Sac State Vocal Jazz gets rolling for the Spring semester today.  It's the beginning of the final semester of the program, as the administration's plan is to let it go when Julia and I move, as a cost-saving measure.  Had we not moved, it would likely have been a slower decline, but the state budget crisis and the dramatic cuts taking place within the CSU system were sounding a fairly obvious alarm that it was time to move on with our lives in a proactive way.  It's not the easiest of times for our remaining vocal jazz majors, but they're working out their next moves just like we are, and their talent and drive will carry them far.  

The grand finale for the year and for the program will take place on May 14th at 7pm in the Music Recital Hall on the campus of Sac State.  It'll feature shortened sets by all three Sac State groups, as well as Folsom High School's "A" Jazz Choir and a very special guest to close the show.  It'll be a night to remember, and, hopefully, a packed house.

The VOTD is a short one about Sac State vocal jazz that I stumbled across recently, produced by the student newspaper.

Today's video of the day is the first in a new series I'm calling "Schadenfreude Sunday."  

Tenor Crack...

I realized that I had a pretty good live recording of C-Sus performing my chart on Bobby McFerrin's "My Better Half," so I've added that to the catalog.  Here's the listing for it, as you'd see it when logged in:

My Better Half - (IV)
    

In honor of the addition of a Bobby tune, here's a great video of him doing a long form improvisation with another one of my favorites, bassist and vocalist Richard Bona.

The creator of the videos has hit on a cool combination of elements that happens to be speaking to a lot of people.  He's putting together a romantic view of science (highlighting its ability to inspire by explore huge ideas) with music and technology.  He's got a series of these on YouTube, and they make me nod and smile.  They also make me lament that I don't have more free time on my hands to do something like this, because, technically speaking, I have the technology and the skills to pull something like this off, and I certainly have the interest.  But I'm fairly sure I'd wind up abandoning some fairly crucial element of my life in order to sit in front of the computer long enough to craft things like this.  So I'll just enjoy his work, and I hope you will, too.

On a website note: if you look at the first few entries in the non-logged-in "Browse all charts" page, you'll see a glimpse of the next thing I'll be adding to the site.  Concise, useful information for directors about each chart.  It's going to take forever, though.  That's why I can't make my own "Symphony of Science" video, I guess! 

Short blog entry today...did my last round of copying the semester's charts for Sac State. Thanks Copymaster 2000...you served me well.  Glad to have that automatic hole punch back, just in time.  

Also: finally recording the demo on Radiance VIII, the Keith Jarrett tune I wrote for Long Beach Poly HS a few months ago.  Julia wrote a really nice lyric on it.  It'll be in the May new charts promo.

Wanted to hip you to Dr. Ron McCurdy's interesting project, "The Collective."  Check out what he's done with my chart on "In the Winelight." Replaced the lead vocal part with him on trumpet, and has a killing group of LA vocal jazz heavies (including my friend Fletcher Sheridan of m-pact) singing the ensemble parts behind him.