It’s been a while since I’ve written for a number of reasons. Chief among them that I sprained my ankle while on vacation at the beach in Currituck, NC.

Anyway, the bad ankle hasn’t stopped my getting together with musicians and playing. All month I’ve been rehearsing with Pat Irwin for our upcoming show at Spectrum on Sunday night, September 1. It’s so lovely the way our individual sounds blend. You don’t hear electric guitar and piano that often and while I was never worried that it wouldn’t be good, it’s very nice that it’s so beautiful.

Last week, I also got together with a very interesting trombone player, Ben Gerstein. We improvised, read music, talked about creating in general and then listened to music.I hadn’t done that in so many years and forgot how much fun it is.  He made some really amazing sounds, and the hair on my legs stood on end in one particularly quiet section. The way the sounds he was making combined with the piano resonance and sounds I was making was really special.  Thanks to Ben for sharing music in so many ways! 

One of the best things I’ve done as a way to jump-start my career is to start to play with musicians that I admire but never worked with. This was the genesis of the Rétes collaboration series and I really recommend this to anyone who’s trying to find a niche for themselves. 

Getting together and playing with people is a great way to share music and stretch out your chops at the same time. It’s such great fun and a really great way to build a new musical community of people who know your music and like to play it.

The next step?

I think it might be an ensemble. I’ll get back to you on that, but I feel like it’s time to start advocating for my generation of composer/performers and composers in general. I want to loll around in beautiful and interesting sound combinations that make my hair stand on end as much as possible!

Who’s in?