Practice Gear Complete

After some more "adjustments" my practice gear is now complete :-)

New gear: MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay

After testing lots of boxes I finally decided on the the sparkling green one that produces a nice warm old-school sound.

R.I.P. Leonard Cohen

Another great musician is gone, Leonard Cohen died on Nov. 7th.
His album "The songs of Leonard Cohen" was one of my first vinyl records in the 70's and the songbook with the lyrics and chords is one of the most used in my library.

New toy: Digitech Trio+ Band Creator and Looper

Imagine you have the mega inspiration and no one to accompany your phantastic new chord progression ... huh.
Take Digitech's latest toy - teach it some chords and rhythm and a drummer and bassman immediately play just what you told them.
It's really as easy as that. I won't take this little black box onto a stage - but it's perfect for practicing and "one man rehearsals" :-)

Brand-new CD: "Rising Grace" by Wolfgang Muthspiel

Wolfgang Muthspiels latest CD was published last week and is brilliant. The harmonies of "Triad Song" and "Father and Sun" are breathtaking.

"Finish Line" by Enoch Lee

Thanks to Max Frankl (see book mentioned below) I am on a journey deep into modern jazz. Not only by practicing scales and modes but also by listening to the musicians he recommends in the book. One of them is Nir Felder, a New York based guitarist whom we listened to last week in Brussels. Nir also plays on other musicians CD's. One of these collaborations is the CD "Finish Line" by pianist Enoch Lee who also lives in New York.
Great music, I really like it. 

Max Frankl: Introduction Modern Jazz Guitar

This book is absolutely great. After I bought several books on jazz harmonies and theory this one is the first that really makes fun to read and to practice with. The samples are all played by a real trio and come as complete tracks or "minus one" and you can play the guitar part. Thumbs up !!  And thank you very much for replying to my emailed questions immediately :-)

Session Band App

Absolutely great for practicing: the jazz parts of the app "Session Band". Professionally sounding loops in many different styles. It's like having friends available to jam anytime and anywhere.  

CD of the month

My CD suggestion: "Golden Age" by the New York based jazz guitarist Nir Felder. Amazing sound, very melodic compositions and definitely anything else but boring. My favourites are "Bandits" and "Bandits II" :-)

Les Paul

I could not resist this special offer - a "real" Gibson at an affordable price. So since yesterday I am proud owner of a shiny black Gibson Les Paul Studio :-)

Ask Marcelo

Yesterday Marcelo Berestovoy told me that he offers a new service on his website: "Ask Marcelo" 

marceloberestovoy.com/questions

My first Post

Welcome!

This is the place where I will publish some of my thoughts.

This site has been set up in September 2016 after I discovered Max Frankl's book "Introduction: Modern Jazz Guitar" which referred to a site hosted by squarespace. I really liked the design and thus switched from an offline managed website (I used rapidweaver) to one at squarespace that can be managed online. I really like to change content whenever I want to by just logging into administration mode and starting to write. I guess this is a more modern way to manage a website.