Show and Tell Music

"Hello and welcome to Show and Tell, a site that serves as sort of an orphanage for thrift store music and album cover art."

This web site hosts a collection of album covers that rivals my friend Christine's. I must introduce these 2 people. I can smell the cardboard as I peruse the gallery. You will find jazz, religious, banjo, girlie, educational, space age and homemade art covers that you have never seen before. There is much more and you can listen too.

Thank you Will Louviere!

Companion Records

Companion Records [is] an independent, Bay Area, California based record label dedicated to reissuing interesting and endangered music from past eras.

Another San Francisco source of unusual, interesting and hard to find music.

Aquarius Records

"At 35 years old, Aquarius is the oldest independent record store in San Francisco."

This store carries a huge selection of hard to find recordings with a very impressive jazz catalog.

1055 Valencia Street, San Francisco, California 94110 U.S.A.
open every day: Monday-Wednesday 10am-9pm / Thursday-Sunday 10am-10pm
tel 415.647.2272 / fax 415.647.3447
email store@aquariusrecords.org

The Colani Pegasus Wing Piano

Mobious meets Henry Moore or is this Moby Dick's piano? Translated via Google from the Colani web site:

"High Tech material and modern technologies from the airplane and automotive manufacture made the three-dimensional shell construction possible of the housing elements. Their exterior is from breath-robbing elegance. In their inside the instruments save traditional building of pianos."

Found on RedFerret.

New life for old jazz tapes

"The Grammy Foundation has given the [Monterey] jazz festival a $40,000 grant for its Archive Preservation Project to digitally reformat and catalog the archives, in partnership with Stanford University."

"The digitized recordings will be put in an online database so that scholars can access them more easily, said Jason Arnold, marketing associate for the jazz festival."

Found on Jazz Portraits.

Read the full article in the Monterey County Herald.

The 48th Monterey Jazz Festival is September 16 - 18.

Fillmore Jazz Festival

The Fillmore Jazz Festival is this Saturday and Sunday, July 2 and 3, 10 am - 6 pm between Jackson and Eddy Streets in San Francisco. This is a huge free festival and all of our friends are playing. See you there!

Jon Cleary

Jon Cleary and the Absolute Monster Gentlemen are at Slim's this Wednesday night, June 29. This is one funky New Orleans style pianist. He may be best known from playing with Bonnie Raitt and she could not pick a better pianist for her style but Jon cuts loose when he runs the show. If you like southern syncopation, Jon and his band is a must see.

John Patitucci Trio

I play bass but I have never seen John Patitucci in concert. Here is my chance. See the John Patitucci Trio With Adam Rogers on Guitar & Nasheet Waits on Drums at Yoshi's, one night, Tuesday June 28.

Bob Thompson

There is a great article in Sunday's Chronicle Pink section on San Jose born Bob Thompson, the "Space Age Pop King." You have heard his music, if you are old enough. He has composed and arranged for Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Judy Garland, Red Mitchell, Frank Capp and taught piano to Mae West. He scored more then 3000 television commercials. His own records pioneered the new stereo phenomena and the cover art is way cool. His son, Spenser Thompson, has built a web site where you can learn more and purchase CDs.

"Bob Thompson has been called "an overlooked genius of American pop music." He is most famous for the Space Age Bachelor Pad records he created at RCA/Victor in the late 1950s. These one-of-a-kind discs feature a singular sound that evokes cocktail glasses, swingin' guys and gals, and all-night mischief. You might imagine "Austin Powers" or Hugh Hefner putting Bob Thompson records on their hi-fis."

Five Spot Jazz Cafe

Steve Sells built and maintains the FiveSpot.Com web site spotlighting San Francisco bay area musicians, "just for fun". Find CD reviews, musician backgrounds and audio clips. Thanks Steve!

Origins of the word Jazz

Here is a short essay summing up the various (sometimes "seedy") origins of the word jazz with a very early printed use of the word in a San Francisco newspaper article in a San Francisco Seals baseball reference.

