2010 is off to a great start.  As you may notice from the concert schedule I’m doing a lot of shows this year with guitar virtuoso Frank Vignola.  I’m also playing this month at one of my favorite places in the world to play, The Deer Head Inn, with an exciting quartet called Spatial Edition.  Here’s the story behind these two very different groups…

Spatial Edition Appearing At Deer Head Inn, Saturday, January 16th

I met the drummer and poet (seriously, he’s a professor of literature) Michael Stephans at the Blue Note in NYC after one of my shows with Stanley Clarke, George Cables, and Jeff “Tain” Watts.  Michael had relocated from Los Angeles to the Poconos (in PA) a few years ago and was appearing regularly in the area with musicians such as Dave Liebman, Benny Maupin, François Moutin, and Tony Marino.  Michael and I struck up a conversation about Zbigniew Seifert and soon thereafter Michael introduced me to what is now one of my favorite places to play, The Deer Head Inn.

Michael recruited two other musicians, pianist Jim Ridl and bassist Steve Varner, and we began to play as a group every couple of months.  Before moving closer to NYC Jim and Steve had both been very active in the Philladelphia jazz scene, appearing often wih musicians such as Pat Martino, JD Walter, and Dave Liebman.

Spatial Edition’s repertoire includes original compositions by all of the band members as well as arrangements of standards, pop tunes (Tom Waits, anyone?), free (I mean really free) improvisations, and the music of John Coltrane and Zbigniew Seifert.  We will be playing on the third Saturday of the month, January 16th, at The Deer Head Inn.  If you live in the area, please stop by.  If you live in NYC or other places near Delaware Water Gap, consider this the perfect opportunity to hear some great music and to commune with the historic Appalachian Trail before your schedule gets too busy.

Frank Vignola’s Hot Club Celebrating 100 Years of Django Reinhardt

Frank is one of the most accomplished, multi-dimensional players walking the planet today. Monster player, composer and improviser, Frank plays proficiently in every genre, from jazz to bluegrass, and works with everyone and their brother. Frank’s pedigree is a mile long, but a quick Google will illustrate why he is considered one of the best on the planet.

Whether he is featured on a Donald Fagen recording, a jam with David Grisman, as Les Paul’s right hand man or leading his own groups throughout the years, he has proved himself to be in the elite creating his own unique sound.

My personal story with Frank goes back to my college days at Northwestern University in Chicago (technically Evanston, IL).  While I was working on my classical violin degree I was also seeking out opportunities to play and study with great jazz musicians.  Frank came through town with tuba virtuoso Sam Pilafian.  I had been practicing a lot of guitar at the time and I was blown away by Frank’s approach, both technically and musically.  After a masterclass at the university, I asked Frank if I could jam with him. Seeing me standing there with a violin, he wisely vetted me first by asking me if I wanted to play some rhythm changes.  We stepped into a janitorial closet (buckets, mops, sink, etc.), played Oleo by Sonny Rollins,  and he agreed to give me a lesson.  Frank was very generous and encouraging to me as an aspiring musician and this was a significant meeting for me in my musical development.

I didn’t see Frank for years after that.  I was living in Chicago, getting the Coffee Achievers together, etc., and Frank was out on the East Coast touring constantly. Fast-forward over ten year to last spring: Paul Brady, of the Hot Club of Detroit, asked me to play a few gigs with them and Frank was on the gigs! Frank asked me to play some shows with a new project he was putting together last September.  Now we’re playing at the APAP convention this month and touring throughout 2010 with a new project of Frank’s called Frank Vignola’s Hot Club.

2010 marks the 100th year of Django Reinhardt’s birth (you didn’t know I played Django?) and the group, which includes myself, Frank, Julien Labro on accordion, Vinny Raniolo on rhythm guitar, and Gary Mazzaroppi (Les Paul’s bassist for over 15 years), will be playing arrangements of Django’s muic, as well as some standards and originals.  Come see us whenever you can and check out some of the videos already on YouTube in the meantime…

Erin Harper will be screening new edits from her documentary “Passion” before we play.

Free stuff is still available for you at www.zachbrock.com and my ReverbNation page.

I’ll be updating our travels on Facebook as often as I can find free WiFi.

