Here is the listing: http://www.doctorsax.biz/YTS61_4097.htm
I made the move—I bought myself a 1973 Selmer Mark VI! Very exciting stuff, but that also means I have to pay for it. As a result, I’m selling both my Yamaha YTS-61 and my more recent horn, my 1961 King Super 20. For the moment, only the Yamaha 61 is up and ready for sale. I have it listed on consignment at the local Madison saxophone repair shop, Kim Slava’s “Doctor Sax” shop (and web site).
It’s a fantastic horn for many reasons. It looks great, feels great, and most importantly, it sounds great! If you’re looking to get a pro horn with terrific intonation and finger work modeled on the Selmer Mark VI (at less than half the price!), then you will like this horn!!! Thanks for checking it out…
I’ll be spinning at the Great Dane Fitchburg once again, this time on Saturday, May 1st from 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. I hope you’ll join me for the fun!
Why come out to the Fitchburg Dane?
There’s no cover. The music is FREE!
Good beer, drinks and food
Pool tables, pool tables, pool tables
Huge shuffleboard game
You can even play their Wii!
My DJ set consists of solid selections of reggae, hip-hop, funk, soul and R&B. I also have a saxophone or two set up to play along with some instrumental jams I’ve got in the mix. It’s DJing with a twist, something a little different.
Thank you for the warm reception at last month’s Great Dane set! I’m looking forward to doing it again!
I’ll be DJ-ing twice this month. First, I’ll be one of two DJ’s at Scatz Nightclub (Middleton by CostCo) on Friday, March 19th from 9pm to 2am. My friend Lucien and I, along with DJ Web Spinna from Milwaukee are hosting a T.G.I.F. Party in the upstairs lounge at Scatz. I hope we’ll see you there. The cover is $5 and we will be sticking to our theme: Keeping it Cool, Hip and Sophisticated!
A week later on Saturday, March 27th, I’ll be DJ-ing at The Great Dane Fitchburg. It should be a terrific time. I’m looking forward to keeping the vibe pumped from 10pm to 2am. The beer is great and the music is FREE! Keep an eye out on my sax—I’ll be bringing it with to provide a few surprises during the evening!
And if you’re from Kalamazoo, Michigan…you’ll dig knowing that our friend, Kevin McFadden, will be in town and in attendance for the Great Dane gig.
Again, great to talk to Nick at Guitar Center today. He suggested I check out this site. He said he learned most everything he knows now about Maschine and Ableton by watching videos from here.
Well, I took back the Axiom Pro 61 midi keyboard/controller. I had some success with integrating Ableton Live with the keyboard, but ultimately, this keyboard controller (to the tune of ~$500) didn’t live up to my expectations. It had no “brains” or “guts” inside. No internal sound banks, not even a collection of sounds that you could install on a computer to trigger (like Reason or Native Instrument samples). It’s just a nice semi-weighted 61-key piano surface with 8 faders, 8 knobs and 8 pads to control Ableton (or other software).
In the end, it just failed to work well for me. Admittedly, I’m at a beginner’s level with Ableton, but the bottom line experience was that, even after a month of dedication to getting the Axiom Pro/Ableton Live relationship to work, it wasn’t really going anywhere.
“I’m sorry, Axiom Pro, but this isn’t really working out.”
Fortunately, the recovery period is very short for failed software/hardware relationships. I just had a great 30 minute conversation with a Shure mic rep who happened to be at Guitar Center when I was returning the keyboard, who also is a DJ and musician in Chicago. He heard me explaining the situation to the GC guys and told me how he’s composing and arranging grooves. He uses Native Instrument’s “Maschine” with Ableton to make music, keeping the Ableton software relevant, but replacing an empty shell keyboard controller with a equally priced hardware/software groovebox with tons of sounds and added resources.
He confirmed that the technology out today is amazing, but there are so many options that it can get very confusing trying to figure out what products to invest in. I was totally going back to getting a used Akai MPC 1000, which I’ve been craving for a long time, but I’ll have to seriously consider NI’s Maschine, instead.
