My new trumpet was delivered this morning. It is the new Jupiter XO 1600i – the Roger Ingram Signature model. Nobody’s more surprised than me that I’ve chosen a Jupiter horn but this model plays so much better than I imagined!

I had a chance to try one a couple of weeks ago when Roger, himself, passed through NYC on his summer teaching tour. He was kind enough to hang out for a little over an hour and play test the Lacquer and Silverplate Jupiters he had with him, along with my Yamaha 8335LA. We both agreed that the Jupiter sounded just as good overall, and better in the extreme upper register, while being easier to play. I feared it was going to be tough to track one down, but I got lucky last week and was able to order one for immediate shipping.

I’ll post more observations about it in the coming weeks. Meantime, I should go play it some more!

Just a little forewarning that I’ll be doing a little reorganising of the site over the next couple of weeks. There’s a full-blown redesign in the works but first I need to straighten out how some of the site content is put together – partly to simply tidy up but also to take advantage of some of the new features of WordPress which are now available.

The first tweak has already been made; you’ll notice that the “Upcoming Shows” have been added back into the sidebar on the homepage, after a long absence.

Anyway, if anything is weird with the site when you look in, in the next little while, please just check back later. I’ll be tweaking as fast as I can to minimise disruption.

Just a quick post – as usual, it’s been far too long since the last. Life here in NYC has been continuing apace as ever. I’ve been keeping busy in the past few weeks helping out over at JazzCorner.com, updating sites and working on some other projects. It’s a fun gig which allows me to exercise the technical side of my brain while also still affording me practice time; I work mostly from home – it is online work, after all.

I’m pleased to say that I’ve also been teaching, both online and off-. In addition, I’ve actually been playing occasionally as well! I’ve been rehearsing with Bill Lee and his Natural Spirit Orchestra for an upcoming concert, and I even got a call for a salsa gig a couple of weeks ago. Much fun was had!!

Things are, as I expected, still a good deal quieter than they might have been, had I stayed in England but, given the recent political machinations there, I think I’m better off out of harms way. The phone is starting to ring so it’s only a matter of time before I’ll be playing more regularly again.

I’m still planning to be back in Austria with the LACJO in August, and I’ve just heard from Thomas Gansch to confirm some dates with him in late October/early November! Adam Rapa is planning to be back with us too, so that’ll be an extra fun trip!

Meantime it’s back to practicing and coding! Among my projects is a planned redesign of this site – more about that, and everything else, soon….

BD

I mentioned in my last post that I’ve been busy working on a couple of websites for my good friend Brian Lynch. In addition to that, I’ve also been spending a fair amount of time at NYU (New York University), subbing for Brian as lead trumpet in, and director of, their Bebop Big Band. It’s been a great experience, as well as a lot of fun, working with these talented young musicians. This afternoon I had the great pleasure of hearing the band play at the Bowery Poetry Club here in New York. They’ve come a long way this semester – the book is quite challenging. They did a great job and I was also proud to be invited to play a couple of tunes with them, while Brian Lynch conducted and soloed with the band from the front.

I’ve admired Brian’s playing for many years; he was actually the first American Jazz trumpet player I ever saw live, back in the early 1990s, at home in Cleethorpes, with the Phil Woods Quintet. He is an inspiration to me, not only as a trumpet player, but in the tremendous attitude he has towards the world around him. Yet again, this afternoon, he completely blew me (and I suspect the assembled few watching the gig) away. The depth of his understanding of the music, along with his seemingly unlimited Jazz vocabulary is simply astonishing. If you haven’t checked out his playing, I heartily recommend that you do. If you haven’t heard him lately, you should really check out some of his recent work, either live or on record. The continued growth in his musical concept is alarming!

A quick break of radio silence to let you know what I’ve been up to lately. I’ve been quite busy, although not with the usual trumpetry! I’ve been working with my good friend, and one of the great trumpet players today, Brian Lynch on bringing his websites up to date. What started out as an innocent offer to help out with a new WordPress-based site he’d started turned into a full-on project. It’s been a steep learning curve for me; some of his feature requests lay outside of existing plugins – but I’m pleased to say that it’s coming together nicely. So nicely, in fact, that even though we’re not quite finished, it went live today!

Check it out for yourself at BrianLynchJazz.com!

I intend to write more about I wrangled some of the features over on my other site – rather than boring those of you who come to read about my musical endeavours. Meantime, I’ll be posting more here shortly about some other things I have going on. I’m pleased to say that I finally have some gigs coming up! More soon….

BD