Max Roach

At age fourteen, i mentioned to Jim Jenson that i was getting into "jazz". He let me borrow three records - Miles Davis/Kind Of Blue, Dave Brubeck/Gone With The Wind and Max Roach/Quiet As Its Kept. All on vinyl. Since that time, i've listened to a lot of Max - from his early work with Charlie Parker, thru his small groups of the fifties and sixties, into his duets with Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor and others, his percussion ensemble and his large works for orchestra and chorus, and perhaps most importantly his solo works. Its hard to sum up what Max Roach means to me, but i learned to "hear" the language of jazz from him, was inspired to perform solo because of him, and most importantly, learned to believe in myself as a musician because of him.

I wrote this early January 2007, on the eve of a concert in San Diego i presented to celebrate Max Roachs birthday. We had a nice night, performing several of his compositions as well as a few piece written in tribute to him. Mr. Roach passsed away on August 16th 2007. I love him dearly and will miss him greatly.

 

 

Nazo asked me for my 10 favorite records, here is the (overflowing) list i came up with -

joni mitchell - hejira
brad dutz - krin
system of a down - toxicity
eric b. and rakim - in the ghetto (B-side of the single)
cecil taylor - cecil taylor unit
led zepplin - physical graffiti
miles davis - no blues (bootleg)
tim berne - the paris concert
evan parker - monoceros
harry partch - complete collection volume 1
emperor - equilibrium IX
john zorn - duras/duchamp
public enemy - it take a nation of millions to hold us back
voivod - nothingface
paul lytton - the inclined stick
john coltrane - large works collection
a tribe called quest - low end theory
slayer - south of heaven
angels of light - how i loved you
midnight oil - diesel and dust
soul coughing - all
skinny puppy - last rights

 

 

Dave Pshaida, Tom Newbold, JP Reed, Jeff Myles, Laurel Grinnell - Rosy O'Gradys Jam Session July 10th 2007

 

i've been making backgrounds for websites and getting excited by the prospects. The process is similar to making meaningful wallpaper or playing standards gigs - a challenge if you're into that sort of thing. The two backgrounds are for the Glatter/Hubbard site (left) and Nathan Hubbard Octet site (right).

 

Cosmologic Belgium/Holland Tour Spring 2007
to the SD airport 5:30am Wednesday morning, flight to NY, then on to Brussels. 6:30am Thursday morning we arrive, get our bags and meet Jos Demol. We head down to the train depot and head off to St. Niklaas.
a quick train ride to St. Niklaas, with some beautiful views of Brussels and Belgium.
Here we are in the dressing room of Der Spiegel, and a pic of me performaing taken by Jos. Although we were feeling a bit jetlagged, the gig went well, a nice response, the locals are great and we met a few people who drove in from Antwerpt.
The view from my hotel room in St. Niklaas, a poster for our concert on a street corner and a statue of St. Niklaas.
   
 

 

february 2007 - i have never felt so alone in my life

 

Cosmologic - Dijazz - Tijuana MX January 20th 2007