Short Lived
I went back to the mirror but my movements no longer seemed so brilliant and expressive. I turned off the music and my writing was flat.
I guess it was all Suzanne Vega. Damn her.
Notes from the world of latin jazz & Brazilian singer-songwriter Alexa Weber Morales
I went back to the mirror but my movements no longer seemed so brilliant and expressive. I turned off the music and my writing was flat.
Have the house to myself. Practiced piano for hours today, then did some research on Bill Evan's/A-B voicings and discovered they are one and the same. Read up on Bill Evans, things I never knew about him. The man lived every day like a poet, but died at 51, how young. Did some more research on modes of the melodic minor. Who knew the Internet held this bounty? Bought a copy of Eliane Elias Nightimer on iTunes to practice for a studio session I've been hired for. Phoned my mom, duty done, then Daddy called to talk journalism, such fun. Perusing my iTunes came across Pornographer's Dream, a recent song by Suzanne Vega. "Why do I love it?" I asked myself when I bought it after reading her blog on songwriting. Because unlike some of her folky tunes it mixes Brazilian syncopation and complex melody lines with a classic American hook, and very Vega lyrics. Started dancing in front of the mirror to her effortless fluted voice and began imagining that perhaps someday like Ray Bolger I'd be known for my own outsider style of dancing. And perhaps everything that I have ever wanted, to be a good pianist and to be a dancer, was in my reach, despite the misspent decades. I could touch the dream, or at least dance around it, so I thought I'd capture the moment. Here it is.
My 7-year-old this morning: "Mommy, why don't we save up our money and hire a butler?"
The boys are going stark raving mad this summer so I am glad we have an "activity" (as my son always asks for) planned: We're off to Quincy, California, in the Sierra foothills above Truckee, where I'll be guest artist in residence for the week at Oakland Feather River Camp.

The Maria Schneider Orchestra piece reminded me of this Dianne Reeves album, The Calling, a tribute to Sarah Vaughan. It was recorded with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Here's a rather weird performance of one of the songs off that album. Not entirely the song I was looking for, but it'll do.
The sound on this video is not great, but...
As a singer, one of the things I noticed was the wonderful balance between Luciana Souza's voice and the orchestra. I have done things like that (doubling an instrument), and while I adore learning horn lines like that, most of the time in live performance I can't hear well enough to tell if I am in balance -- and I suspect the audience can't hear a thing out of my mouth.
Does he include himself in the generation before his students?
I agree with his concept of a massive state of delusion in our country, though perhaps for different reasons. Anyway, an interesting opinion. I believe that I have matured to the point where I do not *need* to hear how good I am or how talented I am from my teachers. Frequently hearing the opposite would cause me to quickly cancel lessons, however.
Many great sports coaches have said that expressing a negative attitude toward their proteges, or yelling at them, doesn't usually equal success among those proteges. It takes a gift to encourage someone both to work hard and to release their full potential.
Emotions are so fleeting. Yesterday morning I was bursting with pride and languidly planning to write a long essay about my success hand-writing a third trombone chart for my upcoming performance of El Cantante with Edgardo Cambon's band Candela. I still had that warm feeling of having accomplished something that I'd avoided for weeks, despite the fact that my husband was banging away, demolishing a closet in my son's room. He's been suffering along with all the carpenters we know -- no work. Instead, he's turning his energies into our house, as he has so often in the past. By the end of the day, plaster dust, screaming boys, a trip to Home Depot and a door-to-door home alarm salesman from Utah had sapped the last of my creative reserves.
