Whew I’ve been busy these past few months!! So much music and great times spent with so many amazing musicians and friends!!
I spent the first week of August teaching at Lafayette Summer Music Jazz Workshop, and wow did I have fun!! It was my first year ever teaching at the camp, and I was blown away by the amazing staff and students that attended. The days were packed with various classes, and I had so much fun sharing as much of my knowledge as I could! I’m looking forward to next year!
The following week I played a really funky evening gig with Lyrics Born in downtown Los Angeles at the FIGat7th center!
Then after playing another wedding gig with Lucky Devils, I happily joined up with the Tony! Toni! Tone! crew to perform a huge amazing show for Oakland’s Art & Soul Festival! There were people for blocks and even some watching from up in the neighboring garage!
Next I had a fun time performing with Tommy Igoe Groove Conspiracy at Yoshi’s! This show was also special as we debuted a few Prince arrangements, and I was extremely happy to bring in another new chart that I had just finished for us, “The Everlasting Now”! The band totally killed it! Can’t wait to play it again. We also had the live painter Jeremy Sutton on hand, and he painted quite a few action scenes that night, including this one of me!
Then I joined the Droptones for a noontime show in downtown Oakland City Center, and it was a funky good time!
A few more Lucky Devils wedding gigs thrown in the mix, then I joined Pop Rocks to perform a special show in downtown Walnut Creek! We were joined by Mark McGrath who sang his hits and I had arranged all the horn charts for our horn section to play!
Then I spent a beautiful week up in Glen Ellen performing with Transcendence Theatre Company for their production titled “Gala”. It featured numerous different musical songs and scenes, and all the cast and crew were so amazing and positive to work with!!
Then I headed over to Yoshi’s once again to play with Tommy Igoe Groove Conspiracy for our CD/DVD Release of the Live Steely Dan Project!! This project features Drew Zingg on guitar and Tony Lindsay on vocals, and we performed new original arrangements of SD tunes, including 4 of my very own!
Then after another Lucky Devils wedding I joined the Groove Conspiracy again to perform at the amazing Monterey Jazz Festival! We had a huge energetic crowd that loved our Steely Dan arrangements, and especially loved the amazing energy and technique from Tommy Igoe himself! We were also lucky enough to have our special guest Randy Brecker on trumpet!!
Then just this past weekend I gathered up a special group of SoCal musicians to make up the 3030 orchestra to perform with Deltron 3030! This was for the downtown Long Beach’s new Music Tastes Good Festival! A great night was had by the musicians as well as the audience! This was the first time the band had performed using the 3030 orchestra in about 1.5 years, and the SoCal musicians were 100% pro and brought so much energy and musicianship to the performance!
I found a little blurb about me in LAWeekly, where the writer was impressed by my stage presence 🙂
http://www.laweekly.com/music/music-tastes-good-festival-best-and-worst-7429518
Most people only see me play trombone with the group, but I actually do a ton of work behind the scenes! It’s exciting for me to wear so many hats and exercise my multi-tasking gifts: Musician contracting, orchestra managing, sheet music arranging, leading rehearsals, etc.. The easy part is actually playing the show! I love looking across the stage to smile at the other musicians! Also one of my all time favorite moments while performing with any group is connecting with people in the audience.
What’s up next on the agenda??!!
I will be playing about half of the run for the Contra Costa Musical Theater’s production of 1776 in Walnut Creek! In between those shows I have a few wedding gigs with Pop Rocks, LA Allstars, and Lucky Devils. Also Tommy Igoe Groove Conspiracy has a handful of East Bay shows on the calendar including a double drum night Oct 18th with David Garibaldi of ToP! Also happening this December is the special annual Christmas 8-show-run with Tony! Toni! Tone! at Yoshi’s! What else can I fit in my schedule?? How about some trips to NYC to visit more musician friends!! 🙂 See you soon!