Just some chatter about what's going on in the ragtime community.
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
Dave Tucker: Ragtimer, Stride Player, Writer, Teacher, Artist, Patent Researcher, Husband, Father, geek, blogger...
|
|
|
|
TurboRagtime : Home of Dave Tucker's Music
|
|
| |
Sunday, November 26, 2006
I've started a new blog using a different blog provider, so please go back to the TurboRagtime site and click on "Dave's Blog".
Thanks.
Dave
9:43 PM
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
From Las Vegas...
I have a very bad internet connection here so I will write much more when we return on Wednesday.
dave
4:02 PM
Saturday, November 18, 2006
From Sacremento at the West Coast Ragtime Festival:
It's Saturday morning here after a first full day at the festival. My immediate impression is that the festival has been top-class top-notch from the start. Morten Gunnar Larson is here for the first time and clearly holding court as the lead headliner here this year. He's clearly the best performer in the world in this genre, and from Norway no less. From listening to the likes of Larson along with Brian Holland, Mimi Blais, Butch Thompson, Carl Sonny Leland and the like, I'm reminded of some very important aspects to piano playing and performance in general. I seem to forget some of that when I get away from the festivals. It's all about making an emotional impact with the audience, listening critically to every nuance of the piano, playing with great relaxation and clarity, being well rehearsed,...I could go on and on.
Made a firm plan with Sue Keller, Sedalia's music director, to perform in the Legacy of Joplin concert in June. Yeh!
Of course, the after-hours was pretty good last night, mostly because Cindy and I spent considerable time with our good friends Mimi Blais, Steve Standiford and others (as always, what happens in Sacramento stays in Sacramento...).
With more time I'll report more soon. Gotta run.
Dave
1:36 PM
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Apparently we did quite well at the StarDust the other night since they have given us several more dates going into December. The additional dates have been added to the schedule at TurboRagtime and at Reveriejazz.com. So we're quite happy about that. Next time at StarDust is November 25th. See you there...
dave
5:35 PM
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Reverie's first gig at the StarDust went well, despite a few technical (& mental) glitches. The main bar/dining room where we played was completely full. It was a good start to what we hope will be a long relationship with the StarDust.
YouTube has exploded with tons of videos of musicians and piano players. Go to www.youtube.com and search "ragtime" and you'll be surprised. I also suggest you search "Paul Asaro" for a pleasent surprise. Watch all of his videos to see how it should be done.
Cindy and I are going to the West Coast on Thursday for the West Coast Ragtime Festival. My solo repertoire is somewhat rusty because of the focus to help get Reverie up and running. I do expect to play some. Then we'll make a 36 hour stop in Las Vegas to check out the new Wynn Resorts, then back home for Thanksgiving.
I've been updating my recording equipment and have made a plan to record CD number three in early 2007. I'm very excited about this new project.
Weekend-before-last I played three gigs with the HOTs in five days, all of them in Maryland with one of them on the other side of Baltmore at Goucher College. Lots of fun. I expect to play with them through December and then bow out for a short time while the band goes to New Zealand without me and Cindy. That will be a good time to focus on the recording project.
Things are good otherwise. Busy as usual with lots of projects at hand.
Dave
9:00 PM
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Ragtime is presented well by this new section at the Library of Congress:
http://memory.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/html/ragtime/index.html
d
10:20 AM
Sunday, October 29, 2006
The big news this week is that Reverie Jazz Trio, our musical group focusing on providing early jazz standards, is scheduled to play in Alexandria Va (basically our home town) at the StarDust Restaurant. They offered us three dates in November but we could only do two (11th and 25th) because Cindy and I are going to the West Coast Ragtime Festival.
The trio feels well prepared and hope to turn this into a long term engagement at the StarDust. It's a bold move for the owner of StarDust to add live entertainment on Saturday nights, and we plan to make it well worth their effort.
The trio started making firm demo recordings last week and will continue through the next several weeks. Some brief snipits should show up soon on the reverie website www. reveriejazz.com.
The HOTs are busy. We have three gigs over five days this coming weekend. It's all far from home for me so we'll be quite exhausted.
A recent performance with the HOTs included a a chance for me to play piano accompaniment for a new lovely bride while she sang a few tunes to her new husband. Nat King Cole tune...Very Cool.
Finally I am getting some steady practice in on some new solo pieces, mostly Joplin since I am firmly planning to produce an all-Joplin recording in early 2007. Again, we're going to the West Coast Ragtime festival in a few weeks (Nov 17-20) and very much look forward to seeing all our ragtimer friends. As usual we're spending a day in Las Vegas on the way back.
