Monday, April 27, 2009

Jon plays some drums and pretends to be Art Blakey !


I spent the afternoon today in the recording studio playing with the University of Toronto Jazz Outreach Ensemble. I've been playing with this group all year and acted as a teaching assistant for the ensemble. The mandate of this group has been to go out into schools in the GTA and spread the good word that is jazz music (or as Prof. Gordon Foote calls it: "Stomping out Jazz ignorance"!)

Here's a clip of me playing on the tune "Mosaic" written by Cedar Walton, originally recorded by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers back in the 1960s.

I recorded this on my Flip handheld video recorder, set-up next to the drums.

For any drum geeks out there, the drum solo starts around  the 6 minute mark : )


I should also like to add what a pleasure it's been playing with this fine ensemble all year.
Specifically I would like to thank the following people for all their fine musicianship and hard work:

Patrick Boyle - trumpet
Brendan Cassidy - alto
Ben Dietschi - tenor
Anthony Rinaldi - bari
Robin Jessome - trmbn
Nathn Hiltz - guitar
Rob Fekete - piano
Mark Godfrey  - bass

Also a special thanks to Chase Sanborn who oversaw the band and did an excellent job today acting as our producer and as the "man in the booth". He kept everyone relaxed and focused. It was a fun session and I'm quite looking forward to hearing the results.

I hope this video clip loads properly.

2 comments:

  1. What ride cymbal are you playing on? It sounds great.

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  2. Hmmm....I think it's either my 20" inch or 22" inch Zildjian K Constantinople on that one. That was recorded awhile ago!
    Glad you like it.

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