We're thrilled to host the monthly Dallas Jazz Piano Society concerts.  It's been an incredible series and we've had the opportunity to hear some incredible musicians.  The bar gets raised this Monday night. (2/27 at 7 PM)

Legendary Bassist Eddie Gomez will play "The Music Of Bill Evans" with Pianist, Stefan Karlsson and Drummer, Ed Soph.  Eddie was a member of The Bill Evans Trio from 1966-77.
Legendary bassist EDDIE GOMEZ has been on the cutting edge of music for over four decades. 
The Latin GRAMMY® award-winner’s impressive resumé includes performances with jazz giants such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan and Benny Goodman. Eddie’s unique sound and style can be heard on hundreds of recordings spanning the worlds of jazz, classical, Latin jazz,rhythm & blues, popular and contemporary music. In popular music, Eddie has performed and recorded with artists such as Bobby Darin, Tim Hardin, Carly Simon, Art Garfunkel, Mark Knoffler, Michael Franks, Judy Collins and Jennifer Holliday. He has also been a member of “The Gadd Gang,” Steve Gadd’s All Star R&B/jazz band.Proceeds of the Concert benefit the DJPS open concert series and the “Keys for Kids” educational venture that supports piano lessons and digital keyboards for the underprivileged.  Proceeds will be matched by the Donachie Foundation.  Please come and contribute to this effort.    

Eddie Gomez, Chick Corea and Paul Motian recently did an album featuring the music of Bill Evans.  Here's some clips from that;

Our Jazz Series should be ready this Spring.  We're very excited about it and think it will have a great impact on musicians learning to improvise in all styles.  We're also thrilled to hear from so many of you that our anxiously awaiting it to be available.

I enjoy playing many styles of music and I wanted our Jazz Series to allow musicians to improvise over a wide variety of "grooves".  Of course, there will be plenty of Swing songs, but these examples give some ideas of what you'll have as play-alongs.

AFRO CUBAN GROOVE 

You can also stream this at:http://soundcloud.com/helloindiacalling/dlp-jazz-series-preview-lesson 


MODERN TRACK (not sure how to describe this one, but I like it)

You can also stream this track at:   http://soundcloud.com/helloindiacalling/dlp-jazz-series-preview-modern 


JAZZ WALTZ

You can also stream this track at:  http://soundcloud.com/helloindiacalling/dlp-jazz-series-preview-track  


BALLAD

You can also stream this track at: http://soundcloud.com/helloindiacalling/dlp-jazz-series-preview-1 


FUSION

You can also stream this track at:  http://soundcloud.com/helloindiacalling/dlp-jazz-series-preview

I started recording songs for Lesson 20 of the Jazz Series today.  The DLP curriculum is always organized in groups of 20 lessons, so this is kind of the end of a series that has been my focus for several years. Lesson 20 is Jazz Standards- Volume 1 so the focus is on standard Jazz forms (AABA, Blues, ABAB etc) and it's interesting to write new melodies to some standard forms and chord progressions.  This is common practice all through the history of Jazz.  "Donna Lee" is a new melody on the chords of "Indiana".  The melody of "St. James Infirmary" morphed into "Sugar".  But it goes further than that.  The I IV V progression so commonly used by Beethoven and Mozart is the same I IV V progression used by Jerry Lee Lewis or Mumford and Sons.  The musical language always remains the same.  What we create from it changes.

So, coming to the end of this chapter is a little sad for me.  But that passes very quickly as I start hearing students at DSM playing the songs and talking about the concepts.  It's even more exciting to see videos come in from all over the world of people I've never met playing the songs. This is a very moving thing.  Besides, I have 40 more lessons of songs to write for the Kore Series and 40 more lessons of songs for the Jazz Series still.  I think I will remain busy creating music, which I love to do.

Our plans with the DLP Jazz Series are to help you learn the language of music.  Music, like all languages, has an alphabet, a grammar and set structures.  You need to have an understanding of these concepts to communicate and create ideas in this language.  This sounds like a daunting take, but it's not really and we're looking forward to helping you learn to improvise.

But then, the next step is.... What to do once you have all of this knowledge. 
How do I create music that communicates ideas, that reaches listeners, that makes other musicians want to play with me?

Listen

Listening to what other people in your group play and reacting to that are a key component of being a musician in all styles.  Be a part of the ensemble, accept and play off of each others ideas.  This is when magic happens on a bandstand.

