There Are Two Sides To Every Trumpet Player...

...The side that wants to destroy every woodwind and string instrument and leave a smoking mess in their wake, and there's the dark side. - Matthew DeRoche.

Band camp at IMC was friggin' awesome. Can't say I actually learned much, though. It was just a great experience in general and I met a lot of really cool people. Monty Cole is amazing. Jim McMahon is amazing. Jim McMahon went to university with Pittman. Jim McMahon also led my combo, which was pretty fun. We played "Chameleon" by Herbie Hancock and "The Preacher" by Horace Silver. I've loved "The Preacher" ever since I played it in grade 7 jazz, so I was pretty pumped to learn the tune and changes. Soloing over it was a bitch, though. It was like everything I played over top the rythm section was wrong unless it was a chord tones and it really stuck out to me. "Chameleon" was a lot easier because it's just a two chord vamp andis built on the concer b-flat blues scale.

The big band was pretty fun, too. We played three songs, "Rain Delay" by Dean Sorenson, "Riverscape", and "Splanky" by Neal Hefti and recorded by the Count Basie Orchestra. "Riverscape" was a crapfest to make Kenny G proud. The intro is kind of cool, but the rest just makes me wish I was in an elevator and not at a world-class band camp. Our director, Dr. Matt Patnode is a pretty cool guy, I liked working with him. One of the disadvantages of the camp is that there really isn't time to get to know your directors the way you would at school. Patnode also really liked "St. Thomas" by Sonny Rollins and seemed to quote that song whenever he soloed at the faculty jam sessions every night.

Level one jazz theory was really boring, too. I knew everything already, either from piano lessons when I was 5, or from the improv stuff Pittman taught us in class like the bebop scales. I didn't find out until Thursday that I could take a test and get into a higer level, so by then it was too late. I just had to tough it out. Dann Thornton was a nice guy, but I still didn't like the class for the reasons I just mentioned.

Hopefully I can get to the Freehouse tonight and get my shirt from Samantha. I'll leave that to the imagination.

If I drank a diet Pepsi, would I experience something youthful? Or would I experience something à la mid-life crisis? Started my intense practice regimen today. Let's see how long that lasts. If I get that job at Robin's, then probably not very long. At least I've got that mute so I can practise at night. I think that's what I'll do. Stay up and practice at night. At least I'll get some improv practise in and maybe work on material from the real book.

The time is dragging by real slow-like. Got my report card yesterday. My physics exam mark was 75%. Hot shit, that is. I was quite surprised and quite pleased. Mr. Lindsay said that I was the only student in his class to raise their average with the exam. Chemistry was pretty easy, too. Got 88%, final mark (with IB boost): 94%. Math, well can't say I was terribly surprised by it. A 77% without studying is pretty good, I think. That could've been an 81 if I had been able to find the period of the damn sinusoidal graph. I'm not really disappointed, though. My total average was 88%, which is pretty damn good.

I think that Paul Desmond is one of the coolest guys who ever lived. What would you think about a saxophonist who wanted to sound like a dry martini? The word "suave" comes to mind. Tomorrow I'm hoping to bus down to Chapters and pick up my own copy of the Miles Davis biography that Mr. Workman lent to me so I can start work on my extended essay. I've found some solo transcriptions on the internet, but I plan on writing out all the Kind Of Blue solos myself. I'll also write out the "Morpheus" solo. I believe that was recorded at a time when he was high as a kite half the time, so the playing is a little lack-lustre and should be easy to transcribe. I've only listened to it once, so far.