Happy Thanksgiving!

Wow, I have a break until dec 4th on gigs, what in the world am I gonna do until then!

Happy Thanksgiving and  Black Friday!

Mack

Dave Peck at Tula's

Dave played at Tula's this weekend.  It was an excellent show the night I was there (Saturday).  Eric Eagle was playing drums, and Dean Johnson was on upright bass.

It was an evening of playing standards and a few originals.  My favorite was Blue Bird, which as far as I know is an original waltz, it was great.

What I really enjoyed about the music was the freedom of it.  Harmonically, Dave is the master at voice leading and reharm'ing tunes, not to mention playing with a great balance amongst his fingers.  The second set I thought the music really started to open up -- they played two ninety minute sets.

I study with Dave Peck because I think he is the shit in Seattle as far as pianists go!  There are other great players, but I idolize the way he can play and make everything sound so great.  I like that he plays lots of medium tempo tunes, and ballads ... it has always been more important to me to play beautifully than to 'burn'.   ALTHOUGH, I have been working on burning tempo's lately.  One thing I have been doing is using the cd metronome by Paul Carmen (google).  It is just a mp3 track of him playing time, 32 bar forms, but it is excellent to practice to.  Tempos range from 40-400 bpm!    Dave turned me on to it, and I know that Dave practices with it a lot as well, and I could really tell at this last gig.  His chops were turned on more than usual!

Anyways, it is turkey day, so I might as well say what I am thankful for.

I am thankful that I get to play (and teach) music as a job.  Although it is stressful sometimes, and sometimes I feel like it takes the magic out of music for me, it is totally worth it in the end.  The majority of the stuff that I dislike is all of the office work that I have to do.  I want to start working enough so that I can just hire a secretary or assistant!

I am also thankful for my friends and family, Chelsea, Moh, Mom, Jade, Jana, Dad!  Love you guys!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ballard Jazz Walk

Playing the Ballard Jazz Walk the other night was an absolute blast.  I was playing with the Jacob Stickney quartet, we have been playing gigs together for about a  year now, and the band includes Devin Lowe, Adam Kessler, Jacob Stickney and myself.   The music is mostly Jacob's original material, which is fun to play.  You get really weird, strange chords for a couple bars, then other really strange chords for a couple bars, and in the end I am always amazed that it sounds so good!  It is teaching me a lot about harmony...

Other bands I saw at the Jazz Walk :

Pete Christlieb and Hadley Caliman - Awesome.  The New York fashion school is not a music venue however... how come the Tractor Tavern, or the Sunset was not on board with this..?!  I could not believe it.  Bill Anschell was on keys, and Chuck Deardorf on bass, Jon Bishop on drums.

Jason Parker Quartet - Super fun, most entertaining group of the evening.  Jason is sounding really great, and he was playing with Cynthia Mullis, who played on his cd.  The Teaching was backing him up (Evan Flory-Barnes, Jeremy Jones, Josh Rawlings) and they sounded good.  Those guys have gotten super tight together over the years.
Jason was playing tracks off of his new cd, my favorite being "Mance's Dance" a Tatum Greenblat tune, and then "Love for Sale" a Jason Parker original arrangement that totally kicked ass.  It was nice to see these guys because they had some stuff worked out, a lot of the groups were just calling tunes... which is a jazz tradition, but it tends to bore me sometimes now.

McTuff - Energy seemed great, but the balance was horrible.  Joe Doria was playing organ, and I could not hear it.  REPEAT, I COUULD NOT HEAR THE ORGAN.... wow, that never happens!

Anyways, there were tons of other bands also and it really was fun walking around checking out all the bands.  It reminded me of what it must have been like being on Jackson street in the mid 1900's with all the jazz clubs.

I met the President.... of Steinway!

He seemed really nice, of course he was trying to sell a bunch of pianos as well. Haha, you can never trust em, nope!  I met him at the Sherman and Clay customer appreciation party.  Pretty fun, a bunch of pianists getting together with a huge tray of all sorts of cheese, wine, and then Mark Salman, a local classical pianist played an excellent set.  Short and sweet.

Beethoven Sonata in F major - the one with only two movements.