Here's a great TED talk on that topic by Stefon Harris, titled, "There Are No Mistakes On The Bandstand"


http://www.ted.com/talks/stefon_harris_there_are_no_mistakes_on_the_bandstand.html  

The DLP Jazz Series will be released in early 2012. Once in a while when we're describing the Kore Series or Jazz Series to a potential new user they'll ask, "Will I be learning REAL songs in here or just exercises?".  The answer is, we believe, that these are real songs BUT that they are also songs that function as exercises to review ONLY the concepts you have learned up to that point.  They are songs built specifically for where you are in your musical learning and for where you are in your technical development on your instrument at this time.

So, from a concert I did this past Monday (12/12/11) are 2 songs from the upcoming DLP Jazz Series.  These feature; myself on Keyboards, Jennifer Escue (from the DLP Staff ) on Vocals, Jeff Plant on Bass, Larry White on Steel Guitar and Lamont Taylor on Drums.

I hope you enjoy these songs

I'm honored to have been selected by The Dallas Jazz Piano Society as the next performer on their series.  The line-up was selected by their artistic director Dan Haerle, who we are thrilled to have as a DSM staff member.  Dan was the main reason I came from New Jersey to study Jazz at North Texas State University, so it has extra meaning to me.

The concert will be from 7-9 PM on Monday 12/12 in Frandsen Hall here at DSM. It is titled "Jazzers Without Borders" and will be a slightly different look at songs that could be considered jazz, like Amber Rubarth and Radiohead, and some different ways to play some standard Jazz songs.

The playlist will be:
All The Things You Are- (1939) Kern/Hammerstein
In Your Eyes- (1986) Peter Gabriel
Full Moon in Paris- (2010)  Amber Rubarth
All Day and All of The Night- (1964) Ray Davies
When I Fall in Love- (1952) Young/Heyman
Oh, What a Beautiful Morning)- (1943) Rogers/Hammerstein

Bye Bye Blackbird- (1926) Henderson/Dixon
“Where This Story Goes”- (2010) Mike Finkel
Jigsaw Falling Into Place- (2007) Radiohead 
“Desert Wind”- (2010) Mike Finkel
Bodhisattva (1973) Fagen/Becker

My two original songs are from our upcoming Jazz Series.  If you're in Dallas, you can reserve a spot at;http://bookwhen.com/dsminfo

Admission is free, but they do request a donation to the DJPS foundation.If you're not in Dallas, you can view the concert online at;http://www.justin.tv/mikefinkel

I hope you're able to attend or watch, it should be a great show

.Thanks,
Mike

Here's a great 2 part interview with Dan Haerle.  We're very fortunate to have Dan on staff here.  I enrolled at North Texas State University primarily to study Improvisation with Dan.  He is truly one of the pioneers in Jazz Education so it's been an honor to work on the Jazz Series with him.

Let's talk about Jazz. 
OK, first, .....

What is Jazz?
I don't know
You don't know?!
Yes, that's right.

Jazz has many definitions.  Each of which can be very different for each person.  Jazz, like many art forms is subjective.  Everyone has their own view of what is and isn't Jazz.  Even more varied is what "Jazz" people like.  I think, that's great.  20 year old Jazz Snob me would have vehemently disagreed with that view.  But, I think I've gained wisdom over the years, and I'm the one writing the blog so I win.

Jazz is music that generally includes and is based around improvisation.  I think everyone would agree with that fact.

What is Improvisation?

Now, that is a question I think we can answer.

Improvisation is developing real-time rhythmic/melodic ideas as a musical reaction.



Are these ideas completely spontaneous things that magically appear to the wizard-like musician?

No.  They come from the musical language (Chords/Scales) and are generally shapes/sounds that the musician has practiced.

But, I always have heard that inspired Jazz musicians play ideas that no one has ever played before, that they create on the spot.

Music is a language.  All languages have structure, grammar, form and vocabulary.  Improvisation and Jazz are no different.

Everyone can learn to improvise!!

We're here to help you learn to improvise.  The DLP Jazz Series will launch in 2012.  We'll teach you the language of music, how to build ideas, chord/scale relationships etc.

The skills you develop through our Jazz Series will help you improvise in any style of music.  All styles of music use the same language (chords/scales).  So, if you can improvise on a Jazz song than you can improvise on a Reggae song.  If you can improvise on a Rock song then you can improvise on a Dubstep track.  It's all just music.

Please, keep checking back as I explain more about Jazz and Improvisation.  I'll also present demos of our Jazz Series as we go on.  Some days we may just discuss some great music to listen to.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you again soon.

- Mike

Stay tuned here for updates about the upcoming release of the DLP Jazz Series.  We truly believe that this will have a huge impact on how musicians learn to Improvise in all styles of music.  This will be released in 2012