...A Long Time

Righto, moving right along from last night, we come to the Winnipeg Jazz Festival. Wow. Me just being there was a giant fluke. The initial conversation went something like this:

Pittman: So, you going to the concert tonight?

Derek: Nah, I don't think so. I need to save up my money. Aren't tickets like $45?

Pittman: Well, here, I'll give you this (hands me Greg Gatien's performer's pass), but I'll need it back at the end of the night.

Derek: Awesome! Thanks!

Actually, I first had to check to see if I could go, and that got the thumbs up, so I called him after my lesson to let him know what was up, and we met behind the concert hall, away from prying eyes, very cloak and dagger-like. Obviously, I bear no resemblance to the light-haired saxophonist/professor from Brandon, so I had to keep my tag backwards throughout the night to ensure that nobody got wise to the gig, yo. I had my horn with me so that I would look more like a performer and no one would get suspicious. I saw Mr. Pollard in the lobby, that was cool talking to him again. So I watched and listened to PrarieAir7 and then McCoy Tyner with him in the balcony, which apparently has the best sound in the place, as it's right behind the sound guy, or something like that. That was a breathtaking concert, to be sure. I loved how McCoy moved from dissonance to beauty so effortlessly and without breaking a stride. It wasn't entirely my cup of tea, but it kept me interested for the entire show, so it was a success in my books. Afterwards, I was going to head home, but John, Curt, Joel, Derek (Ullenboom, or D-Boom), and Andrew (who works at Sobey's in the deli) convinced me to join them. We headed over to the Liberty Grill to check out Michelle Gregoire. Mr. Hamilton was playing bass for her, and we also saw Mr. Workman there. We all shared a bottle of wine, then headed for the King's Head Pub to listen to Oliver Lake. Man, that was some crazy shit. He was playing some really interesting stuff; stuff you'd normally hear on a free jazz recording played over a standard background that swung like crazy. Something for everyone, I tell ya. Anyhow, Curt and Joel ended up talking to Charnet Moffett, McCoy Tyner's bassist, and eventually everyone got in on an impromptu performance of 'Now's The Time'. I didn't play because I suck, Joel didn't play because Will Bonness was on piano already, and Curt didn't play because...Well, I don't remember his name...Nashit something or other....Great....Now I feel like a dick....Was already on drums. After all the fun had ended there, We went out for a late evening meal to Johnny G's, we walked back, then I walked to the parking lot at the end of the street MTC is on alone. As I was leaving the lot, I saw a group of kids maybe no more than 10 or 11 just wander through the area. It was probably one of the most surreal things I'd ever seen in my life. Weird. I got home at 4:30 AM.

The next day, Joel had told me that he could get me a VIP pass, since Dave had snagged a whole bunch from his job at St. John's Music. I called him up and he told me to meet him outside the place. I show up, and he isn't there. I saw D-Boom, apparently Joel gave him the pass to give to me and maybe he forgot about it, so when I asked him is he had seen Joel, he just gave me an extra ticket that he had (since he managed to get himself a BS performers pass. Ha, didn't stop him from getting carded at the King's Head the night before. Curt had to let him in the back), and I got the pass after the show when we all met up and went our separate ways again. The show was the Roberto Occhipinti Quintet opening for the Paquito D'Rivera Quintet. In my opinion, that show was far superior to McCoy the night before. The sheer level of virtuosity displayed by the whole band, how tight they were, how alive and full of the music they were, was just awe-inspiring. Plus, it brought back some great memories of Cuba, and Paquito seemed to get along better with the crowd, who warmed up to him immediately. Afterwards, I headed over to the Fairmont Hotel to meet Samantha and her friend Murray, a trumpet player in the FoM, to see Denzel Sinclaire. That was a nice show, a good change of pace from all the high energy shows I'd seen over the last couple days. He has a really smooth voice, like chocolate, I think Sam said. Afterwards, we went to Johnny G's, and I drove Sam and Murray home while we listened to Radiohead's Kid A. I got home around 2 AM.

