Attended another jazz jam session last night @ Grumpy’s (on bishop street, Montreal). Great house band, for which I unfortunately missed the first set with Tom Eliasoff (guitar), Eric Thibodeault (drums) and Sage Reynolds (bass).

I had the opportunity to catch up with  (more…)

Monday morning : very productive (teaching, website, shores, etc.) As always, too much stuff to do and so little time… I tried to check the “to do’s” off my list as efficiently as possible.

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Finally sat down to practice around 2 PM :

• “Zoning In”, relaxing ala Kenny Werner stuff
  • really does it for me these days…
• Still Relaxed
  • Practicing the first four choruses of Metheny on Solar
    • with metronome, from 180 to 240 (fast… and deceptively easy now)
    • Great!
• Blowing on Stablemates and Cherokee for a while.

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Buritoville jam around 5 PM. Very few people BUT it was fun playing

There’s a new kind of “freedom” in my playing and I feel delighted to play even the simplest stuff. I play very “detached”, yet, very interested and curious (and hungry!) for “the next note”.

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At night : beers and hot-dogs + sleep early.

Today’s musical activities (ooouuh, new terminology here!):

• Learning the tune You Don’t Know What Love Is
  • from the classic Sonny Rollins recording…
• Modern Method vol.3
  • p.22-31
  • great!
• Teaching at night and practicing some piano in the breaks
• Jam nights (attending two jam sessions… and went to bed @ 4AM!)

Today’s practice :

• Modern Method vol.3
  • Pages 10 through 20
  • Thorough approach for cleanness and good, full sound.
• Tunes Review : Blues for Alice and I Mean You
  • with metronome on 2&4 @ 92
  • great!
• Little 15 minutes ear training session
  • Hearing the tones “C” and “D” (upwards, melodically)
  • Trying to pre-hear the different functions
  • It works : I hear “do re”, “re mi”, “fa sol”, “sol la” and “la ti”
  • Woah!
• Some more tunes (for blowing like crazy) :
  • Darn That Dream (as med-up latin) Fun!
  • Lady Bird FAST! (also lots of fun)

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At night I went out for a movie (FRENCH movie in fact!) and then attended a jam session in the western part of Montreal. I was soooo tired…