Thanks for your continued support!!!

z

I posted an unreleased track from the Coffee Achievers’ “Live At The Jazz Factory” recording and made it available as a free MP3 download for you!

You can find it in the “player” section of my ReverbNation page (near the top/middle), six songs down from the top, marked “Fan Exclusive.” Click on the downward-pointing arrow. The song, “Lemon Tree”, was written by the great bassist/composer Matt Wigton. I hope you enjoy it.

One day shy of a month ago I played on Michael Jonathon’s WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour alongside none other than Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Somebody bet me that I couldn’t end all of my songs with pizzicato. Boy, did I show ‘em (although the last one almost got by me). These songs have also been posted on my ReverbNation page, same player, below the exclusive download track. The songs are:

1) Mr. Shah

2) Evening Psalm (by Zbigniew Seifert)

3) Almost Never Was

4) The Windup (by Keith Jarrett)

Yes, I am aware that my name was misspelled on the video. Oh well. That’s what I get for having a weird name.

The program is going to be re-broadcast in HD on PBS affiliates around the country sometime around January/February 2010. Check your local station’s website and click here to see a complete listing of the affiliates.

Also, you can download your own copy of the complete show NOW from WoodSongs by clicking here (open the stream in iTunes or whatever you use for Podcast content)…

I hope to see many of you while on tour with Snarky Puppy in the next few weeks. May your teeth stay strong in an unrelenting self-inflicted onslaught of candy later this month.

Thanks for your continued support!!!

z

A lot has happened since the last newsletter. Thank you to everyone who attended our concerts/gigs this summer and helped to make them so enjoyable! I will attempt a brief recap of the summer for now and I’ll send another newsletter with more details about the new season’s upcoming gigs next week. Please check the new calendar listings because there are a multitude of exciting shows coming up in the next week. But first…

This Friday, September 11, I will be giving a free concert at the south end of Union Square with Matt Wigton and Fred Kennedy. The show starts at 1PM (we’re only playing for about 40 minutes), it’s “rain or shine”, and there will be other great groups playing before and after us. The September Concert is a not-for-profit event staged worldwide with a mission “to bring communities together, to reaffirm our hope for peace, and to celebrate life and our universal humanity.” I think that’s something that we can all get down with.

And now, back to the recap…

Many of you know bassist/composer Matt Wigton from The Coffee Achievers. He has a new band, Falls, and I started playing with them in July. Very exciting.

Mad Juana had two crazy shows: one in July at Greenhouse (dig the pictures of this place) and one more recently on Sami Yaffa’s birthday at The Bowery Electric.

On July 7th & 8th, the Mahavishnu Project staged another “Vishnu Fest.” This year we introduced more music from John McLaughlin’s extensive catalogue including songs from “Extrapolation”, “Devotion”, “Electric Guitarist”, and “Electric Dreams.” Melissa Stylianou sang with us again, both as part of a full recounting of “Visions of the Emerald Beyond”, and in a performance of some very rarely heard choral pieces by McLaughlin.

I had the distinct pleasure of getting to play two concerts with the wonderful pianist Eric Doney and his wife, the equally enthralling Vicky Doney. Stay tuned for an upcoming recording.

I spent my birthday this year with singer/songwriter/wildman Al Rose at the new Galapagos Art Space. Al and his wife Rhonda also own and operate the famous Kopi Cafe in Chicago where I could be found eating Tuna Pesto Melts back in the day.

I met pianist/composer Steve Hudson at Banff in 2005-ish. We played in Princeton, NJ with his chamber-jazz group and we will be playing some more dates together this fall.

The world lost some legendary musicians this summer. Most of you probably heard about the passing of one of recorded music’s greatest innovators, Les Paul. At the same time, we also lost Rashied Ali, John Coltrane’s last drummer and one of the seminal voices of experimental jazz. Gregg Bendian, the leader/drummer of the Mahavishnu Project, has assembled a new project called Collective Language that includes myself, Peter Brendler on bass and last year’s Monk Competition winner Jon Irabagon on saxophones. We presented a tribute concert of late-Coltrane repertoire in honor of Rashied Ali at Le Poisson Rouge.

I must sign off for now. Please note the upcoming performance calendar. Thank you to all of the inspiring musicians that I’ve been playing with and thank you, fellow musicians and music fans, for supporting our endeavors.