Lizt - Short, supposedly lost piece in Ab major

Chopin - Polonaise in F#-

Encore - Chopin Mazurka

Mark is a great pianist, huge dynamic range and he can really get a big sound out of the piano.  I recommend people in town to check him out for sure.

Cheers

Owl n' Thistle, wet your whistle!

Went out to the owl last night, was a pretty good crowd.

Lets see, who was there... Michael Barnett, Chris Symer, Steve Tressler, Stewart McDonald, Eric Verlinde, Brad Gibson, Ray Price, Clark Gibson and Jose Martinez to name a few.

The Owl hang on Tuesday nights never stops impressing me, I cannot believe it has stayed so strong for so long now! Sometimes it is a dead week, sometimes it is hoppin!

Eric Verlinde is a total bad ass, I love that guy and his playing. Funny thing, I actually met Eric when I was in high school and he was playing piano for Dave Barduhn. They were on the road for a weekend and they came up and stayed the night at my parents karate school. Totally random, then several years later I met him at the whiskey bar (old wednesday night jam) and we were like 'woah!'

I sat in and played one crazy blues in G, and I Love You, the Cole Porter tune -- went okay, made me want to practice!

I want to start a Sunday afternoon jam session at my house -- let me know if you are interested!

Teaching

Long day of teaching today. I teach about fifteen hours of students a week in two days, so it gives me some long stretches of students.

Although it rocks, and I love teaching people about and how to play music, I have to admit that sometimes it gets very frustrating. A week or two with out much progress, that is okay and understandable... but once I see that you are not really trying or are not that interested in playing the piano? Get out of here, do not waste my time!

Hah... I sound so mean and hardcore here, I am really a super nice teacher... I am just at a loss with what to do with some of my students who seem stuck in a bad practicing rut. I am booking a recital for them to practice for, we will see if that helps. On the opposite side of things, I love it when my students (Kids AND Adults!) get some work done, and show pride in what they have done and are making great progress. They love it, I love it, everybody wins.

Lynnwood Food Bank Benefit!

A week ago, my quartet played a gig at the Lynnwood Free Methodist Church to benefit the Lynnwood food-bank. It was exciting to have a showcase gig for a good cause, and we earned over $1,600.00 for the food bank!

Clark Gibson was playing sax, Adam Kessler was playing drums and Devin Lowe was playing a lil' bass in your face.

Getting ready for the concert, I had a whole bunch of music picked out for us to perform, but it turned out that two forty-five minute sets was only a third of the material I picked out. Although we did not get a true rehearsal in (hard with everyones schedules) we played charts that were easy enough to get through as a band with very little rehearsal time. Some of those included Get Happy, Pure Imagination, I'm Walkin and a Charlie Parker transcription of Dewey Square. It was a fun gig, the music was all around exciting, however as a musician I cannot be satisfied! LoL! Next time we will be tighter, play better and have even MORE fun!!!

You can check out a clip from the gig on my website, www.mackgrout.com

Mack

Zubatto Syndicate and More!

The Zubatto Syndicate gig on November 5th was a success!

As a musician playing Andrew Boscardin's music (the composer, and leader of the Zubatto Syndicate) I wanted to write a little something from an insider perspective for all you bloggers and musicians out there.

We have all played gigs before where musicians and composers are trying to bring many different types of music together, and in my experience many of these instances are exaggerated incredibly. Normally when you get a classical group that says they are combining the two(jazz and classical), you have a chamber ensemble of some sort playing some major nine chords, or playing some modal sounding piece. When you get the jazz guys mixing classical into their playing, they are not really mixing in solid classical influences, but are improvising in a way that resembles how they interpret classical music. The music that Andrew wrote for the Zubatto Syndicate is definitely from more of a jazz background, but I felt that it had an honest mixing of classical influences.

Part of this could be attributed to a third of the band being typical 'classical' instruments. This made for some very unique arrangements, with oboe, bassoon and clarinets often playing the top of the voicings, and trumpet, alto and some of the jazz side of the band that normally play the top of the "balance pyramid" playing some inner voicings. I have not heard the recordings yet, but it sounded good from the band stand. My only concern is that the woodwind instruments can not be as loud as the brass, so I hope the balance was good the night of the performance and the melodies when they were in the oboe and clarinet were not over powered by the brass section.

