This past Wednesday was the first night of five consecutive nights of jazz for me this weekend — five nights of very different and very diverse musicians from dozens of different backgrounds. My first night led me to the Vitello’s Jazz & Supper Club in Studio City to check out the Bob Sheppard quartet — [...]
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It’s been quite the eventful month at The Jazz Post. As of about a week ago I’m now eighteen years of age — and in about a week I’ll be donning the iconic graduation gown and retiring the title of this blog’s “high school jazz musician.” Although it’s a bit sad to let it go, [...]
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I’ll admit that I didn’t go out to the Blue Whale to see Bob Reynolds because I knew who he was, because I was familiar with his music, or because I knew he’d been playing with John Mayer. In fact, prior to last week, I’ll admit that I knew very little about him at all [...]
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I recently spent the last few weeks with the Southern California School Band & Orchestra Association‘s All-Southern Jazz All-Stars — selected from about two hundred aspiring student jazz musicians in Southern California this year. It was quite the experience, to say the least, to be able to play with so many incredibly talented jazz musicians [...]
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Vijay Iyer had a distinctly different demeanor from many musicians that I’ve met in the past. It wasn’t that difficult to spot him from my table when I arrived at the Birdland Jazz Club — he looked exactly the way I’d seen him in pictures: sharp, clean-cut, emanating professionalism. In fact, his image was so [...]
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Last night I had the privilege of meeting bass player Kaveh Rastegar and drummer Jaydon Bean (as well as my teacher, Mark Nilan Jr.) at the Watermark on Main in Ventura. Let me tell you, it was quite the experience just watching the three musicians set up in such a tiny venue — a small [...]
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After a grueling two weeks with four AP tests, I can finally open my computer for reasons other than the College Board. But still, these past two weeks were also a collection of some valuable experiences in jazz. (Not to mention that the last few months of life in front of AP review books and [...]
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It’s thirty minutes before we leave for Newbury Park: thirty-six of us are packed into our small jazz rehearsal room, staring at the unbelievable amount of equipment in disbelief. Three amps. Forty music folders. Two keyboards. A drum set. Two basses. Some of us take a slightly extended trip to the restroom. Some of us [...]
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Time is a common problem in jazz band. Before competitions, we constantly fret over time — is the music too long? do we have enough of it? are we speeding up? are we slowing down? But yesterday, my jazz director made an interesting remark: “If I catch anyone playing hacky-sack in the courtyard while we’re [...]
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Being a teenage musician in a place like Los Angeles has got its perks. I’ve got access to the Hollywood Bowl, the Baked Potato, the Monterey Jazz Festival, and the California Institute of the Arts — not to mention access to thousands of musicians associated with LA-based music organizations. Nevertheless, it’s still exciting to meet [...]
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