Fast forward a couple weeks, and we come to grad. Overrated, to say the least, but not bad. The convocation wasn't as hellish as I thought it would be. I led everyone in another amazing Aussie chant, went out for lunch with the family, then went to Shane's to smoke cigars and drink champagne and eat shrimp in the gazebo. That was a great afternoon, I'll say. Myself, Shane, Dan, Dave, Joel, Colin, Nick, Rob, and Jamison. Unfortunately, I had to drive home so I couldn't get drunk on champagne, although I hear that it's something I should try because it feels really bubbly. I showered, changed, took pictures, then headed out to pick up Sam - who graciously agreed to go with me - and threw in Live at Folsom Prison. What a great album to listen to on your graduation day. So uplifting. Dinner was alright, the music was bad, the speeches were ok (except for Mr. Evans'. His was absolutely brilliant), and it was kind of sad knowing that I may not see so many of these people again. Ms. Mlodzinski is going to Vancouver in the fall, Joel is going to Toronto, Jamison and Rob are going to Hamilton (I think that's where Queen's is) and they might even be gone before I get back from BC. I haven't talked to Dave or Dunja or Lucia or Valgardson in quite a while. Luce is in Toronto now, we took her out to dinner and got her buzzed the night before she left. It's a wicked world we live in. Safe Grad wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. I had a couple beers, got mildly drunk, and played pinball for about an hour. Most of the night I spent looking after Jenna. Soooooooooo drunk. I capped the evening off just chatting with Mike, Steve, Brandon, and Chan. Damn, I'm gonna miss those guys. So it goes.

Fat forward a couple days to Canada Day, and..........................Wilco! That's right, I spent my Canada Day watching a band from Chicago with Sam. Jeff Tweedy is simply amazing, Glen Kotche is such an incredible and talented drummer/percussionist, and Nels Cline just rocked my socks. It was a perfect performance. I'd gush about the other three band members, but I don't know their names off hand.

Fast Forward another couple weeks, and I got out to the Fring Festival last Thursday with Sam and some of her friends after I saw the WJO at the Forks and had dinner at Muddy Waters with my parents. Rebel Without A Niche was the title of the one-man show we saw. Hilarious and thoughtful. Far better than what I saw last year. Didn't get any gelatis, though.

So, that's been my life over the past few months in a nutshell. Chew on it.

Boy, You're Gonna Carry That Weight....

Damn, so much has happened since I last got on here. Job, concerts, grad - it's been a hell of a time, so let's go back to before my last post, when I should've brought this up.

The Big Band Dance! Amazing night, out to 4 AM, good food, good music, good people, good times. We played two kickass sets which were slightly painful by the end of the night, but that's what happens when you've got 'Soul Vaccination', 'Sing, Sing, Sing', 'John Brown's Other Body', and 'Pick Up The Pieces' all in the same set. Highlight of the night was probably Jamison dancing with Swanson's mom. That was a riot. Afterwards, Swanson, Walker, and I decided to head to Papa George's for a late night meal, which was great. I really can't do that night justice with written words, it was so amazing; the kind of night that makes you grateful to be alive and surrounded by people you care about. Such is the power of music and the ability of Mr Workman to channel it and direct it through us to become an awesome force in life. I'm going to miss him in the fall (unless I can get lessons from him. That remains to be seen - he told me to check with him in September).

Next was IB exams, and those have been pretty well documented, I think. I passed. 4's in English and Physics HL, 5's in French and Math SL, and 6's in History HL and Chemistry SL. D in TOK, and B for the Miles paper. Total: 31/45. Acceptable, I guess. I thought I did so much better. Maybe a 5 or 6 in English (I rocked my oral commentary and my exams went pretty well too), a 6 in French and Math, and maybe a 7 in Chemistry or History. It's funny, because I think I know exactly what went wrong in most of my courses. Math: the labs. I did shitty on them. Chemistry: the labs. "You need two sets of data tables lol!" "WTF? Why didn't you mention this at the beginning of the year?" "LOL!" English: world-lit papers. Last time I use Wikipedia as a source. I should've known better. Crap. Physics: actually, it was probably the labs that kept my mark higher, since I totall got owned on Paper 3 by Optics. History: my 18th birthday was the day before the 2.5 hour Paper 3. Do the math.

