Brian Blade And His Canopus Drums

A brief clip here this morning as I'm off very soon here to the Calgary airport to drop off/pick up jazz musicians. Then I'm off to the Banff Centre for the Arts for a month (!) I start off this week as a participant in the first ever TD Jazz Music & Creative Residency for two weeks and then will complete another two weeks in February to study the vibraphone and work on my dissertation. I am really looking forward to studying with the all-star faculty they lined up for us consisting of Dafnis Prieto (drums), Uri Caine (piano), Phil Dwyer (saxophone) and Peter Apfelbaum (saxophone). There is also a small but VERY talented group of jazz musicians participating in this workshop as well from all over the country and I'm very much looking to playing and hanging with a group of such high level musicians in the coming weeks. In particular I'm looking forward to hearing drummers Mark Nelson and Morgan Childs who are making quite a splash in there respective scenes in Montreal and Toronto.

I'll do my best to report my "dispatches from the front" as I can in the coming weeks although my blogging might slow down a bit due to my busy schedule. But I will do what I can !

Anyways, on to the drums. Courtesy of the kind folks at Canopus drums (a GREAT Japanese drum company who have obviously figured "it" out!) - here's a clip of Master drummer Brian Blade showing off his new tubs:



Nice drums !

(well of course, I guess Brian could play a soggy cardboard box and still get those to sing !!! : )

I also just finished an intensive four day Jazz @ Lincoln Centre Band Directors Academy workshop and I'll gather my thoughts and report on that later as well. It was a marvelous experience and I really learned alot from a HEAVY faculty of experienced and diligent jazz educators. Hello !

Anyways, more to come later....