Welcome to my site!
Getting straight to it, truth be told, I'm not so on top of updating this thing...BUT at the very least, some info about me, my past musical activities, and performance footage can be found here. You can also keep tabs and more often interact over at my Facebook page where I'm a little more frequent with updates.
Updates-
May 2022
WELP...The shutdown, due to the Covid pandemic, had put a serious halt on my hopes/plans of getting back on the horse to get out there to play for our peeps. But in the last few months, Ted Poor and I have had a few great gigs with his duo project in our broader region (Vancouver B.C., Bellingham, Portland, Seattle) that were SO rejuvenating and healing for us. It also calmed my anxiety about being in public indoor spaces since I was around lots of breathing bodies (being 51 years old now AND being the caretaker of an elderly parent made me hyper-vigilant). This made for a much better mindset for my trip to Knoxville to play with Myra Melford along with my musical brothers, Stomu and Ted. From Knoxville, it was straight to Basel, Switzerland for a weeklong residency, working with students of the Focus Year program (an amazing program curated/directed by the great Wolfgang Muthspiel). Man, they were good!! Good times! And while I was in a few situations that caused knee jerk (maybe?) and heightened anxiety about catching the virus (which would then mean being sequestered in a hotel room over there, for a few days to quarantine), I made it home without getting sick! Yes...I am invincible. :-)
Next up will be a trip to Portugal to play with brilliant young drummer/band leader/composer, Mario Costa along with fellow guests - Bruno Chevillon and Benoit Delbecq (completely BAD, BAD...BAAAD asses!) followed by a stint in Spain. Two weeks after that I'll fly back to Europe with Cristina to meet with friends/colleagues in Cologne as well as to recruit one of our composers for our (mine and Cristina's) duo project - Check it out here, if you're curious(!)...
Straight from Koln, we'll then head to Austria for an appearance at the amazing and ultra-unique Saalfelden International Jazz Festival in Austria where I'll be playing in Ted's duo project. Very excited!!! We'll be using this opportunity to network for both duo projects since all the major European promoters will be there. The cherry on top - Not only playing for lots of people in an amazing setting (including the Austrian Alps) but also reconnecting with great, close friends from my NYC period.
Then back to faculty life at the University of Washington. We have a new crop of incoming students that will surely provide a breath of fresh air!
February 10, 2021
My office at the UW was broken into (broken window entry) and ransacked! The culprits took off with my Yamaha trumpet amongst other valuables (very valuable school gear). But out of the negatives a very bright spot - Tom Kmiecik (artist relations rep) over at Yamaha brass/winds, sent me an e-mail the very next day and set up having a loner of my YTR 8310Z delivered to me the day after getting this e-mail. It's nice to get to be a part of the Yamaha family as a Yamaha Artist. Thanks, Tom, Wayne Tanabe (amazing technician for Yamaha), and Yamaha in general!
Jan. 30th, 2020
Over the last 9 years (starting with our journey with little Vina, my 8-year-old), I've been pretty infrequent with the public performance side of things. One reason is that I just wanted to be home so that I wouldn't miss out on one second with our little family as we constantly doted over this little creature.
Another reason for this "sabbatical" was that I pulled an extreme Sonny-Brooklyn-Bridge thing, where because I just felt like I had nothing more to offer the music so I decided to just practice, practice, practice and practice until I felt ready with some new stuff or at the very least some deeper insights. Besides staying active with making recordings, I really wasn't performing live anywhere near as much as I had been back in my NYC period.
BUT! Though we never really thought much of it, Ted Poor and I had been doing weekly playing together (since he also is a professor here at the University of Washington, working 3 flights up from me). It really felt like I was continuing to heavily research and develop, even without the crucial live performance aspects (to me, the real laboratory in which the highest level of research occurs in music). One day, after some duo playing, it dawned on us both that we'd actually, really, truly developed our own language, approach, and concepts in this duo setting even without setting out to do so.
How convenient(!) now, as Ted embarks on his recording career as a leader with his latest record on Impulse, that we have this...thing...that we both want to explore for a bit? The last few performances have been so fun and rewarding that I'm very excited to test out the waters of road life again and see how that goes.
In any case, keep an eye out for us!