This year's Maple Ridge jazz festival turned out to be a great gig for the Blue Morris 6. This year we got to perform from the Beer Garden stage, which I think is well-suited to our music. As I explained to the audience, this music is from the dirty thirties. The stage is a large gazebo with the drums set up right in the middle of it. Surrounding the stage were long tables and chairs where audience members could enjoy beer, conversation, and of course the swinging music. It's really a beautiful setting for live music.
Here are some photos my friends took of us in black and white.
Left to right: Nick Kempinski, Robyn Leigh Katz, Blue Morris
I have Google Alerts on the name "Carly Rae Jepsen" and I just can't keep up with reading all the articles online and in newspapers talking about our star Carly. A couple weeks ago she was in the bottom 3, but these last couple weeks she has really proved herself with some great performances.
This past episode Carly performed an "unplugged" version of Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn." Zack Werner even rushed the stage after her performance and gave her a hug!
He said, "This girl is singular, she is identifiable. I love what you do.... You have the type of gift that the minute you sing ... I know I'm going to go buy the record."
This coming Monday, the competitors will rehearse with Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen and I believe they may all have to sing a Queen song, which should prove challenging, depending on the song choices they make.
Catch Carly's next performance Monday, Aug. 6 at 9 p.m. on CTV and don't forget to vote for Carly as many times as you can. It doesn't cost anything (unless you do it by text message).
Someone recently made me feel like playing music wasn't worth a damn, that it was somehow not worthy of pursuing in life. How could I let someone make me feel that way? I've always thought that music was a universal language. Perhaps I was wrong about that. Maybe some people just don't speak the language. I think they could if they opened their ears (their hearts). But some just refuse.
To me, music is a finer language than any other. It is often more abstract than English, but just when you don't expect it, music can describe feelings and ideas with more accuracy than any other language can, and with such power that it strikes our hearts.
But maybe they just said the things they did to hurt me. I may never know. But it's that kind of attitude that hinders creativity. And without creation, without contribution, the world would be a very dull place.
As a response, here is my cathartic performance of one of my favourite songs: Danny Boy.
This is perhaps one of the finest melodies ever written and it was written some 200 years ago, or there abouts. The song is called "Danny Boy" and this is my swing tribute to this traditional song from Ireland. I call it Swing Danny Boy. I hope you like it.
I borrowed a friend's video camera yesterday to experiment a little using Ubuntu Studio and YouTube. So I filmed myself playing a blues improvisation. Here it is.
