David Bowie and brass quintets...

No not really, sorry!  But I am embarrassed to say that it took David Bowie's death for me to discover his music.  And wow, have I been missing out!  His new album, Blackstar, is amazing, and due to my wife's amazing Christmas gift to me of a new turntable, I did order it on vinyl!  

Tonight, I watched a great video produced by the BBC, with producer Tony Visconti, about the recording of another seminal Bowie album, Heroes.  The video was posted by one of my favorite writers, Austin Kleon, and it's well worth the 20 minutes you'll spend watching...

http://bbc.in/1QqfRTZ

I think one of the most interesting things about insights like this is the debunking of the myth that great creations spring from some fully formed vision of the artist, and that it all comes out in one clear and finished product.  Just like one of my favorite podcasts of late, Song Exploder, you see that that is most often not the case...

So, what does David Bowie have to do with brass quintets?  Well, nothing yet... maybe we can get our good friend Tom Holtz, who has arranged so many great tunes for Valor Brass to arrange something cool...???  Tonight, we had the chance to perform on a recital of the Composers' Society of Montgomery County in Bethesda, Maryland.  We played a new piece by composer Jeffrey H. Bauer, titled Danse Macabre.  Jeff is a conservatory trained (Peabody Institute) pianist and trombonist, and he contacted Valor Brass a few months ago about working together.  We really enjoyed his new work, and it just reinforced the fact that relationships between creators (composers) and musicians (performers) are such a rewarding experience.  Check out Jeff's scores at Balquhhider Music.

Here's a rehearsal recording from a few days ago of Danse Macabre...

The Virtual Trombonist Podcast, ep. 1: An interview with John Ohnstad

In the summer of 1993, I had the great fun and opportunity to work at Disney World as part of the All-American College Orchestra, performing at Epcot.  One of my colleague was a bass trombonist named John Ohnstad.  John was an interesting guy.  He was a fantastic musician, but wasn't a music major in college at all!  John has continued his parallel paths in both business and music, and we recently caught up at a reunion of our College Orchestra pals in Orlando.  I sat down to talk a bit with John about how he arrived at his musical career, and to also hear about his unique experiences studying with the late George Roberts. [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/220684998" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]

John performs with a number of groups in and around Portland, here are some links to a few of them:

Rose City Trombones

Big Horn Brass

Portland Columbia Symphony

Art Abrams Swing Machine Big Band - and on their album "Speak Low/Swing Hard"