In keeping with the athletic mini-theme lately, I wish the best of luck to my good friend Mary and her man Andrew who are running in the Boston Marathon today. I understand I will be receiving tons of email from the Boston Athletic Association telling me when she hits various points in the race, and I can’t wait.
One of these days, my brother might tell you himself how he won second place in the triathlon in Saipan he did a couple weeks ago. But I’ll let him do that. Wouldn’t want to steal his thunder. Unless it took him a long time to post it himself. Hypothetically.
Last Monday I went to a clinic featuring one of the world’s great drummers, Steve Gadd. This photo was taken by someone in his entourage — if you look very closely, over near the wall to Steve’s left, you still won’t be able to see my standing there. He’d just turned sixty a couple days before the clinic.
I knew it was going to be great to see him, but I didn’t expect him to be as warm and gracious with everyone. I didn’t expect him to be a jerk either, but he caught me off-guard with his talk of how all drummers are in this big family, how he let people get up onstage with him while showing everyone stuff, and how engaging he was with all the people he talked with.
He played for maybe ten or fifteen minutes at most before he started taking questions from the audience. People mostly asked him to talk about stuff from the many, many recordings he’s played on. Some of his most well-known stuff, like Paul Simon’s songs Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover and Late in the Evening, Eric Clapton’s recent records, and Chick Corea’s series of recordings from the 70s all came up as expected.
One of the things about Gadd is his incredible patience as a musician. At previous clinics I’ve attended, the artist will demonstrate something the audience asks about for maybe 30 seconds to a minute at most, usually playing it slow and fast in that time. Gadd will do a couple minutes of playing something slow, then another minute or two of the same thing played fast, at a minimum. That not only helps it sink in when everyone in the audience is patting their hands and feet trying to play along, but it demonstrates how important it is to have that patience, and the control, to be able to play stuff at all tempos for as long as you need to. Steve Gadd has made his career based on that foundation, and it was great to be able to see that right in front of me.
I found out, after it was all over, that this clinic tour he’s doing is his first in twenty years. Not only was this the first time I’d gone to see him, it was the first time it’s been possible in my entire life of playing drums. That goes a long way toward explaining the insane attendance — nearly 1,000 people were there — and the wide range of ages. It was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to working more on the stuff I learned there. Mostly, just trying to be more patient is the order of the day.
Musicians take their CDs very seriously, and with good reason. Recordings that go out for sale are fairly permanent documents of where you were musically. They can be around for a long time.
That’s one reason that we’re so excited that we (finally) got the chance to design the art for a CD. This is the first full-length release by Cynthia Shelhart, with whom we’ve been working (as ShooFlyDesign) for a couple years now. She’s a very active and talented harp player from Indiana, and we’re honored that she trusted us to do the art for her. We’re all quite pleased with how it turned out. As an added bonus, the photograph on the cover is one I took in Indiana last fall, with some Photoshop work by Lisa.
This was the first project Lisa and I have worked on together in quite a while. I was talking with a friend tonight, and couldn’t think offhand of what had been happening lately that was out of the ordinary. This is something I would have mentioned if I’d been thinking more clearly.
I talked with Isaac tonight for the first time since he got back to Guam. He and his girlfriend came back to the mainland briefly to take care of some family business (mostly hers). Unfortunately, this was right at the time when I was in Houston, so I didn’t get to see him and meet her. I was wracked with guilt about it, but we talked this evening, and I’m feeling better about it.
However, I can say this for sure: my brother is insane. Since going to Guam, he has turned into a monster athlete. How much? Well, yesterday he and his gf did a triathlon in Guam. Isaac came in fourth overall, out of more than sixty people (she came in second in the women’s division). Craziness. They’re both going to be doing the Xterra Sport Triathon in Saipan next weekend, which is pretty much the same race distance-wise, but on Saipan. I can’t wait to hear how he does. He’s also been gearing up for GEAR, the Guam Extreme Adventure Race, which is a 24 hour race done by teams of four people. Twenty-four hours. That’s ridiculous. It makes me want to post a picture of Isaac dressed up as He-Man from a couple years ago. I’ll save him the possible embarrassment, but maybe he’ll do it himself next time he updates his own site.
I got a last-minute call for a gig last night with George Freeman, who I only as Von Freeman’s younger (I assumed) brother. He called me at 4:30 AM two days before — I didn’t answer the call because I wasn’t very awake, and assumed it was probably a wrong number anyway.
George plays every Thursday at the Tropical Den, pretty close to the lake on the south side. The South Shore Metra line runs right down the street outside the front door, although I didn’t notice it during the show. Driving down there was really nice; I can just take a nice spin down Lakeshore Drive, and it was nice and clear Thursday night.
George is a character, just like his brother, but definitely his own man. He’s younger than Von, and more spritely. He gave me a huge hug right after introducing himself after I parked, and he repeated it later on after we had finished up. It’s a jam session, where singers and instrumentalists are invited to sit in and play. The atmosphere is laid back and the people were friendly (the piano player and I were probably the youngest people there). George plays a mean guitar, and is in total command of the show the whole time, cruising from one tune to the next without really pausing, and keeping things moving during the jam session. It was a challenge, but still fun. He told me afterward that his drummer would be back the following week, but he seemed pretty happy with me, so I hope I’ll get another call somewhere down the line. Maybe at an hour when I can answer it.
I’m really happy to have gotten the chance to play with George and Von. They’re two great musicians from a family that apparently had far too much talent and work ethic to go around. You can check out their music pretty easy online: