and you're done. And no bizarre mic requirements/compromises to help out the sound designer with the big sounds to emulate a giant's footsteps. "Patch Set 5: "

So, here's the question: Do these guys on Broadway realize what they're doing by bringing electronics in as the staple instruments? It's changing the sonic landscape, and the effect is wonderful, but it makes replicating the book a real challenge for those of us who do mostly "analog" work outside of the pit and haven't invested in the technology for in the pit. Mr. Sondheim was, no doubt, most interested in making this a wonderful production, but forgot about making it probable that somebody somewhere *off* Broadway would hear the work as he intended. The whole book, starting with instrument selection, becomes a series of compromises.

Maybe it's because I'm not an early adopter. Maybe it's because this is now part of what makes Broadway a special experience that truly merited the walk-offs that happened earlier this year. Or maybe, just maybe, I'm behind the curve and need to stop bidding on wonderful-sounding, antique Deagan orchestra bells on eBay and settle for the latest & greatest sample CDs to feed into my electronic drum kit and mallet controller. Somehow, I'm still not ready to switch, to give up that perfect sound, no matter *how* much easier it would be to replicate the original.

I guess this explains my renewed interest in traditional jazz. Oh. My GOD... am I becoming the OLD GUY who still plays on calf heads and old dance band cymbals? Hope not - it might become too expensive NOT to buy the electronics. In the mean time, all I plan to do is play well and hope that the performance is appreciated regardless, whether it's jazz, solo *or* theater work.

|||109171041190205035|||Jazz Happenings and Canine Attacks