Photo via my iPhone
Last week I performed all original, unreleased music with my trio. It had been months since we'd played together. We were offered this gig with only a few days notice and I thought it would be a good opportunity to get us going again, especially since I want to record the trio this summer. (read more…)
I belong to a collective trio called Frisell Projekt. It was initiated by my hubby, drummer Scott McLemore a few years ago and also includes bassist Róbert Þórhallsson. As the group name indicates we focus on music by guitarist Bill Frisell. The neat thing is that we are a guitar-less trio and I mostly play my vintage wurlitzer electric piano. When we first started rehearsing this music it was so intriguing to find ways to transfer his arrangements to our instrumentation. It really makes me and Róbert think differently. I may have a melody part in my right hand, another melody part in my left hand while he is playing a bass groove and chordal accompaniment. Scott has it easy… just hitting some drums. (read more…)
This may be an unusual blogpost for a jazz pianist, but sometimes one needs to be creative in other areas too. My family has very special dietary needs so when I find something that works well I tweet about it and share links to recipes so other people with similar needs…or not, can enjoy them also. Recently I tweeted about making nutritious breakfast ice-cream and who doesn't love ice-cream? So of course someone asked if I would post the recipe on my blog. (read more…)
Why didn't you tell me it would be this important to collect email addresses for my mailing list? I could have a list of people in all the countries that I played in up until 2005 when I took a break to have my two girls. I could be communicating with them now through facebook and twitter. Not to mention telling them about upcoming releases and concerts. Now when I start touring again I feel like I'm starting at the beginning.
Oh yeah, and why didn't you tell me to do like Elvis Presley when he was drafted… to record an album or two to release while I was busy having kids? That way I could have at least maintained my relationship with reviewers. Oh well, I'll forgive you and hope that you ask your next of kin, 2010 to be nice to me. I guess I won't see you again dear 1999. Farewell!
This post of mine is a part of Group Blogging Event hosted by MusiciansWages.com. Please visit their site to see what other musicians wrote as a response to this question "If you could go back to 1999 and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?"
Do you have a favorite Christmas tune? I have had the same favorite Christmas tune since I was a little kid and now I sing it every day with my two little girls. In Icelandic it is called "Í skóginum stóð kofi einn" which translates to "In the forest there was a cabin". I played it on my piano this morning and posted it on my Facebook fansite. A twitter buddy commented on it resembling a British tune "In a cottage in a wood". I looked it up and found the English lyrics:
In a cottage in a wood
Little old man at the window stood,
Saw a rabbit running by
Frightened as could be.
"Help me, help me, help," she said,
"Before the huntsman shoots me dead."
"Come, little rabbit, come with me,
Happy we will be."
The Icelandic lyrics are basically the same except that Santa Claus takes the place of the old man and that's what makes it a Christmas tune here in Iceland. So it is probably British in origin. Anyway, a beautiful tune. I hope you enjoy the video and wish you Happy Holidays.
As some of you hopefully noticed, I had a 3 day Holiday Special where I made my albums available for a free download. This was the first time I've done this and the experience was exhilarating. I posted the sale on Facebook, sent it out in my newsletter (a ha, a good reason to subscribe), wrote a blogpost here, created a news announcement on All About Jazz and tweeted it. This was definitely a lot of fun.
On Twitter the news got out fast and it was great to see how my shouts were retweeted and re-retweeted (is that a word?) by various people. After I posted it on All About Jazz (read more…)
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