Ever since Bruce Childs introduced me to jazz guitar in 1986, I have been exploring the music and world of jazz. I have been distracted at times by other pursuits educationally and vocationally. But the last two years have seen me return to the jazz world and I'm finally being able to hear it a bit better.
Playing jazz - any genre really - is a never ending journey that requires time, effort, and a community of musicians that will help one another. My two years at Grant MacEwan College (1991-1993) in Edmonton, Alberta taught me that to succeed as a musician you have to get out of the practice room and use the "stuff" to actually make music. That's the point behind this site - to share some unedited takes on jazz standards. Just playing, listening, and trying to learn from mistakes and successes. Who knows, maybe in a year or two I can release a CD from these weekly excursions.
My intention is to post one tune a week - usually sometime Friday morning. With any luck some of you will drop by on a regular basis and comment on the tunes in a helpful way - another lesson learned at GMCC, one can be critical, but it's gotta be helpful.
The backing tracks are created in PG Music's Band-in-a-Box, imported to Mackie Tracktion 2 where I can assign some better VSTi's than standard MIDI, and just solo and learn by listening. I am not editing these takes, there are mistakes in notes, timing, etc. I'm not going for perfection but the real thing of playing something once.
The exception is the track "Almost Live" - which is excerpts from my bands CD. A link to our website is to your right. CD's can be ordered via our website.