Maschine comes with 5 gigs of awesome sounds and integrates with a laptop or other computer. I was surprised to learn that Maschine is not resource heavy, so he said I would be able to use the NS7 and Maschine together on the same laptop (which I thought was incredible). Sweeeet! It functions as a sequencer, a sampler, an arranger and effects array. And it can connect with my existing full-weight 88-key keyboard. No need for more keyboards….done.
Man, my boy Kevin McFadden in Portland-via-Detroit turned me on to this hot hip-hop clip from the 2009 BET Hip-Hop Awards. He wanted to hip me to the rhymes that Mos Def, Black Thought and Eminem laid down on this track.
What groove do the world’s top rappers and MC’s rhyme to? Clyde Stubblefield’s Funky Drummer sample, of course! That’s exactly what DJ Premier does on this track. Man, if Clyde had a dime for every time a hip-hop rhyme was combined with his funky drum line…well, he’d probably be playing for free!
Most people of heard of Facebook and most have discovered old friends through the site. It’s also become a fun way to learn what Wynton Marsalis, the great jazz trumpet player/composer/arranger/conductor, is doing from day-to-day. Well, on this day, he posted a happy birthday announcement to his brother, Brandford, a.k.a. “Book”. Very cool.
Here is Wynton’s Facebook post. It’s long, but worth the read. What a family they have…
Today is my big brother Branford’s birthday.
We had some helluva times growing up. He is a musician with such great ears and reflexes that playing with him was something you could take for granted…. until you played with other people.
I remember us learning tunes in the mid 70’s off of Earth, Wind and Fire, Parliament, Stevie Wonder, Tower of Power and all the recordings of funk bands with good horn sections. We were so country…. we would write the names of notes (a-b-b-d-f-f) on regular loose-leaf paper.
Our first gig was an elementary school dance in Kenner, La. We had a four piece band—-sax, tpt, guitar, and drums. The gig was supposed to be two hours and took place in the school cafeteria-gymnasium-meeting room.
We learned about 12 songs.
Well, those songs took us about 35 min. into the gig. We stopped.
People said “we came here to dance, y’all better come up with something, NOW”. The next hour was a continuous medley of all 12 songs with some of the saddest solos you ever heard in your life. We were 11 and 12 then.
4 years later we played in a funk band called the Creators.
Girls would ask us,”what do y’all create?” “Babies”.
The band was about 9 pieces and Branford and I were the youngest by 4 or 5 years. We played a talent show in the 9th ward at Nicholls High School and some kind of way had neglected to learn one of the contestant’s songs… and to add insult to injury, didn’t realize it till he walked out unto the stage.
Now these could be raucous brown affairs with the audience commenting (back and forth about what they liked and disliked) to the band. One group of singers earlier that evening had butchered Kung Fu Fighting and had the nerve to announce to the audience, “the band is fuckin’ us up all.”
We had 9 and 1 packing, so we took the mic and announced that they weren’t shit. It was funny, but we had to think about whether they would go home and come back with something, because it was their neighborhood and those karate outfits probably gave them the feeling they could whip someone’s ass. So we were on edge and the people were ready for some Crescent City type excitement to jump off.
Here comes my man whose song we definitely don’t know. The show stops while we discuss another song to do. “Hey man, this is what I know. You motherfuckers better play my song.” He has his country best clothes on and probably all his friends and girlfriend there.
It was tight.
The people start murmuring which soon leads to shouting which we know will lead to a really colorful story, if you survive to tell it. Branford had only heard the song a few times on the radio. He sat down at the electric keyboard and played the intro and changes of the tune.
He guided our bass player and drummer through it all with complete cool, and saved us from a very unpleasant physical encounter with a hyped up audience.
My man made it through his song, yellow suit in tact and we all couldn’t believe Book pulled that off. That was Branford’s nickname Book, Bookie, Book-Book Nova, Track Star Book.
He could play any instrument he touched and run the hundred in 10 seconds or faster if being chased through south boston.
A lot of people have been wondering about Clyde Stubblefield’s health and how he’s feeling (”…with my fingers and toes,” is what he’ll likely tell you). Quite simply, he’s suffering from kidney failure, is being treated with dialysis three times a week and has begun the process to find a kidney donor for transplantation. All in all, though, he’s doing pretty well. He’s certainly as spunky in attitude as he is funky on the drums.
