Listen

Needless to say, this was a fantastic summer.  I visited Holland, Germany, lovely Ohio, Toronto (which lived up to its “Rush’s hometown” vibe - it rocked), and England.  I also played Lincoln Center in NYC, and spent 30 hours in Ireland (had Guinness at the airport at 10am on a Saturday - it was excellent, even though it cost me $9.67).  At the start of the summer, a horrible moment involving the theft of my gear turned into something wonderful: I Play GK.  Yes, it’s been a fantastic summer.  [Read more →]

Interested in studying jazz at New England Conservatory?  Already a student, but wondering about auditions, registration and the upcoming schedule of events (”When do classes start?”  “When do ensembles start?”  “Lessons?”)?  As you probably know, I’m on the faculty at NEC, in the School of Preparatory and Continuing Education.  I work for David Zoffer, Chair of the Jazz Department.  After talking with Dave about various answers to the above questions plus a few others, we decided that it might be helpful to post some information here, along with a few forms.  This post is not intended to replace what is available on NEC’s website in any way - the NEC site is the default place to look.  You should consider this merely ancillary to what is available through NEC. [Read more →]

So that’s it.  After something like 6 years, the time has finally come to put the old rm.com site out to pasture.  It’s still here, living behind the scenes, hanging out, reading Proust, longing for the good ol’ days.  But the time has come for the old site to retire. [Read more →]

It’s Sunday afternoon here in lovely (and I really mean it) Boston.  It doesn’t really feel like Sunday afternoon, though, but that’s because of the crazy schedule I managed to keep in the past week.  Briefly, it involves a drive to NYC on Tuesday for a 5 hour rehearsal, a gig at Lincoln Center on Wednesday followed by a return drive to Boston that night (arriving home at 5pm Thursday).  Thursday afternoon, I caught a flight to Dublin that arrived on Friday morning at 5:30am.  Spent the rest of the day in Dun Laoghaire and played a concert that night.  Caught a flight back to Boston Saturday morning, arriving mid-afternoon yesterday.  So, I’m not sure what it feels like right now, but Sunday afternoon is not really where I’m at. [Read more →]

I’m back in Boston for a few minutes, packing up and heading to Logan in order to make my way to our gig in Ireland tomorrow. Pretty fun summer, I must say. Anyway, last night we played a great concert for a million of our closest friends (seats 3500, standing room only, people climbing on scaffolding, so probably more like 6000). There has been lots of coverage, both before, and now after, the gig. I’ll post something more elaborate when I have a moment, but for now, please check out this great audience video. [Read more →]

Speaking of Joel, he stars in this video, which was filmed on an Either/Orchestra tour of Holland and Germany last May. He’s the “Spanish” speaking talking head at the end. Musinetwork is run by E/O pianist Rafael Alcala, the gent in the blue hat who introduces the whole thing.

Best, R.

My friend Joel (groovy trombone player in the Either/Orchestra) sent me this link to still-more Ethiopiques audience video from our concert at the Barbican in London. This song is Ashkaru (aka Embi Ba, aka Gouragigna), sung by the great Mahmoud Ahmed.

Totally inspired and dying to see more? Try my previous posts (like this one, and this one, and this one. Why not try this one? Or this one?).

Enjoy, R.

Several weeks ago, I posted a few things about my friend Vicente Lebron. On July 16, 2008, many area musicians (including yours truly) performed at a benefit concert for him - it was rather successful, although it has by no means solved his financial challenges. At the concert was the great Chris Burbul, a longtime friend and photographer of musicians. [Read more →]

I am slowly, but surely, crafting some thoughts on teaching to be posted here. There is a new page (look at the top of this page) entitled Teaching, and in the coming weeks I’m hoping to get some reviews posted of key materials I use in helping guide aspiring musicians. Specifically, I’m a fan of the following books, although I should mention that there are tons of other incredible books available. These are just the books that I use all the time: [Read more →]

The videos just keep on comin’…

Here’s another Youtube video (audience recording) of the Either/Orchestra playing with Mulatu Astatke at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. It starts in the middle of Charlie Kohlhase’s brilliant solo on Yegelle Tezeta, the third movement of Astatke’s Broken Flowers Suite (arranged by Russ Gershon). [Read more →]