Chicago Bass Ensemble

Just a few items of musical entertainment:

• Operas to avoid on Valentine’s Day (thanks to Bonnie Gibbons)

• Bass String Physics – video (h/t to Derrick Polk)

The Bass Quartet of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra perform “Music for Illuminated Flightcase” — which I am told is a traditional Swedish holiday song — on Levande Music’s Sounding December 2010 website.

I don’t see the Chicago Bass Ensemble’s friend Jan Alm in the video, but perhaps he’s busy composing a Requiem for Resurrected Flightcase for the group’s Easter offering.

The three of you who regularly read this blog may have noticed that I didn’t post a new entry last week. I’ll tell you the simple version of the truth: I wasn’t really excited to report the outcome of our last rehearsal. I think I’ll have more on that subject tomorrow night or the next.

In the meantime, I’ve been meaning to share with you a funny gig story that one of my best friends passed along.

Mickey McPhillips is a great friend of mine. He and I met many years ago while playing in the Redwood Symphony in California. After my post about using gallery sounds as part of a performance Mickey wrote me about a gig he played:

I recently played a gig with George Young (sax), who was part of the ‘Saturday Night Live’ band for about 15 years. gig was in a small gallery in Carmel. small room, many people, all had been drinking free wine for about an hour, before the band arrived.

trio, piano ,bass, sax. no drums. opening tune was a standard. crowd noise was so loud, we could barely hear each other. George: “OK, since nobody is listening, we will just play some jazz for ourselves.” during the tune, the crowd noise got even louder. coming out of the bass solo, George called out “fours with the crowd noise.” and we did.

I could not stop laughing. the next tune was ‘cute’. get the picture?

Our good friend, blogger Jason Heath has a collection of crazy gig stories on doublebassblog.org. If you want more of these, head over there!

A recent press release from our friends Gunnelpumpers provides the following intriguing pieces of information:

• Recent studies have indicated that reading comprehension suffers when text contains lots of hyperlinks.
• A leading cause of beaver deaths is falling trees.
• Copies of Gunnelpumpers debut CD “the nth wave” are still available for only $10.
  • If you see Doug Johnson around, chances are extremely high that he’ll have a few copies nearby.
  • One can also order the physical CD from CD Baby,
  • or digitally download the music from CD Baby, iTunes, eMusic, and many other online purveyors of sonic goodness.
• If you have the CD and like it, please take a few minutes to “review” it on one of the aforementioned sites.
• There’s word on the street that Gunnelpumpers second album “Symphonie Improvisé” will be released this December or January.
• Joan Levergood recently created a video of Gunnelpumpers “The Memory of Trees” from their July show at Martyrs’.
  • An album by Enya of the same title was a HUGE success in 1995.
  • For Gunnelpumpers, then name was chosen while looking through a book of Celtic mythology for a good song title as a result of certain “bagpipey” influences in the music.
  • “The Memory of Trees” rolls of the tongue better than “The Face-Chains of Ogmios”.
• Joan merged shots from two cameras and a separate sound recording. Synchronizing these things is a real tricky business.
• The video is up on youtube.
• Gunnelpumpers have a couple of shows to announce:
  • October 19 at Elbo Room. Music goes from 8-12. Gunnelpumpers plays one set at 9:00 p.m. $7.
  • December 3 at Heartland Cafe. Details forthcoming.
• We have no word on how multiple, nested unordered lists affects reading comprehension on the web.

“The Memory of Trees” video on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wceZtJyc9d0

Youtube Gunnelpumpers channel: http://www.youtube.com/gunnelpumpers

“the nth wave” on CDBaby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/Gunnelpumpers

“the nth wave” on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-nth-wave/id375107757

Gunnelpumpers on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gunnelpumpers/118268258208586

Gunnelpumpers on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/gunnelpumpers

Elbo Room: http://www.elboroomchicago.com/elboroom/index.html

Heartland Cafe: http://www.heartlandcafe.com/

Something entirely different

I learned just a few days ago of the passing of Pete Zaluba.

