Christmas Ship Parade of Lights

In December each year, a somewhat organized group of boaters decorates their boats with string lights and then parades up and down the Willamette River after dark along Portland’s waterfront several evenings a week. I was in a jazz trio that was hired to play for a birthday party on a boat that was going to join the flotilla for an…

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The Roof Top Gig

It was the 4th of July, and I was booked with a 12-piece band, The Natural Gas Co., to play on the roof of the old brick Yamhill-Market building downtown. This was before everyone had cell phones.

The load-in instructions involved an interior loading dock off an active street and a freight elevator used by a busy restaurant. Load-in wasn’t to be…

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Excerpts from a musician’s inbox; December 2017

The Powers that Be here at ... have put together a run of show that isn’t what was initially discussed at all.

..the theme is speakeasy lite – touches of Rose Rabbit Lye and Absinth (Vegas show) so I figure anything jazzy, sexy, dark, mysterious – with a little Christmas thrown in.

All of you are playing in the foyer (typically the main…

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Drumming in Intimate Spaces

A New Clinic

Portland-Native Kurt Deutscher has made a career playing the drumset in intimate spaces, including major retail stores, restaurants, libraries, private homes, children’s hospitals, riverboats, and once on a rolling dinner train. He’s been honing his accessible approach to drumming for over four decades and has logged thousands of individual performances; many of them playing within arm’s reach of his audience.

This…

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Espresso Jazz Brooms - Review

While ordering a pair of Dem Sticks SpectrumsTM I had mentioned to Dave Demming that I was a jazz drummer looking for something that could replace the now discontinued RegalTip Blasticks I’ve been using for decades. After playing with my first pair of spectrums for a few gigs, I sent some feedback about my experiences with these bamboo multi-rods to Dave and…

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Cymbal Resonance System 〈CRS〉 Review

The Cymbal Resonance System is by far one of the best investments I’ve made for improving the overall sound of my Whitney Drum Kits.

Whitney drums allow you to clamp both your tom mounts and your cymbal booms to the same aluminum posts supported by the “quick stand”. While this is a brilliant solution in many ways, you run the risk that some tom…

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