Jeff Miller points out this happening video:

The Pacific Cascade Big Band played for a private party in Everett to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of a very nice couple. Micah one of our trumpet players set it up and the people and venue was really nice. They even fed the band!

Curtis, another of our trumpet players took some pictures that I'd like to share.

                                  The lucky couple, Shaz our vocalist

                  Rudy going strong in his 80s, Patty and dad Don

         The rhythm section: Shaz, Rick & Saul, director Cam and Owen the bass man

The band has two dad - daughter sets and one husband and wife. It's kinda what community bands are all about. We have one practice a week and will probably gig six times this year, but it's all about the fraternity and the music. Here's the montage video:

Hope you're having a music-full weekend. :o)

Yes, it's that time of the year again, so I've *rediscovered* these gems to offer as helpful suggestions for those of you writing reviews of employee performance. These useful quotes were reportedly taken from actual Federal employee performance evaluations:

1."Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom and has started to dig."
2."His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity."
3."I would not allow this employee to breed."
4."This employee is really not so much of a has'been, but more of a definite won't be."
5."Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap."
6."When she opens her mouth, it seems that it is only to change feet."
7."He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle."
8."This young lady has delusions of adequacy."
9."He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them."
10."This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot."
11."This employee should go far, and the sooner he starts, the better."
12."Got a full six-pack, but lacks the plastic thing to hold it all together."
13."A gross ignoramus--144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus."
14."He certainly takes a long time to make his pointless."
15."He doesn't have ulcers, but he's a carrier."
16."I would like to go hunting with him sometime."
17."He's been working with glue too much."
18."He would argue with a signpost."
19."He has a knack for making strangers immediately."
20."He brings a lot of joy whenever he leaves the room."
21."When his IQ reaches 50, he should sell."
22."If you see two people talking and one looks bored, he's the other one."
23."A photographic memory but with the lens cover glued on."
24."A prime candidate for natural de-selection."
25."Donated his brain to science before he was done using it."
26."Gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn't coming."
27."Has two brains: one is lost and the other is out looking for it."
28.If he were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week."
29."If you give him a penny for his thoughts, you'd get change."
30."If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean."
31."It's hard to believe that he beat out 1,000,000 other sperm."
32."One neuron short of a synapse."
33."Some drink from the fountain of knowledge; he only gargled."
34."Takes him two hours to watch '60 Minutes'."
35."The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead."

Some ads speak to me. They are the increasingly rare times when someone has figured out what I like. Enjoy.

Wendy, if you're watching/reading, this is how I want to see more of Addie. Wish you guyz lived closer to us.

This is for those two really, no I mean really loud trumpet players. You know who you are.  ;o)

Sorry, this just tickled me today. A buddy of mine on facebook commented that if there were any justice in the world, that'd be a trombone player. No! Good trombone players are too hard to find. Oh,... maybe that's his point.

Follow up by Gary Anderson:

I'm sure I must be one of the two.... ha...

Love the picture... but...

Might I recommend

• http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/erme.aspx
• http://www.falk-m.dk/visprodukt.php?prod_id=54&gruppe=Orchestral%20chairs
• http://www.ratstands.com/accoustic.html

or better yet, give up the sax and join us. Its much more fun..... really

Remember...
There are two sides to a trumpeter’s personality. There is the one that lives only to lay waste to the woodwinds and strings, leaving them lying blue and lifeless along the swath of destruction that is the trumpeter’s fury. And then there’s the dark side…

Gary, a trumpet player, and I were listening to some very nice flugelhorn by Ichihara Hikari. Very tasty and such a pretty lady too. I was musing that I wondered if the Asian culture was more open to jazz than that of the US. Gary noted that because so many songs in the jazz idiom are in English that there tends to be more instrumental songs played.

So the Jazz In Japan is very interesting about offering some insight into the Zen of Jazz.

"Spontaneity is at the core of both jazz and Zen. The overlaps and parallels are hard to ignore when listening to really great jazz improvisers, and easier perhaps, when listening in a country with a long Zen tradition. The silence of meditation may not always be filled up with jazz solos in one's head in return, but the connections can be found in considering both of these amazing cultural forms. Since Japanese musicians have a high degree of cultural awareness, it seems that Zen may be, if only unconsciously and indirectly through the larger culture, be an influence on jazz musicians in Japan much more than in the west."

Read more...

Jazz seems to more popular oversea than in the US. But there are pockets of Jazz happy venues. Seattle is one of those places. And there is a lot of free jazz every weekend all over the area.