That actually brings me to my next topic: my 18th birthday. Six beers, six shooters. 5 at Nick's place (along with two shots of Canadian Club Whiskey), 1 at Dylan O'Connors, where I was also treated to a prarie fire, rum and coke, tequila, and Irish Car Bomb from Dan "Irish" Collins. The result? 10 pukes. 5 the night of, and 5 the morning after. I didn't have breakfast that morning. I woke up at 6 to do some last-minute cramming. Hull and I had a good laugh about it the other day at Sobey's, so I'm glad he's happy with the outcome. Everyone deserves to get out on their 18th birthday, he said a couple days after the fact. Dunja took pictures, bless her soul. Note to self: never let those pictures fall into the hands of my family.

After that, not a whole lot happened until grad. Got a job, started trumpet lessons with Pittman. Those have been going well, except now I've got to redo my embouchure (big surprise there) and my range is essentially shot to shit for now. Practise, mofo! I practise at work, averaging about 2 hours or so a day now (something I should probably increase to 3 or 4 hours). Let's see now...an hour of long tones to get my tuning in shape should help, an hour and a half of all the exercises, and the rest to work on pieces and improv. Not all at once, mind you. Tomorrow, I'll start before work at around 11:30 or so, and finish from maybe 9-12. Yeah, that sounds about right. I'll ask Andrew if he's got some classical rumpet recordings I could borrow. Limewire does dick all.

Final concerts came and went. First was concert band. That went ok. I wasn't overcome with emotion like I thought I would be, but I still had a great time. The concert personally didn't feel overly spectacular, but that's probably because we'd played the songs into the ground during class, and in class is where we'd had our most brilliant moments. Wind Ensemble performed pretty good, it felt great playing. 'Sun Dance' by Frank Tichelli and 'Night Dances for Wind Ensemble' by some other guy. Fairly easy tunes, but I liked them anyway. They certainly weren't 'October' or 'Satiric Dances' by any stretch of the imagination. Too bad we didn't play 'Danza Sinfonica'. My chops just weren't up to it, and the same could probably be said for half the band (*cough clarinets cough*). It was the only challenging song we played all year (except for English Folk Song Suite, which was probably only hard for me, since I had the solo part and nowhere to rest). Ms. Mlodzinski turned out to be an amazing conductor. I loved working with her, she was all about the minute details that made everything better. 'Kaddish' was so beautiful. I listened to it the other day and remembered playing it in class. It gave me chills.

The jazz concert a week later was an amazing high note on which to end the year. Pittman played a song with us ('Pussywiggle Stomp' by Don Ellis, in 7/4). He took a solo, and no one clapped, there were all in awe. You could feel the collective "holy shit, that was mindblowing!" emanating from the crowd. 'Samba del Gringo' by Gordon Goodwin, 'The Blues Machine' by Sammy Nestico and performed by the Count Basie Orchestra, and 'Thank You Very Much (But No Thanks)' by Hugh Fraser (Britney sang on this one. Hot damn, she's got pipes!). We got two standing ovations, I took a solo in 'Thank You Very Much', and we broke into a spontaneous jam of.....'The Chicken'! Great way to end the year on a high note, literally - the very last note in 'Pussywiggle Stomp' is a G above the staff, which both Pittman and Shane nailed.

It's getting late, so I'll finish up for now with this:

Baritone Saxophone: Britney Juchnowski, Heather Macphee

Tenor Saxophone: Sarah Beattie, Alexia Graba-Landry, Christine Gourlik, Colin Richards

Alto Saxophone: David Barchyn, Jenina Kulik, Sarah Petty

Trombone: Amy Davidson, Dale Unruh, Joel Visentin, Brad Young

Trumpet: Anthony Lee, Shane Masters, Chiara Stellacci, moi, Mark Walker

Guitar: Colin Peterson, Rob Swanson

Bass: Rob McMahon, Amanda Blanchette

Piano: Jesse Skelton

Drums: Dan Bertnik, Courtney Blanchard, Curt Nowosad, Nick Turnbull

Director: Blaine Workman

I just helped myself to some brandy and toasted you all. Peace, love, and good luck.