Poinciana

Player with a few songs recorded Sunday before last, 1.9.11:
http://www.mixpod.com/playlist/75616525

Guy just shows up with recording gear; handed me a cd yesterday. I've heard worse recordings, mainly my own! Still need to get these guys in the studio. Some nice moments. Yours truly lost the funk more than a few times, as usual, but getting closer. We just landed a new every Friday night gig!! I'm promoting it as Canary Night to bring in people who wanna sing, like karaoke with a live band. Should be interesting. Gotta do something these days to get people out of the house . . . hopefully it'll work. Lord knows good music, if we have that, isn't necessarily enough. I've sat in a room of 15 people there to see Max Roach. Sad and strange, but true.

I dug this! I really liked the way you blended the sort of soft crash toward the beginning
to make it sound like peaceful waves crashing lightly on a mild forgiving surf. The tune was
a little sticky in some places but outside of that it was nicely done. Reminded me of Joe
Sample in some spots. Smooth it out a bit and it would be near perfect.

Nice job, Woof!

Thanks, Don, I'm using bare hand on cymbal in the beginning along with egg shaker in my left and doumbek on the right. That cymbal sound did turn out nicely. Then I switch to stick in right and I think I had bamboo in left.
More than sticky in some places, especially some fills where I'm pretending to be a drummer and some bad rhythmic choices. I'm sure this new gig will help my playing as I haven't been picking up sticks between our weekly gig and once/week just doesn't cut it. Believe me, I know when it sounds bad and work from the idea that if you don't know where you're going, how will you know when you get there? Thanks for listening, ur a great witness, as always.

It seems to be one of those songs that you just play WITH, Woof.
The kind where you just go with the flow and allow the emotional
content of the tune to dictate what it wants you to play. It's a
beautiful piece that doesn't ask for or require much. The best
surfers RIDE the waves rather than try and manipulate their
own direction within it. That's sort of how I hear this tune. the
need is already laid out and the player (drummer) just sort of
goes with that.

I don't feel you were overplaying, there were just a few spots
where I could hear you 'trying'. Not trying to overplay but trying
to make something happen. I don't know if I'm making sense but
that's what I'm getting... To me, this is more of a enjoy the ride
kind of approach. See what happens the next time you play it.

I repeat though, nice job!

You're totally dead-on right and well articulated. What you're hearing as trying may be more like searching. If I had better vocabulary, I could relax more and enjoy the ride. That and more practice of what I do know for better coordination . . . but really for me I think it's more about learning what to play and then let it flow.

Woof, I think you hit it out of the park with this one.
This wasn't a nice job, it was an AWESOME job!

I downloaded this to my computer and listen to it regularly.

fileden.com JazzStreamJuly4th2010/OHFOR040404.mp3

My gosh, Don, I may have to name a child after you, but first I need a girlfriend. Can I get some help anyone? Age/race irrelevant.

I wish that take was multitracked; I just recorded that one with my 1995 video camera as stereo mic. Piano and bass don't sound so great. There's a new take of that song on the player posted above in multitrack, maybe not as exciting as the one you like. That's an original tune by our pianist with Dizzy Gillespie's Con Alma sandwiched in. I was just telling him a few days ago he's invented a new genre with covers played "inside" of originals (not just quotes).

What I really want to do sooner than later is get these guys in a real studio with a great engineer and spend some time. Would be nice to learn the trade myself and create a studio . . . maybe we'll set something up with the guy who recorded us a couple weeks ago somewhere with a good acoustic piano. As long as I can hear the piano over the drums, I'll have half a chance to make it right. And then if I can just relax enough to not lose the funk, we might have something to sell. High hopes!

Just listened to ohfour woof..
Real nice interplay you had going on there, and nice texturing...I like the organic sound of the group-
Well done!--- ---D.L.

Thank you, Dave, organic is definitely what we're going for . . . send me an invoice for listening! That's the new model for musicians, you have to pay people to listen. I'm working on getting a corporate sponsor.

Re: Poinciana

Now this is what I'm talkin' bout. Woofus... this is so sweet from everyone! The keyboards remind me of Neil Loughran's stuff out of England. Your drumming is so polished - u bring out tones unique to your kit: accentuating every imagination.

Marvelous job my friend. I'm definitely archiving this for listening pleasure.

And no - I won't send you an invoice. Thanks for the Gifts.

P.S. I hear now how you've developed the polyrythms with HH and the BD. It opens the hands up to do other things and Nail it.
Quite a group you have there. Love it.

Suss, remind me to put you in my will. Don't bother, you're already there. I'm talking about the will that is vision, a dream of hope for what can become real. It's a shared vision. Will is a shared commodity. You know this better than I do.