There's a very nice review of my performances at the Blind Boone festival in the October issue of the Mississippi Rag, its last printed issue (for now?). The Lake Superior Ragtimer newsletter from October has a very nice pictorial display of images from the June trip to the Midwest. Lots of our friends are shown there. Sedalia's Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival foundation published its Fall/Winter 2006 newsletter with a nice mention of me on the front page. I've received a contract from them to appear again this year and very much look forward to attending again.
Otherwise, the day job continues its regular course of trying to keep me from having a real life...
Dave
1:26 PM
Monday, October 09, 2006
Time flies by fast doesn't it? Sorry for the delay once again in reporting back to everyone. At the end of September I finished a big project at work that started back in mid-May. I essentially worked around the clock on that one, and now it's over. I'm taking off ALL OF OCTOBER!!! Consider me to be in some sort of rehab to regain my sensibilities and general humanity.
Recent gigs with the HOTs have been very good. I think the group is getting much better. We basically have an all-new rhythm section, and two new front-line wind players (they each play numerous instruments as many of the "Hotties" do). We got some nice gigs coming up that I need to add to my schedule here, including a 1920s dance at the Army-Navy Country Club, and also a Great Gatsby 1920s dance at Goucher College.
REVERIE JAZZ TRIO was on hold a little bit while our bass player Terry recovered from a hand injury. We did continue to practice though during Terry's recovery, so things have gotten real solid. We're making a demo recording for a promotional package in October. We're back to work...
I think the solo career was basically on hold through most of the summer because of this work project I was on, but now I have lots of time to catch up. I'm missing the Fall Alex-Bay festival because I'm performing at a wedding of a friend here (that's next weekend). I'll be attending the West Coast Festival in mid-November, and I'm playing at the Eau Claire Festival in January.
I have decided this week that my next CD recording will be an all-Joplin effort. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, I'm in the mood to do it (very important factor), and I feel it's something that every respectable ragtimer must do somewhere along the way. So it's already "in the works" and I should have it done well before the summer season next year.
I'm working on all sorts of other solo music, so by recording the Joplin stuff first it allows more time for the other cool stuff to get polished.
As a sidenote, I've heard advance tracks of Mimi Blais's new recording "Life is a Dream" which should issue sometime this week. It is amazing, and shows Mimi at her best. All the great performance aspects that we associate with Mimi are found in this recording. The music is full of emotion, thoughtfulness and feeling, all made easy with her incredible skill at the piano. She always reminds me of how things should be done right in performance. The CD should be available soon at http://www.mimiblais.com. She'll have it at the Alex Bay fest' next week. Be sure to see every single set of her's if you are there!
Last week I played solo at a celebration for volunteers at the Potomac Library in Potomac Maryland. That was fun. I'd like to do more of those. It's a good workout.
Cindy and I returned to a previous life by attending the Washington Capitals home opener last Saturday night with our son. That was much fun. [Caps won 5-2 against Carolina...Hat trick for Semin and 2 goals for Ovechkin]
Our daughter is doing very well at college. All is well.
Dave
11:54 AM
Monday, September 11, 2006
Hey:
September is progressing well on all fronts. Our daughter is doing just fine, some 445 miles away. The day-time workload could have me in the office 22 hours a day if I wanted. I am managing to be consumed at home will all sorts of long-term music projects. I'm not playing any of the old repertoire right now. It's all about new music. I've done some serious arranging of new pieces for the trio, and for solo (Fats Waller!). I've also had to write a few piano parts for the HOTs. Some of the scores I get there are sickening and I must write them up for myself to fit my own playing style, especially the ones where some swing-band guy decided to write a band score for a Fats Waller tune, and basically writes the piano out of the action.
Some nice gigs coming up for the Hots, and I've got some nice solo piano gigs here in the DC area. I'll be playing at a fine library in a somewhat rich part of town, performing my ragtime/stride repertoire for a benefit event. Later I'm playing some solo stuff, and playing along with the HOTs, at a wedding reception for two of our good friends who perform with the HOTs regularly. It's sort of a HOTs family event.
The next road trip is to the West Coast Ragtime Festival in late November. Once again I am just a spectator at that one, but it's a huge party that I'll always try to make every year. I will perform in the afterhours as usual.
