The Bis Key Chronicles

It’s not as if I don’t have enough instruments or would play this a lot…

I was on the Woodwind Forum and Pete, evil Pete I might add points to the most interesting offering on the Music-Oldtimer.com site. It’s a silver Linton full-metal Contra Alto Clarinet from the 1980s. Here’s the site description, "Contraalto Clarinet made by Linton Elkhart Ind. U.S.A., range to low Eb, full metal body, Saxophone Fingering, nice big fat sound, very good condition!"

OMG, saxophone fingering. Here I’ve been spending time on and off again to learn the insufferable clarinet fingerings and I could have gone this way? Now if I could find a soprano, alto, and bass clarinet with saxophone fingerings too.  ;o)

This site btw, is very well done, using the state of the art Web site presentation and tool set. That is until you get to the ordering form. What, no https facility for my information. No credit card or Paypal accepted.

And the conversion rate is not automatically updated so where they show a price of € 2.950 being $4,140 today, it is actually $3746.50 as the dollar has become more valuable due to recent ravages of economies overseas. Still all in all, this is a very nice site and one that us musicians afflicted with GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) can drool over for a long time.

I have two gigs coming up in the next two weeks.

Vanessa said the other day "That means the concert is next Saturday!" We can excuse her for being surprised with the passage of time as she just gave birth to Lance, a red-haired sweetie and her first child. So although she won’t be in the sax section for the Woodinville Community Band concert at the Seattle Center next week or the Pacific Cascade Big Band at Crossroads of Bellevue the week after, she might be in the audience cheering us on.

I’ve be concentrating on the hardest parts of the song list and my solos. I will be playing a bass sax feature piece called "You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch", trying to be heard over a sixty-piece concert band. I reluctantly have been playing with amplification and it sure makes it easier for me to concentrate on the music without trying to blow my brains out to be louder than the band. The concert itself will present some surprises too that shouldn’t be missed.

The Pacific Cascade Big Band is a new venture for the WCB. In it’s inaugural debut, we will be featuring sweet Sarah Funk on vocals and a number of new soloists on the Eastside. Part of the work I’ve been doing is to get my parts as the lead tenor sax player. There’s no Neil Proff to back me up this time and I owe it to the band to do a bang-up job.

In this vein I’ve been playing against recordings that are available on YouTube and on CDs that I have. Some of the songs are very challenging like Basie’s Hayburner and Two O’clock jump. And the solos are not written out, they just have the changes marked. So being able to play with the pro’s to get my voicing and timing down help. Suzy helps me to by sitting in with me on clarinet or sax and giving me very candid feedback.

I’m very excited about this Christmas season and will report back when it is competed. Hopefully I’ll have videos to post on YouTube and pictures to share.

Suzy, grandson Nicky, and I went to hear the Washington Wind Symphony.

I wish I had brought my good camera, but with a little tweaking you get the idea. Don Furness, Nicky’s Jr. High band teacher was playing trombone. Leah MacDuffy the Woodinville Community Band director was playing flute. Greg Cagle, aka Gerg is the Woodinville Jazz Ensemble section leader and was playing baritone sax. And Carol Karlak, Suzy and I took piano lessons from her and she has been in more bands than I can name was playing with the percussion section.

The music was stellar and the ensemble impressive. Some day I hope to get called upon to sub in that Symphony. Probably won’t happen, but if I keep studying and practicing, who knows.