One of the goal's of the Zubatto Syndicate, was to mix this quasi big-band style with contemporary styles. A lot of Andrew's songs (All entitled as Z, followed by a number. He said this was because when he was brainstorming musical ideas and motif's he just numbered them and instead of creating a name for the tunes, he just kept them as Z7, Z2, Z35 and etc.) were built around grooves. Rock grooves, hip-hop grooves, bluesy grooves and all sorts of interesting rhythms (One of Andrew's pieces was built around a 7/8 drum groove, really cool!). Byron Vannoy was playing drums, and John Hammer was playing bass, and together they really held down a good foundation for the band.

Once the band had rehearsed a few times, it was time to get down to Town Hall and perform the show. Even after rehearsing and practicing the music, I know that I was still on the uncomfortable edge when it was performance time... and I do not think I was alone! Part of it was because of the difficult passages, and rhythms that the music contained. Another part of it was that since Town Hall is such a huge room, with thirty foot ceilings, the sound of the bass on stage was basically disappearing. Because of this, throughout the show I was trying hard just to lay down the basic harmony of the pieces so that soloists could tell where we were in the forms (It sure was pretty tricky in spots!!!). I do not know how well I did, we can all see when the concert is broadcast on the Seattle Channel in January!

Overall, I think the nervousness of the band helped the performance. We were all super attentive as a unit, and there were several times where people stepped up and helped to lead everyone else. If everyone was super clean on all of the material and at ease, I do not think it would have had the same energy that it did.

I love working with Andrew, because all of his music has such interesting melodies, and he writes truly original music. Not to mention he is a good friend of mine, and we always have fun playing together! I would recommend not just jazz lovers, but any music lover to at least give the Zubatto Syndicate a listen to see what they think, it is an ambitious music, experimental, energetic, and then it is rounded out by some great soloists! Clark Gibson, Chad McCullough, Chris Stover and Jim DeJoie were all killing it.

Zubatto Syndicate is:

Zubatto Syndicate is:
Byron Vannoy - drums
Chris Stover - trombone
Greg Sinibaldi - bass clarinet and tenor saxophone
Francine Peterson - bassoon
Chad McCullough - trumpet
Taina Karr - oboe and English horn
Jon Hamar - bass
Mack Grout - keys
Clark Gibson - alto saxophone
Jim DeJoie - baritone saxophone
Jesse Canterbury - clarinet

Andrew Boscardin - guitar

Check out Andrew Boscardin's blog on the band here.

Excited about an upcoming gig this weekend!

I am super excited to be playing a gig this Saturday at the Lynnwood Free Methodist Church.

My band is playing a jazz concert to raise money for the Lynnwood Food Bank. It should be really fun, everyone in the band is a great musician. I am super stoked, although I play gigs and work all the time, I am trying to push more of 'my' thing lately. This concert is a good representation of who I am as a musician, and what I do, and what I want to do all the time. Obviously, I love all the bands that I play with, but it feels sometimes that I am so busy working all the time that I am not focusing on doing what I want to do, and pushing my career as a musician (sideman aside).

Anyways, get more information at the official website (Google Lynnwood Food Bank) or at the Facebook event page here.

Also, on Facebook you can see a lot of the pictures from the Dudley Manlove Spooktacular, 2009, which kicked @$$!

Other notable gigs:

Zubbatto Syndicate : Adventurous Rock Jazz Hop written by Andrew Bosardin. I love playing in Andrews bands, it is an adventure, and he is a good friend of mine! Come out, were at Town Hall this Thursday! Brought to you by the Seattle City of the Music fund... or something like that!

Water Babies : Love it, rocked the Waterstreet in Port Townsend

Spirit of Peace Church : Gettin the hang of being a music minister

Crystal Ballroom : Felt like a rockstar! Wait a minute, I was a rockstar! It was interesting to play it for tons of peeps at a public show, and then the next night to have to play it for a lot of people at a gigantic private wedding!

Nordstrom : ..... What is this? I feel that all pianists probably try this gig out at least once --- you can look for me soon at the Bellevue Nordstroms, weekends during the day!