Buy It From CD Baby Here.

Buy It From iTunes Here.

Not to hurt Jobsie’s pocketbook, but I get a little bit more of the money if you buy it through CD Baby, so I recommend that if you are undecided.

And now to plug the CD release show!

Sunday, May 16, 7:00pm – F.Boo Studios, Burbank, CA

$15 ($10 students) includes a CD, and delicious food and beverages! Dealski!

RSVP via email or phone at 818.846.2312 to receive the street address (so hot it’s Unpublishable).

For those that have not attended my annual F.Boo solo concert in the past, it is a casual and intimate affair. Recommended to bring a pillow, and a #2 pencil. More information on their loving and nefarious narrative at their website.

April 24– Stanford University. The premiere of the collaborative work between filmmaker Bill Morrison, composer Dave Douglas, band Dave Douglas + Keystone. This has been over a year in the works and we are very pleased to premiere the work that concludes a year-long residency at the University.

• Win Tickets By Being A Smartypants Here.
• Read the Program Notes Here. (pdf)
• Watch The Trailer Here.

We will be in residence at the University in the week leading up to the premiere. Highlights will include a matinee performance for students on Monday, a screening of the film with soundtrack on Tuesday, and a lecture / demonstration on Technology and Jazz on Wednesday.

May 7 –Dateline, Bakersfield! Dave Douglas and Keystone make their Southern California debut in the newly burgeoning hotbed of jazz, Bakersfield CA! Mainstagin’ it at the Bakersfield Jazz Fest. This is a short, educational 2-hour drive from Los Angeles. Wasco, Shafter.

May 16 — CD release show for my new solo record, Alphabets & Consequences. At long last! The yellow and green disc can be yours. Just attend this intimate performance in the newly burgeoning hotbed of jazz, Burbank CA! An F.Boo Studios presentation. $15 gets you the concert AND a copy of the CD. Whoa. More details on the Shows page, and more announcements to come.

May 25 — Kneebody visits the heartland — Berlin, Germany. An afternoon clinic and performance at the Jazz Institut Berlin (under the sensitive guiding hand of John Hollenbeck). And an evening performance at the venerable A-Trane.

May 26 - May 30 — Kneebody will be coming to Italy to play several festivals and clubs - details to be announced soon.

All this, and Baseball, and Birthdays, and Whitney Houston??  Believe It.

There will be a masterclass / performance at University of Nevada at Reno the following day (Friday, March 12). I am pleased to visit with the fine jazz program that is cooking up there featuring luminaries such as Peter Epstein and David Ake.

There will be two performances in the picturesque mountain villa of Truckee, CA (conveniently located half an hour from both Reno and Lake Tahoe) at Moody’s Bistro in the Truckee Hotel on Friday, March 12 and Saturday, March 13, beginning at 9pm and going past midnight.

There will be an album made subsequently, recorded next week at the Steinway Piano Gallery in Reno, courtesy of Steinway Pianos. It’ll come out and you’ll hear it and it will be thought-provoking. Provoke! Provoke!

And then next week we will perform Friday, March 19 at Cafe Metropol in Los Angeles, with Hamilton Price IV on bass.

And then, just around the corner, is my solo piano performance to celebrate the release of my new CD, Alphabets and Consequences! This will take place on Sunday, April 10, at F.Boo Studios in Burbank, CA.

Other recent major events include the addition of our beloved hound Enid to the Benjamin clan. There are, y’know, photos on Facebook if you want to see how sweet she is.

And I was happy to provide music for the matrimonial ceremony of Nate Wood and Jesske Hume this last weekend. Joining me in said affair was the erstwhile Richard Stekol, whose recent foray into the realm of Low Resolution Text Art has been a real eye-opener. Please allow me to share my most recent favorite:

This S is heavy, no doubt.

All The Things You Are

download: mp3 | FLAC

Hey dude,

She replied in a huff, “I wish you guys could get you
regards
Riegel”

Man I’m not going to forget that one any time soon! And to top it off, Millipo11 added 49 useful links to his joke as well, for such great websites as Miracle Cabbage Soup Diet, Diets for Quick Weight Loss, Maple Syrup Diet, and Miracle Cabbage Soup Diet! That’s the thing about Millipo11 - he’s as informative as he is funny!

