Collins, Happy Hour, Stowell, Big Band, Smithsonian, summer jazz camp - horvath group, jazz institute

Hi all,

Life is unpredictable, but I hope to be able to keep this news section fairly fresh and up to date, perhaps through RSS feed. A lot is happening or very much in the works as I write this.

First and foremost, the music perhaps nearest and dearest to my heart recently, the Billy Collins project will be doing a series of three major concerts in the Bay Area coming up on May 2nd, 3rd and 4th. The three shows at at three of my absolute favorite places to play in the Bay: May 2nd at the Jazzschool in Berkeley at 8PM, Sunday May 3 at Pete Douglas' wonderful Bach Dynamite in Half Moon Bay and Monday May 4 at Yoshi's SF, my first time ever at the SF Yoshi's. (I have probably played the Oakland Yoshi's in it's various incarnations at least 30 times as a leader and a sideman.) I truly loved writing the music for the Collins Project, deeply inspired by Billy's words, and you can watch a couple of performances of it here. There is really only one singer I know of who can pull off these songs: Ann Arbor's Andy Kirshner, and fortunately, we were able to bring him out for this, to join the wonderful rhythm section of John R Burr, John Shifflett and Jason Lewis. I will do (or have done, depending when you read this) an interview on KCSM about it on Tuesday, April 28th, which is posted here.

The group Happy Hour is also proceeding apace, and are planning to go into the studio to finish off our maiden CD in mid-June. This is a very fun and cool project for me, and is a true collective featuring some wonderful compatriots and Bay Area jazz elite: Erik Jekabson on Trumpet, Jeff Marrs on Drums, Peter Barshay on Bass and John Gove on trombone. All of us write and arrange for the group, and are planning to move beyond NorCal gigs once the CD is complete. Here are a couple of tracks as a sneak preview and we will be at The JazzSchool on 7/11 previewing the new CD. One thing that I dig about this group (among many) is the very sympatico interplay among the horns, as well as the ferocious fire Jeff and Peter bring to the proceedings. Everyone in this group has spent significant and productive time back East, 4 of us in New York and Jeff in Boston, so I think of this as the most "East Coast" of all the groups I play in around here. It is also the one group with no chordal instrument, which leaves a certain kind of sonic space for writing and playing.

Speaking of leisurely but very rewarding collaborations, guitar master John Stowell and I are just finishing up our joint CD project, featuring originals and cool modern jazz standards. As anyone who has heard the Portland-based Stowell knows, he is a truly original guitarist's guitarist, and our styles play very nicely off each other. The CD will have solo and duo efforts, along with the always sympathetic rhythm team of Shifflett and Lewis. You can check out previews of what will be on the CD here. I love this group, since it is a place I can explore "cooler" more ECMish textures, something Stowell excels at. It is also the only group I am playing in where guitar is the chordal voice, and John's amazing voicings more than make up for the lack of piano.

Just finished up a three night stint at Vancouver's best jazz club, the Cellar, joined by my doppelganger Shifflett, as well as two tremendous musicians from Canada, Chris Gestrin on piano and Bernie Arai on drums. It was a great experience, as we sold out Cory Weed's venue every night and featured all tunes I had written in the last two months. (To keep myself centered and as my spiritual practice during what have been some challenging times on the home front, I began composing every day beginning January 1, and the result has been a flood of new music, which means there is enough material for about 100 new CDs now, but we will start with the ones we are talking about on this news page.) The recordings came out great, captured by the amazing location recording of Ed Hargrave's Moozak productions (48 track truck and killer mics). This will be coming out as a live CD sometime in the next year, possibly on Cory's Cellar label, and here are a couple of unmixed sneak peeks.

The "piano" quartet I like playing with best around here is one with Peter Horvath on piano and yet again, the Lewis/Shifflett drum 'n bass crew. We started this project by covering Wayne Shorter and Michael Brecker tunes a year ago, at the request of Susan Muscarella, founder and director of the Jazzschool. She is probably the biggest fan of this quartet, calling us the best kept secret in Bay Area Jazz, and we are still in search of a name. The group is modern mainstream out of the Liebman, Brecker, Wayne tradition, and we all write for it. Peter is a wonderful, harmonically rich player who can really play beautifully but is always swinging and can bring the burn at any time.The group just feels easy and natural and musical and fun, so it is always a pleasure. We did a very rewarding show at George Davis' Florio Street series in February, and currently have a show lined up at the jazzschool on July 12 (with Erik Jekabson) as part of the advanced summer jazz camp we will all be teaching at, as well as one in the fall as the quartet, where we have been named the resident artist quartet for the Jazzschool Institute. All of us are on the faculty there as well. (I told you Susan digs this group!) Here are a couple of cool videos of the group live at Yoshi's to get you a sense of what we are doing.

Lastly, those of you who have followed me for a while may recall that I ran a very acclaimed big band for about 7 years called CARMA. In a sense, it has been resurrected but I think it will ultimately be even better, since now the creative energy of four musicians is driving it. (Sure as hell saves on the logistical time as well.) Erik Jekabson, Jeff Marrs, Grammy-winning trombonist Doug Beavers and I are co-leading a top flight modern big band, fill with Bay Area luminaries, and at least 7 members of the band are writing for the group. We are planning a recording of this new material, as well as performances and clinics around the area in the next six months. I will post a sneak peek sample as soon as we get in the studio.

Other than that, not much is happening musically, and, like all musicians, I don't think I have enough gigs! (kind of reminds me of a positive version of "other than that how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?") I continue to direct the Jazzschool's top student group (we just won the Downbeat award for the 5th year in a row), direct LMC's jazz program and am even my college's union VP. Oh yeah, I was deeply honored to be chosen to write the liner notes for the late and sorely missed Michael Brecker. His Nothing Personal is on the upcoming new version of The Smithsonian Jazz Collection, their first new version since 1961. And of course, my astonishing son Maclen has his choice of top schools into which he will transfer as a junior at the age of 16! He is also starting a politics blog on the daily kos so watch for it. It is only a matter of time before he rules the world, which really would not be a bad thing.

It is always odd to write these kind of news features, since by their very nature they require you to talk a helluva lot about yourself...still, you wouldn't be here reading, listening and watching if you weren't at least a little curious so I would like to say: Thanks for listening (in every sense of the word) and I will do my best to keep this site at least reasonably current, though you can always sign up to be notified as interesting concerts, recordings and other projects unfold.

Philip Roth memorably said "the road to hell is paved with works in progress" but in this case, I think we will be avoiding that particular path to Hades! Now have I mentioned my middle-aged angsty singer-songwriter project ;=]? Another time, perhaps...

Peace to all of us and, as corny as it sounds, choose love: consider the alternative...MZ