Me and Mike Richardson screwing around a couple months ago. As he did in JCO, Mike still loves throwing out his takes on random pop, funk, and jazz tunes.
Esperanza Spalding Wins a Grammy
Subtitle: Esperanza Spalding Once Slummed it with the Likes of Me
Congrats to Esperanza Spalding, the virtuoso jazz bassist/vocalist extraordinaire who won the Grammy for Best New Artist last night. Not only is it amazing that an actual talented musician won this award (go figure!), but she beat the presumable shoo-in Justin Bieber. (And well done, Bieberites, channeling all your negative energy through your vapid, tween hive mind and trying to cast a pall over the event.)
Esperanza and I played a couple forgettable, low-profile recitals together at Berklee. Who would have guessed back then that she would go on to be world-famous, and that I would be… administering this website? Uh, everyone, actually. We all knew she was destined for greatness.
Congratulations, Esperanza!
Jon Hazilla – Brush Control
Jon Hazilla is an incredible player and a terrific teacher, and I was very fortunate to study with him at Berklee. Of the dozens of labs I took, his brush labs were among my favorites.
Check out this video of Jon tearin’ it up with Ron Mahdi and Consuelo Candelaria-Barry:
Seeing this again reminds me that I have a ton of brush material from my old site to get up on here… (Jeez, man, c’mon already!)