The Beginning

Would I have started a personal music website before the pandemic? Probably not. I’d thought about it, but I wasn’t a master musician or seeking to make a living with music, so why bother?

Then the pandemic shut everything down, and the question flipped: why not? I’d been getting together weekly with friends to play jazz and doing an occasional gig when the rug was pulled out from under these projects. With aerosols a concern, woodwind players, in particular, were suddenly persona non grata and seemingly would be for a while. Where else would I be able to find a performance opportunity to add purpose to the daily practice sessions?

All sorts of new YouTube channels were springing up. Musicians were learning home-recording skills to connect, and even the great saxophonist Chris Potter went back to his childhood bedroom in South Carolina to self-record an entire album on which he played all the instruments - piano, drums, bass, guitar, concert flute, alto flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, alto, tenor and soprano saxophones.

Potter’s album aside, there was an informality to a lot of these efforts - short snippets of works in progress; echoey performances with low light and clutter on the bed in the background - that made it seem less strange to share personal projects. The production flaws even enhanced the intimacy of the connection, and I noticed, too, that people got better over time as they posted one video after another. Better performances, better audio quality, better visuals. It looked like a fun journey.

So here I am. It will be a challenge to share projects that aren’t polished, but I’m inspired by people like Arthur Kleon who exhorts us all to “Show Your Work!” without worrying, as the song says, that it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear.

With that in mind, thanks for visiting and feel free to drop me a line on the contact page.