I recently posted about my renewed devotion to my record collection. One friend asked me recently as I was extolling the virtues of listening to vinyl records, “but isn’t live still better?” Well, yes. If you had to chose between one or the other. But the value of listening to high quality recordings of musicians from bygone eras can’t be overstated.
But this post is about live music. It doubles as a promotion for a very busy July for me as a leader and side-musician.
I see many students who rarely go to their teacher’s gigs. I think they’re missing a huge part of the benefit of having a relationship with someone who has already achieved the status of a working musician. It’s a hugely common line of succession that students sub for and then sometimes replace their teachers on gigs (hopefully with the teachers approval!) and gain from that association.
But live music is the gold standard of listening. Live music sounds the best and we add a visual aspect to the experience. Watching how the musicians move and how they achieve the sounds we hear is invaluable and isn’t necessarily perceivable on video. But beyond what we can see in a video, when watching in person you can see what a musician does after their solo, before the gig starts. How they sound check. How they deal with the sound technician to get the stage mix they need. Then getting to meet the other musicians and get a real live experience of that musician as a person adds to the whole reason we love this music and the people who play it.
Make a commitment to see one more show a month than you see now or, if you can manage, one more show a week. We need you out here in the seats making noise and giving us the energy to keep creating. Consider it your contribution to stemming the tide of 30 second Instagram reels replacing actual music.
And I’ve got a great place to start. (haha) Check out the links below for some upcoming shows, or click HERE to see all of my upcoming shows.
This is a video from my recent May gig at Smalls. Marcos Varela, the wonderful bassist on the date, took the time to repost several tunes from that gig and posted them as individual videos.
I felt good about this gig when we played it, but relistening a month later has helped me realize how special this gig was. This features Marcos on bass, Brandon McCune on piano, and Chris Beck on drums. All master musicians. I hope you enjoy!
To see my quartet this Monday, please come to the opening set of the Vando Jam at Zinc Bar at 7pm!
Coming up:
