all-levels

Here's my morning take of the classic "Christmas Song" by Mel Torme.
I tried some Røde M5 Microphones for the first time on the Omega.

A song I composed titled "Remembrance". The rough sketch lead sheet can be viewed and downloaded from google docs. The link is in the video description.

Bach: Double in B Minor (Sonata II) - Sonatas and Partitas for the Violin. Exploring and improvising on Bach's music today. I love Bach's music and his Sonatas and Partitas are among my favorites. I'm a big fan of Itzhak Perlman's recording of these Sonatas and Partitas. The students and I get a lot from studying and playing Bach's music as well as using some of the progressions in the pieces to improvise on. The harmony in his music is brilliant and contains beautiful inherent lines and a wonderful sense of logic.

“Da Blues” - warming up today on my favorite set of vibes at Berklee. An old, beat up but great sounding vibe that we bought used many years for $1,500.

“It Might As Well Be Spring” - a great song by Rodgers and Hammerstein written for the 1945 film State Fair. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song that year. I was reminded of the song listening to the superb recording Last Dance by Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden. They play a beautiful version of the song. I’m using my signature mallets (M39) from Vic Firth. Very happy with how they sound in terms of clarity, fullness and the ability to extract nuance from the instrument at all dynamic levels.

"How My Heart Sings" composed by Earl Zindars and played by pianist Bill Evans on his 1964 recording titled the same name. Bill and Earl were good friends and Bill played quite a few songs composed by Earl. I first learned this song way back when I was studying with Gary Burton in the 70s. It was played quite a lot around Berklee back then. There's another great version from pianist Mulgrew Miller on the recording Young At Heart from drummer Tony Williams. My fantastic student/vibist Lucas Amorim and I have been working on this song in the past few lessons.