[TPIN] Summertime added...+ blog

[Nicholas Drozdoff]

At the request of some trumpet geek friends, I posted the orignal demo tape 
that helped me get the gig with Maynard in 1981. I had some unexpectedly 
nice respone to it as the tape was damaged, and the music dated. I decided 
to leave it up there indefinitely, but I added my take on Maynard's version 
of Summertime to the very end of it (the least 90 seconds of the now 4:20 
track). Here's the url in case anyone is interested:

http://www.mp3unsigned.com/showmp3.asp?mp3id=37730

I've also been blogging about some chops study I've been putting in for the 
last six months. I've been exploring TCE, Claude Gordon and finally the Walt 
Johnson method. Interestingly enough, I think the Johnson method very simply 
and clearly describes a method which (IMHO) overlaps them all and which 
works very well. It took a a while to really get the feel of it, but I am 
99.9% sure that I hit on it pretty solidly now. Just last Thursday I had to 
play all the lead with the big band lead by Jon Faddis. The parts were all 
very snaky and difficult lat charts written by the virtuoso trumpeter, Mike 
Mossman. BOTH were sitting right in front of me. The possibility for 
pressure was quite high, but both men were very professional, kind and 
gentlemanly. They put me at ease. I had no trouble playing the many high G's 
and F#'s required for the four hour rehearsal.

What is interesting to me is how suddenly we can implement something. Only 
five days earlier, I was still not 100% sure of it on a big band gig on 
Sunday. One minute, I could get it, the next, I found myself simply 
overstressing my "low gear" embouchure (to borrow Johnosn's language). I can 
hit the notes that way, but I tire easily doing it that way. I dropped the 
ball on a couple of tunes trying to find the right set and feel, but I tired 
a trick to get it focused for the Faddis gig, and it worked. I am quite sure 
I can do this thing anywhere, any time.  I did three brutal gigs over the 
weekend and had NO trouble uncorking the high notes at will. In fact I had 
to be careful not to be tasteless in my effort to use them! On Sunday, I 
dropped by the Velvet Lounge to sit in with the jam session. With very 
little warm up that day, again, no problems getting the focus when I wanted 
to let some stuff fly. Here is a link to the blog about this process. I'll 
be posting later today about how I have implemented my old method into the 
Johnson thing to produce a very effective short warm up and prep for the 
toughest gigs.

http://www.myspace.com/NickDrozdoff

I can't access this site from my scholl PC as MySpace is blocked. Just check 
out the blog list on the right hand side uder the music player and scroll 
down to the post about falsetto embouchure. BTW, this is the method I used 
to play Summertime, and it is quite easy to switch back and forth from 
registers doing this thing.

OK, I'll go back to lurking.

Peace.

Nick