It’s been an interesting week. Oddly, we had two television opportunities. You heard about the NY1 thing but we also were filmed for “The Today Show with Kathy Lee Gifford.” Apparently they’re doing a story about MUNY and they are filming a bunch of the MUNY artists. Tricia from MUNY had us set up at the Grand Central Shuttle stop and we were filmed for about 45 minutes by a camera-woman from NBC. I pretty sure they’ll use something! Fingers crossed. Anyway, it will be national coverage if it happens. They said it will air the 10th or 11th of December. I’ll let you know!
Other than that, I’ve been locked in a basement in Williamsburg finishing up our new album. It’s so close to the finish line and I’m feeling really good about it. Things fell together pretty well. It’s got eleven songs and is much closer to what we actually sound like live than anything else we’ve ever done. It’s a combination of two different sessions we did down at Plan B studio in Phili. The first session was done the first of September the day after we played in Bathesda, MD for my whole family. It still feels a lot like the summer. Two weeks ago, we went down to Phili again and the results were very different, much more a preview of a wintertime vibe.
Ultimately, the challenge has been to get these two sessions, which were recorded and mixed differently, to play nice together on one album. I’ve done five different versions of the master but now I think I am just about ready to go. I really rely on some of my good friends who have huge ears and they give me a great set of feedback to bounce off of. Thanks, y’all. You know who you are. Especially Clifton. Clifton, you know who you are.
The photo above is from a good friend, Juan Perdiguero. I think he is a terrific artist and when the name came up to call the album “Hound’s Tooth”, I immediately thought of Juan and his dogs. Click on that picture there to visit his web site. He’s into monkeys now!
Tomorrow we’re going to be at Union Square and hopefully that hit will begin an idea I have had about getting swing dancers down into the subway. It’s happened before spontaneously and it was a great moment in New York City life. It would be fun to see it happen on the regular. I’ll remember to check in with the MTA and see if we can get their support! So tomorrow, (today at this point), Sunday from 3-5 in Union Square.
Tim from MUNY called me on yesterday and asked if we would be free at 7am to do a TV spot with NY1. I kind of had to laugh. That’s probably the only time of day that I could count on all of us having nothing scheduled.
So there were were at 6:30 on the mezzanine level of the Grand Central Station subway stop. I showed up with 4 coffees and donuts for all as per Stefan and Clifton’s request. Between the four of us we had had a total of 8 hours sleep!
Long story longer:
Everyone showed up with gifts. I had copies of the masters of our new record to share so I can get their feedback on it. I had my iPod with the sermon that Amy Staats laid down on Sunday. Clifton had roughs from the Coconino recording that Stefan and he were just touching up down in Phili. As we were setting up it was a sea of groggy un-slept faces with a swirl of headphones and much cheering about music.
The first step was for the camera crew to interview the wonderful Amy from Arts For Transit. They wanted us playing in the shot behind them but we couldn’t play too loud or the interview wouldn’t work. We are playing so so so softly. It was actually quite ridiculous! As soon as the camera went off we lurched radically in the direction of triple-forte. Thank heavens for just a moment.
The next step was for us to just do our thing and hopefully some people would stop so they could interview passers-by. At this point it is 7:15am! It was the quietest and most barren I’ve ever seen. I am proud to attest that they interviewed every single person who came by and they all had positive things to say. (or it was edited very favorably!!)
They went away for awhile to upload what they got and we had some time to kill. Listening to mixes and masters and laughing. When they came back it was time for my interview. They wanted the band playing behind us so the boys commenced a bluesy blues. I was surprised at how good it sounded in there. The acoustics were quite favorable. Anyway, they were setting up the camera… the lovely Stephanie Simon practiced her interview questions… she let me practice my answers and then after 5 minutes of this blues we were ready to start.
I turn around – “OK guys, that was just a rehearsal.” The music immediately fell apart! And then started again with a slightly more “avant-garde” edge. At one point Stephanie asked me about the happy music we play and how that must make people smile. At that exact moment the music behind me was the strains of a beautiful but beautifully sad and stately blues. I had a hard time fielding her question as I was pretty confused. Luckily, they didn’t include me shooting her a look! You know the look – the “hairy eyeball” – the look of: “wow, really?”
All in all it was very smiley and fun and light and I’m very happy with how it all turned out.
We’ll be in the same location tomorrow at 2pm for the actual Music Under New York Jazz Festival.
Our intrepid reedman also runs a cracked up mambo band called Gato Loco and he wrote a wonderful piece of music called Coconino. Coconino is a suite in 8 movements loosely based on the characters and places from the comic Krazy Kat.
A few weeks ago the band performed the entire suite at Ars Nova Theater as part of their first annual ANT festival. What a great night: a wonderful venue, a packed house and the music was on point. Which is saying a lot… Stefan has written some bad as stuff that is actually quite challenging to play correctly and as fiery as it intended. We recorded an album of the suite earlier this summer and it is due out soon.
I am including the video of Coconino #1 here. For completists, please note that the entirety of Tin Pan is absorbed here. “Tuba” Joe Exley on Tuba, Cifton Hyde on electric guitar, Stefan of course, and Jesse (that’s me) on trumpet. Also featured, Greg Stare on Drums, Ari Fulman-Cohen on Bass, Rick Becker on Trombone, Kevin Moehringer on Bass Trombone, Brett Tyson on Congas,
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