Luv the picture and the guidance from Mark at SeattleJazzScene. I'm gonna share this with my grandson the bass clarinet/bari sax player. Here's just a taste of this goodness:

Someone once told me, “Nobody cares about your creativity or your original music”. Wrong.

When I was 14, I discovered Bird, Cannonball, and Phil Woods.

The saxophone is my voice.

If I could do it all over again, I’d be better at trusting my initial instincts more and just getting on with it!

Practice makes no difference at all if you have no plan or goal.

When I look at where I’m at right now, I’m proud of the projects I’ve been a part of and grateful to the musicians who include me.

Read more...

So back to shedding for me and my grandson. Can you tell we luv it!

Borrowing from Greg's most excellent blog, I'm announcing the Woodinville Community Band Spring Concert. We will be playing this Sunday, 15 February at the fabulous Northshore Performing Arts Center (at 18125 92d Ave NE, Bothell, WA) from 7 to 8 PM. The admission to this Pops concert is free thanks in most part to Microsoft's generous donations.

We will be playing:

    - West Side Story - W. J. Duthoit

    - Disney at the Movies - John Higgens

    - The Wizard of Oz - James Barnes

    - Selections from Wicked - Jay Bocook

    - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - Jay Bocook

I will be playing alto sax and have one small solo in Pirates of the Caribbean. There is so much goodness in this solo that I don't know where to begin. If you are in the area and in the mood for some stellar wind band music, feel free to stop by and definitely say hey to Suzy and me after the concert.

A number of bloggers have asked me how to drive traffic to <insert name of your blog here>. I have talked about the technical aspects of getting more people to your blog, but I've forgotten one the most basic concepts. Your content has to be interesting and have value to your readers.

Robert Scoble was asked this same question and after looking at the blog in question his response was:

• It took me five years of blogging every night to get where I am in traffic.
• Patience, patience!
• I can only see one post on here.
• The first question you have should not be "how do I get more traffic?"
• It should be "how can I blog better?"
• Traffic FOLLOWS good content. There's no way around that rule. Well, unless you want to do something salacious.

Seth Godin sez:

I have a lot of friends and family looking for work. This program is phenomenal. I hope some of you can take advantage of this offer.

To help the IT Professionals and Developers around the world during these uncertain economic times, Microsoft Learning  is providing a very discounted bundle called Career Assist Package. It is an extension of our Second Shot offer – Buy a Certification and if you fail, you get a free retake – to add additional training to help customers acquire new skills and prepare for their certification exam. But most importantly it is designed to help customers get a job, become indispensable in their current job or accelerate an existing career.

Here is the offer: Career Assist: Register for Second Shot today and get up to 90% price discount on a Microsoft Official E-Learning Collection.

Second Shot provides a free retake if you fail your Microsoft Certification exam. And from now, until June 30, 2009, if you register for Second Shot, you get any E-Learning Collection for just USD 35 (usually priced up to USD 349). That’s up to 90% off.

But hurry! Once you have activated a discounted E-learning collection it will only be available for 90 days.

Limit One Per Customer.

Register for Second Shot Today

Children picking up our bones
Will never know that these were once
As quick as foxes on the hill;

And that in autumn, when the grapes
Made sharp air sharper by their smell
There had a being, breathing frost;

And least will guess that with our bones
We left much more, left what still is
The look of things, left what we felt

At what we saw. The spring clouds blow
Above the shuttered mansion-house,
Beyond our gate and the windy sky

Cries out a literate despair.
We knew for long the mansion’s look
And what we said of it became

A part of what it is … Children,
Still weaving budded aureoles,
Will speak our speech and never know,

Will say of the mansion that it seems
As if he that lived there left behind
A spirit storming in blank walls,

A dirty house in a gutted world,
A tatter of shadows peaked to white,
Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.

- Wallace Stevens (fascinating background)

After reading an interview with Hugh Laurie this month I thought I'd peek at what he was doing before he because famous in the States for the television show House. On YouTube I got over 600 hits for "A bit of Fry and Laurie". Here one vaguely disturbing vid:

Hugh Laurie is a musician as well, so he's done more than a few musical numbers on the show's he's been in.

I'm afraid I'd be remiss if I didn't include their Paino Master Class on Saturday Night Live.

I find all kinds of people who like House which can be a bit graphic with the medical side of the story and painful with the self loathing stuff. Hugh was also in Blackadder. Enjoy.  :o)