Pete was a member of the Lyric Opera Orchestra from its inaugural season until 1986. My fond memories of Pete were of his accompanying his wife Beth to Rockford to hear our performances with the Rockford Symphony Orchestra.

I’m not sure where it came from, but somehow, at least among us who were playing there at the time, Pete got the nickname “The Anointed One.” Something to do with the translation of his name, but at the moment I can’t verify that. It was always a great pleasure to have him with us.

Greg Sarchet has posted an obituary on his facebook wall. It will also appear in the Chicago Tribune on July 4.

Visitation will be  at Petkus Lemont Funeral Home, 12401 S. Archer Avenue, Lemont from 3:00 to 9:00 P.M. on Tuesday. A Masonic Service will take place at 7:00 P.M. Tuesday evening. Funeral service Wednesday 10:30 A.M. at the funeral home. Interment Lithuanian National Cemetery. Memorial Offerings to Shriner’s  Hospital for Children will be deeply appreciated. 800-994-7600

I’ve been meaning to write this blog post for a couple of weeks now, but haven’t known quite what to say.

I still don’t know quite what to say, but I’ve got to write it! I’m so proud that I played in the Menlo-Atherton High School jazz ensemble. When I was in the eighth grade, the M-A jazz band traveled for the first time to Europe, by invitation, to play at a number of prestigious jazz festivals. I was so excited about the prospect of joining that band that I arranged to attend M-A instead of Woodside H.S. (some school district politics or policies helped, as well).

I played in that band, and after my sophomore year of high school, I too got to play at the NorthSea Jazz Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival, and at other European venues.

The leader of the band at M-A from shortly before that time to the present day is Frank Moura. This year is Frank’s last year directing the band. I won’t recap his career (because it’s done better in The Country Almanac’s article on Frank Moura), but I will say that I really honor what he accomplished, and feel that I owe a lot of what I am to having played under his tutelage.

If while playing backgammon you hear someone yell “get ‘em, fellas!” or hear an airport page for “Ned Freebish,” you might assume that an alumni of the Frank Moura experience is nearby.

One of the reasons I wanted to move the CBE’s website to a blog platform was so that I could talk, from time to time, about the work of organizing, promoting and generally “building” a performing group. This is one of those posts.

About 8 weeks ago, after giving a performance at a private salon, I asked the other members of the group to look at their schedules and give me some ideas about when would be the next good time to set up a performance. Enough waiting around for other presenters to contact me, I need to set up more performances of our own!

John, Doug and Michael dutifully responded with messages about their schedules. And I promptly got so busy with other, non-bass-ensemble stuff that I did absolutely nothing with the information. Scheduling FAIL on my part.

It’s a lot to keep on top of, to be an adult!

Since their entire world will have changed in the intervening 8 weeks, I’ve asked the guys to again give me some schedule/availability ideas, and will try again. Wish me luck in the comments!

We’re happy to have heard from our friend Jan Alm that his new website is up and running.

He describes himself as “Bass player, Teacher and Composer.” He has written several pieces we perform and which we enjoy a great deal.

Michael Hovnanian wrote a very amusing, yet also deeply felt and thought-provoking post on his blog a few days ago.

I’ve done my share of playing in big orchestras–maybe not the full share I wish I had, because I love the sound and feel and power of playing the “big” repertoire–but enough to have experienced some of the sort of frustration that Michael occasionally discusses in his blog. It can be very disheartening to feel that one has little input into the decisions made musically, or to cower–figuratively–in a corner of your technique, worrying that you aren’t doing it the right way–whether that’s your bow stroke or your fingering or how you count rests or turn pages.

In a smaller group, each member has much more responsibility, authority and input. Playing new repertoire, there isn’t yet a right way to do it. Playing with colleagues entirely of your own choosing, there is a mutual respect and nonjudgmental teaching and learning. In Michael’s words, I hope that the Chicago Bass Ensemble is sneaking away with the keys.