"What we do know, as the result of research by Gerald Cohen, is that the word suddenly starts to appear in the San Francisco Bulletin in March 1913 in a series of articles about baseball by E T “Scoop” Gleeson..."

Google "jazz word origins" and you find a host of similar articles and opinions.

The Dilettante’s Audio Dictionary

Sandy Lerner, cofounder of the the very bay area company Cisco Systems, switched careers to recordist/mixing engineer for awhile and compiled a dictionary of audio terminology out of necessity to help when reading the trade journals.

Found on Music Thing.

Clevinger Electric Upright Bass

Playing my sister in-law's acoustic bass all last week has renewed my appreciation for my Clevinger Bennett. It is a joy to play and truly a work of art.

Martin Clevinger hails from Oakland, CA and his full scale, bowable standup electric double basses are in great demand. Everything you need to know is on his web site.

Spouse Jennifer Clevinger is also an accomplished pianist and on the faculty at the JazzSchool in Berkeley.

Back from vacation

I have been on vacation the last 10 days and the blog has suffered. We had a big family visit back east. I sat on the beach, slept late, ate a lot, purged my day job from my mind and played some old timey music with my sister in law and her friends. I got a few new music links that I will write about shortly but I need a day to get up to speed. Later.

I Was Doing Alright

Here you will find a well structured web site chronicle of one anonymous trumpet player's experiences, trials and progress as he/she studies jazz improvisation. Exploring the site, you find a wealth of information. First, there are examples of the author playing very well with Aebersold recordings. There is a journal, an ear training application, trumpet technique and many thoughts on learning jazz.

This is a very useful site for most aspiring jazz musicians and I plan to spend some time there. Check it out, leave some comments and contribute to the cause. Don't fail to appreciate the archive pictures that update at each refresh.

DjangoFest - June 9 - 12

Celebrating the music of Django Reinhardt, Gypsy Jazz fans will descend on The Little Fox Theatre in Redwood City, Thurs-Sun, June 9-12 for DjangoFest. The workshops look phenomenal and the concerts are guaranteed to dazzle you with lightning chops. Growing since 2001 and they were here in 2004, it is great to have this event on the penninsula. I also like the sponsor's links on the web site. The icons are works of art and the web sites are a treasure of equipment and information.

See live in-store Gypsy Jazz Jams at Amoeba Records in San Francisco on June 9 and 10.

Foothill College Jazz Ensemble - Tonight

Looking for something completely different? The Foothill College Jazz Ensembles are performing contemporary music at their spring concert tonight, June 7, starting with the Afternoon Ensemble at 7:30 and the Evening Ensemble at 8:30, free at Appreciation Hall (pay for parking), Foothill Comunity College, Los Altos Hills. I don't have a set list but I know they are playing Maria Schneider's Hang Gliding. The Evening Ensemble, led by John Gove, is well known for it's musicianship. You won't hear this level of big band music anywhere in the bay area. I record these concerts. If you are interested in a copy, let me know.

The Festivals Are Coming!

The summer always brings a host of jazz festivals to the bay area. Sadly, KCSM's Jazz on the Hill will not be held for the second year in a row. Note that Reggae on the River is a bit of a drive. Have I missed any?


The San Francisco Spring Jazz Festival runs until June 25


The Healdsburg Jazz Festival - June 3 - 12



The San Jose Festival of Cultures - June 9 - 12



San Francisco Symphony's Black and White Ball



THE 2005 STANFORD JAZZ FESTIVAL - June 25 – August 6 2005


Reggae on the River at French's Camp - August 5 - 7



The San Jose Jazz Festival - August 11 to 14



The Jazzschool in conjunction with the Downtown Berkeley Association and UC Berkeley Extension present the DOWNTOWN BERKELEY JAZZ FESTIVAL’05" A Celebration of Latin Jazz!" August 18-21