As I sit here in eyesight of the Pentagon, I remember where I was the morning of 9-11. I was in my bedroom getting ready for work. I was watching CNBC as usual. I watched the whole thing unfold live, and the best TV coverage was with CNBC because the World Trade Center existed basically in their backyard. It was amazing in its own way. My wife was in Crystal City, a part of Arlington, and actually heard the impact at the Pentagon. She was 3 miles away. I could go on and on. The whole area changed overnight, with bigtime military security everywhere. Nowadays, the same security is there, but mostly hidden. They still have men stationed 24/7 in Jeeps under green tents near the Pentagon, ready to jump out and launch anti-aircraft missiles within 30 seconds of notice.
I hope people never forget. It would be a big mistake.
Dave
11:12 AM
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Oh yeh, I need to blog my friends more often...
The Vegas trip was fun, except for the bad seat I had for the red-eye overnight flight back to the East Coast. The girls had a great time and I got away from the rat race for a few days. It was HOT! and Vegas is getting expensive and crowded (but we were there during a peak "last chance to vacation" time period).
The big-deal event last weekend was a trip to New York to drop our daughter off at college (SUNY at Fredonia, or otherwise known as Fredonia State). Luckily, a new commons building just opened right next door to the Freshman dorm, complete with a new cafeteria, school book store, convenience store, and of course a Starbucks! Most of her classes are within two blocks from her front door. Not a bad situation for a school located just south of Buffalo (I'm speaking of the upcoming winter of course). Our daughter is doing well all things considered. She is SO ready for college! As for Mom and Dad, that's another story.
Back to that book I'm reading...it's a very long book that reads like a textbook. I'm consuming it slowly and plan to review the book soon. I am the fastest reader I am aware of, but I'm taking my time with this one (corporations actually pay me to read and study for a living).
I am back on the piano-playing-practice-wagon in full force. I am committed to playing an all-new repertoire throughout 2007 in the solo environment. Of course, I'll maintain many of the favorites. I'm already well into a new body of music and it's coming quickly. I'll be performing some of it this fall locally. Regretfully, I don't see any appearances in the ragtime circuit until November, and that's as a customer at the West Coast Festival (a tuff nut to crack). Meanwhile, there's lot of interesting stuff going on with the HOTS swing orchestra, and Reverie is getting ready to get hot.
Much of August was a wash because of my business schedule. Now the trio is in full preparation and we KNOW it's going to do well beginning this fall. We are finalizing what I consider to be an initial repertoire, preparing some marketing materials, making a demo recording. etc etc etc.
I also find myself in the mood to consider the possibility of maybe doing perhaps kinda sorta a new solo recording in early 2007, hopefully...I may do either another CD of mixed music types, or a Dave Tucker Plays Scott Joplin recording. I've got to do that soon, and I'm ready and am of the right mind set. Every hard-core ragtimer musician must devote at least one recording to Joplin.
News Report: The Mississippi Rag (www.mississippirag.com) announced in its recent edition that it will cease printed publication in October. This will be a great loss because it has been the only publication that gives good detailed coverage of the "ragtime festival circuit". Cindy's picture appears in a report about the Scott Joplin Festival in Sedalia. My brief performance at the Revelation's Concert was reviewed. I hope someone decides to take on the operation and publishing of The Rag.
I was sent a copy of a very positive review of the Blind Boone festival which I will post here later. That is nothing but a first class event. There is some talk that the wonderful theatre used by that festival will be under full interior renovation during the festival next year, so another venue may be required.
At this writing, Sue Keller is the lone Musical Director for the Scott Joplin festival in 2007. I have already received my official invite for that festival next year (accepted of course). Yippee!!
Nan Bostick and Tom Briar are coming to the East Cost to appear at the Northern Virginia Ragtime Society on September 17th.
More later.
Dave
4:47 PM
Saturday, August 19, 2006
From Las Vegas Nevada...
Been here in Las Vegas for a few days with Cindy and Christina. The trip was sort of a graduation gift to my daughter. Of course, Cindy and I like it here a lot.
A few nights ago we saw Celine Dion. I've always liked her music, sparked by the tune used in Titanic, but now I "get it". The show at Caesar's is a huge production...lots of dancers on a slanted stage!!! Since she is clearly on top in Vegas, she has the best talent in town working with her. A great show.
The next night we saw Mystere at Treasure Island. This Cirque du Soliel production is still top-notch after all these years. World-class athletes involved here for sure. It's a fine show indeed. Hugely funny and entertaining. And like all the du Soliel shows, it's overwhelming at time...there's too much to look at ...