So keep the feedback coming, dedicated readers. And remember, the best blog fans read each other’s comments as well, visit their websites, and freely volunteer their credit card information and social security numbers!

This blog is resurrecting itself, or rather it was never really dead, or more accurately it had not yet truly been born. Until Now.

Seeing as it’s been quite a long time since I’ve posted anything at all, I will begin with a brief discussion of the major developments –

- I am currently deep in pre-production for the new Dave Douglas + Keystone album “Spark of Being” (a score to the film of the same name by Bill Morrison). I am learning all sorts of things I should have known for a long time, as I will be contributing more to this album than mere Fender Rhodes playing. I’m also developing software instruments, creating sample libraries, adding my trademark wacky sequencing, and more. The general goal is to do something limitless in the digital realm, that matches both the depth and spontaneity of the great improvisers in the band, and the richness and ambiguity of Morrison’s visual work. Quite a task but I am learning as I go.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dave Douglas.                                        Bill Morrison.

Note: These are just random people with those names, not the people I am working with.

- Kneebody was nominated for a Grammy for our album with Theo Bleckmann reinterpreting the works of Charles Ives. This is a surprise and a great honor. I’m pretty psyched to roll up to the red carpet in my dented ‘96 Corolla with the discolored hood, but companion tickets cost some real skrillah, so as usual my companionship will come at a cost…

xx+  Grammy  =xx

- I have a new album of solo piano improvisations entitled “Alphabets and Consequences” that is going to press this week and will be releasing on F.Boo Music in March or April. There will be a CD release concert at F.Boo Studios in lovely Burbank to accompany the release. I think this album pretty accurately represents me and because of this I am quite nervous about it actually being released. You know, the frailty of humanity, and all. The CD package features lovely design by Adrianna Benjamin, and a short inscrutable essay by Adam Benjamin.

xxxA Teensy preview of the cover.

- The Black Plums (Richard Stekol / Adam Benjamin / Nate Wood) have completed our new studio album “Gashing the Great Darkness”. It’s a relatively stripped down affair focusing on such topics as: solitude, regret, ignorance, peace, love. I think it’s the bee’s knees, I really do. We’re designing the cover now and will release in the spring or summer, playing in LA, NYC, Woodstock and Philly for the release. Thanks to all who came to our pre-new years eve show with special guest Greg Leisz, that was a real pleasure.

xxxI call him Uncle Richie.

As a statement of recommitment / rebirth / nondeath of this blog, I will now post 2 more posts, a post of words and a post of music. Thanks for reading.

—————

xxx

the woman and her work.

x

She discussed tonight a current dearth of fieldworkers in biology, resulting in increasingly abstract, lab-driven research. The practical, evidence-driven approach she favors in field research is the great driver behind her work both in livestock handling and autism treatment. Her uncanny self-knowledge adds to her scientific training and makes her a uniquely well-suited researcher, as her personal experience supercedes a hypothesized construct of autism. Her combination of a serene confidence in her intuitions and a rigorous, questioning attitude toward the unknown is a trait I see in great musicians.

Her focus on fieldwork issues, and her related campaign against “abstractification”, remind me of another contemporary crusader for getting inside systems to understand them, David Simon. In nearly opposite styles, their investigations into coeexistence issues as disparate as animal herding and public policy both result in a somewhat fractal view, in which apparent dissimilarities are exposed as similarities of scale. Systems need not be designed either top-down or bottom-up but rather through a series of practical “across” decisions, focusing not on absolute empirical consistency but rather on establishing well-functioning systems that result in the least harm to humans or animals. The analogy to sensory, non-conceptual thinking is apparent — the facts are allowed to live and breathe, rather than being constrained to an ideological construct.

zzzz

system design in the face of chaos.

x

x

A famous diagram that she often references (I’m unable to find it on the web to reference here, please post the link if you find it), which traces the paths of the gaze of both an autistic and a normal observer on a photograph of three conversing adults, has an interesting subtext. In one sense the autistic observer sees “less”, in that they don’t find as many relationships between the subjects, and don’t key in on the eyes and other emotion-conveying aspects of the subjects. Yet we could posit that the single, slow line traced between the two subjects is a process of seeing “more” in that the additional time and more organized visual process could allow the autistic observer to form a more detailed image in their memory, leading to the photorealistic, encyclopedic recall abilities that characterizes Grandin’s system of sensory memory. This also relates to my observations of accomplished artistry — a proclivity to sense details and quick storage and recall of sensory information, often to a point of excluding other more immediate stimuli.

zzzz

my boys.

x

x

Grandin’s rise to prominence in such a particularly conservative and traditionally sexist field as agribusiness and mass livestock handling is no small part of her story. Her ability to calmly remove the severed bull testicles from her parked car as she describes in her BBC documentary is managed by the same mechanisms that enable her clear-thinking research and her composed, humble public speaking style. She quietly and confidently embraces her non-traditional gender role and in this way reminds me of Christina Kahrl, another hero of mine, who has excelled in a largely homogenous and conservative field at odds with her transsexuality. They are both shining examples of quiet confidence and top-notch work being the best weapons against ignorant persecution.

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my ladies.

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Bravery in the face of this persecution must have risen from the fact that her internal suffering was so much greater than what others could wreak upon her. The fact that she was able to overcome this deep, mysterious suffering purely through ingenuity and diligence, enabling her to grow into someone that could help subsequent generations with that same deep suffering, is a true inspiration.

Diverse, Rotating Faculty. Having a different group of faculty every week emphasizes a pluralistic approach to learning music. It affords each faculty member the opportunity to teach to their strengths, and the students the opportunity to take each teacher as one voice among many, and to dig further into the ideas of the faculty they feel most connected to.

Faculty that Works. The unifying aspect of all the diverse faculty members is their active playing careers. Active performers tend to have more fluid, dynamic attitudes towards music education as a result of them grappling with the issues of music-making on a daily basis. They have direct knowledge of the practical aspects of a performing career, something that can be underemphasized in school settings.

Emphasis on Performance. Weekly concert-hall performances with faculty, multiple Club sets nightly for a focused and enthusiastic audience, and a variety of informal performance opportunities assure that students will be performing regularly. This is critical at a time when so much thinking and learning is occurring. Too much thinking and not enough playing, and a resulting over-focusing on the few performance opportunities available, can be a crippling imbalance in some educational settings.

Emphasis on Self-Direction. Official workshop events generally represent about 6 hours of the student’s day. This is definitely a lot, but it still leaves the majority of productive hours to be spent in self-directed study – practicing, composing, listening, organizing and playing sessions, attending performances, scheduling informal lessons, experimenting with collaborations, etc. This is crucial because each student generally knows best what they need, and also because it establishes habits of self-direction that are necessary ingredients of any life in music outside of school.

Excellent Facilities. There are virtually no times when a student is unable to gain access to practice space, good pianos, drums, and amps, organize an ensemble rehearsal, have a listening session, a meal, a hike, and coffee. More facilities means less downtime, which enables greater productivity.

Engaged Administration. I work in direct connection with program director Dave Douglas, as do all faculty, and his focus on the student experience is unwavering. This further encourages faculty to engage with the participants more readily and deeply. Although I don’t work directly with the administrators above and around Dave, it is clear that the vision for the workshop, and for the Centre, is both well-conceived and well-executed.

Talented, Open-minded, Diverse Students. Diverse in background, nationality and musical direction, the students are truly what makes the program special. Part of a generation of young musicians whose musical abilities have a greater level and breadth than any before, they all come eager to learn, open to new ideas, and ready to work hard. It is primarily for this reason that they leave with a feeling of growth and accomplishment.

Jazz Educators, Students and Administrators: Which of these aspects of the Banff workshop can be applied to your school situation? Which cannot, or should not, and why? Comment below.

This program is enjoyable, the students are remarkable, the setting is pristine, and of course I am honored to play with jazz Luminaries: Joshua Redman, Dave Douglas, David Gilmore, Matt Penman, Clarence Penn.

More significantly though, I think this program is a great example of what is possible in jazz education — active, engaged students and faculty; an emphasis on music-making, self-direction and inspiration; and an appropriate balance between skill set expansion and the development of a personal style.

I’ll be blogging in greater detail about my experience at the Banff International Jazz Workshop shortly. Until then I recommend the Real-Time Banffy Blog of our esteemed program director Dave Douglas.