Tonight it's the Blue Man Group. I've seen them 9-10 times, but they have moved to the Venetian where we're staying. They have a new theatre and a new show, so that'll be fun.
I'm finding Vegas to be tremendously crowded this time around. I used to feel comfortable using rental cars here, but now it's best to take taxis. I like Vegas a little better in late Fall or early Spring. For now though, it's fine to get away from DC and the work load for a bit. Temps here in the 105 area (10% humidity is the big difference), but the locals say it's nice because it's not 117 as usual!!!
I'm reading a great book on piano practice which I'll review later. It's clearly the best text yet on practice methods. You can talk all you want about technique and so forth, but the magic is in how one uses his/her time at the piano. Most people completely waste their time IMO, and wonder why it takes so long to learn music. I have very strong feelings on this topic and can talk about it for hours. This book most closely matches my views. I might write a book one day because I have more to add...
Much is brewing in the music world. It's going to be a busy winter on all fronts.
Our daughter goes to college next weekend!
More later...
Dave
1:28 PM
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Dave with the Reverie Trio at the RiverBend Country Club
4:31 PM
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Above: The New Hots Jazz Orchestra at Montpelier Mansion July 28th 2006
Baby it's hot outside...what to do......what to do?
Play the radio!
Here's where I espouse on internet radio with regard to ragtime and early jazz.
The best place for online ragtime radio is found at www.ragtimeradio.org. The online station is free for use. There's an online discussion group associated with this station, and they do really live shows on Tuesday nights, sometimes with live piano performances. The station primarily plays modern-era performers playing music from the beginning of the century (the previous century). Most all of the current performers at the ragtime circuit can be heard there.
A search at www.live365.com using terms such as swing, big band, ragtime or the like will produce tons of choices. Many are not good, some are amazingly good, and others are actually live feeds of commercial over-air radio stations.
Another place I like online is www.mystery-otr.net. They run two stations there. I suggest trying their "history-capsule" station. They play a lot of early radio shows and many news reports from the 30s, 40s and 50s. Very cool, but the play list doesn't change often.
So hot here my wife's car battery done blow'd up this mornin'. No problem though. In the 100s in this territory. They say a cold front is coming that will get us back into the low 90s. Yippee.
All work and no play these days, but at least I've got internet radio to keep mr company during the day...
Dave
1:21 PM
Friday, July 28, 2006
Sorry folks for the bad blogging habits. Life has taken some temporary turns and I find myself working more than I ever have in the day-job. Opportunity knocks! I'm working on a huge project that has taken over the whole summer. But, I still find a few minutes here and there to play some piano...
The HOTs will be performing a really hot swing concert tonight (7:30-9:30pm, free) at the Montpelier Mansion grounds in Laurel Maryland. Recent rehearsals have been great. This is sure to be a fine outing for the HOTS. I really enjoy the hot swing stuff and there will be lots of it this evening.
Not much happening on the piano solo front. I'm doing a couple projects locally, going to the West Coast festival in November... Eau Claire in January. I might be going to Alex Bay in October just to sit back and enjoy, but that is up in the air.
I've cancelled plans to go to New Zealand with the HOTS in February. It's proving to be an expensive trip in many ways, and I expect to be busy at work during that time. Reverie should be running a good schedule by then.
Reverie continues to develop. Rehearsal time is well spent now...focused on things we learned from the event at Chords. We're going to develop a solid promotional package that represents us well, and that includes recording some demo tracks. I have lots of projects and plans for Reverie, but patent work is getting in the way.
The music schedule will pick up substantially after August when everyone gets back to work and event organizers start to make deals. I've got some nice solo projects in the works and I'm confident that I'll have a new repertoire for next summer. One must always think way ahead ...
August is big for us parents because our daughter goes off to college. But we'll be making a quick family trip to Las Vegas in advance of that, as a graduation gift to C'2.
More later....yes, there will be more...
Dave
11:16 AM
Monday, July 10, 2006
Reverie is off and running! The event last Saturday at Chords was very nice and it was a great chance to get Reverie going.
Recommended video:
http://www.peopleofneworleans.com/video/24/
This is an interview of Tom McDermott who lives in New Orleans. He's a very fine pianist and has been quite busy since hurricane Katrina. He speaks of his life over the past year and plays two pieces: Swipesy and Maple Leaf Rag. Take a look.
d
10:37 AM
|
|
| |
|
|
|
