New Jazz Concert Series!

In the time that has passed by since my last blog entry, I’ve spent the majority of my time trying to help my wife get her accounting firm off of the ground. Fortunately, her company is showing signs of life, but we are still a ways off from her equaling the salary she was making from her previous employment.


However, though I haven’t had the time to dedicate towards my own bookings, I have actually managed to work on at least one project that I was involved with prior to my switching gears to give my wife a hand. The project is a jazz concert series that will be taking place during the month of September at the Levitas Center for the Arts in Southampton, New York.


Back in March, I was approached by the director of the Southampton Cultural Center and asked to become the director for a jazz concert series that, at the time, was just a concept. It was stated that it would be up to me to initiate the process of booking the acts and looking into the logistics of putting together such an event. Needless to say, I jumped on the opportunity and set about putting together a diverse roster of very strong performers.


First on my list was signing on Gail Storm. Having her brand of vocal jazz was simply a no-brainer for this sort of series. Another no-brainer was having friend and colleague Matt Marshak on the bill. Matt is a great guitarist who performs in the “smooth jazz” style of jazz.


Since I had already given a performance at the Levitas Center with my quartet this past Spring, for this series I wanted to showcase my newest creation… a fusion of classical and jazz styles performed in a duet format, with myself on saxophone and my good friend Al Quinn on piano. I have dubbed this ensemble “2-Improv”.


Rounding out the roster is pianist Sean Fitzpatrick, who will be performing in a modern jazz style with his trio, Al Quinn (the other half of ‘2-Improv”) and his hard-bop quintet, and the funk/soul infused jazz quartet led by Ahmad Ali.


I’m truly excited about this concert series!


I think the thing I’m most excited about is that, from top to bottom, the lineup of ensembles is stacked with incredible musicians that I have either had the chance to perform with, or have heard a lot about. All of us have headlined a number of shows on our own, and now we will be the pioneers for a brand new concert series on Long Island that will feature some serious jazz. And, the Levitas Center for the Arts is such a nice venue to boot!


The design of the center is that of a recital hall. But, adding to the charm and classiness of the hall is the art gallery located in the front of the building before you enter the performance space. The art gallery is well known within the art community for the incredible works of art that are often displayed there.


As I’m writing this blog, all of the ticket info is being finalized, so I hope to be able to provide all of those details within the next few days. It’s just that I’m so excited about this concert series that I couldn’t wait to blab my mouth off about it!


Keep an eye out for further details about the concert series to appear on my website, the Southampton Cultural Center’s website, and of course right here on my blog.


by Shenole Latimer

Life's Curve Balls

It's been some time since my last post. In fact, I haven't posted anything since returning from my tour this past April. I've been absent for a combination of reasons.

The first thing that kept me occupied was all of the preparation I was trying to do in gearing up for my recording project. Besides trying to take care of any last minute logistical challenges, I was also working frantically to finish a couple of songs I had left to complete for the recording session.

But then, something happened...

I stated months ago that my wife had been laid off of her job back in January of 2009. Unfortunately, our mounting bills forced me to utilize the money I had put aside for my share of the recording costs (Tierra Records would have been flipping for part of the bill too), so that we could try and catch up with at least some of our bills. Needless to say that my follow up album has been put on hold.

After realizing that my album was not going to get recorded within the time frame I had originally planned, and seeing my wife struggling with trying to start her fledgling accounting firm, I decided to sacrifice the time I normally dedicate during the day towards finding and contacting new venues to book myself in, to helping my wife build her business and find clients.

To me, the logic for this move was simple. I have nearly 15 years of experience being self employed and marketing myself, were as my wife has no experience in this realm what so ever. She has always worked a "9 to 5" job. However, she has experienced multiple lay-offs and has grown quite weary of working for any other companies where she doesn't have direct control over her position and situation (those of you who know me well probably think that sounds familiar!).

In short, I came to the conclusion that I could be more helpful to her with what she is trying to do with her career than she can be towards me and my career. Almost all of the skills I have acquired up until this point can be utilized in more "conventional" businesses than the music and entertainment industry. Meanwhile, none of the skills that she has acquired over the years working in a cubicle can help me get more gigs or achieve more notoriety for what I do.

So, for the moment I'm putting a freeze on actively pursuing any more performances for the time being, until Renee's accounting firm takes off more. However, that doesn't mean that I will be disappearing from the scene completely. I will still accept performances that I am offered from people contacting me. Also, at this point I have appearances already booked that go into January of 2011.

And there you have it...life has thrown me one if it's curve balls and I had to respond.

With all of that said, if you would like to see some of my handy work for my wife's company, I invite you to visit her website at http://www.rdlaccounting.com/. I designed the website for her, and am also acting as a marketing agent and technical advisor. Feel free to drop me a line or leave me a comment to let me know what you think of her website.

Shenole Latimer

Lessons for the Road

Well, I've been home for almost a week now from my "What's All That Jazz About?" east coast tour and, besides coming back in desperate need of some rest, I have also come back with some lessons from the road. The thing is, what I learned may seem like common sense but it's amazing how even experienced people can take certain things for granted ,or even just get so wrapped up in other things that the obvious becomes not so obvious.


However, before I go into any real details, I would like to first state that the tour was a big success for me. I managed to turn some new people on to me and what I do, I significantly increased my mailing list, I have laid down solid ground work for doing more in the markets I visited, and I've groomed a number of good connections that are willing to become references for me when I begin putting together tours for the north east and also the west coast.


Regarding the lessons I have learned...let me start with a video I took using the camera on my phone. Most of the lessons I learned stem from one particular incident that I mentioned in the video:

So, loosing my wallet was the root for a few of the lessons I learned. Here we go:


Lesson #1) - Do not wear attire that has no pockets!

For the first couple of days I stayed at the home of some older cousins I have in Virginia. Their son is the only male cousin in my entire family that is close to my age. On day two, he stopped by to take me out to lunch. In my excitement to hang out with him, I threw on a pair of shorts that didn't have any pockets because they were they closest thing to me. I figured I'd just hold the wallet. From there you can figure out the rest.

Dumb? Yep! Have I done it previously? Yep! Will I ever do it again? Nope!


Lesson #2) - Keep your cash in more than one place when traveling.

Now, this is something that I actually tend to do. But, for whatever reason, this particular time every cent I had on me was in my wallet...a little over $300 in cash. This was really for tolls and an emergency, because all of my fuel, food, and hotel expenses were coming out of my business debit card so I could keep track of everything in an easy fashion for income tax purposes.

In any case, had I had some of the money in a compartment in my rented car, some of it on my person (in a pocket!), and some of it in my wallet, I would not have lost the entire amount.


Lesson #3) - If you are a traveling musician, and especially if you're traveling alone, be sure to have some kind of support structure back home in case of an emergency.

For me, this is easy. My wife and my mother are the two people that I rely on most when I'm traveling by myself. They both always receive my itinerary so that they know where I'll be and when, they both keep copies of things link my social security card, photo copies of my driver's license, etc. Also, I have my wife's name on my business checking account. That way, should I ever loose my debit card or any credit cards while on the road, she can withdraw money for me from my music business account and wire it to me via credit union or Walmart moneygram. Walmart moneygrams arrive much faster than credit union.

So, when I came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to find my wallet, I had my mother fax me a photo copy of my driver's license, my wife sent me a Walmart moneygram, and I immediately filed a police report so that, if I were to get pulled over for any reason, they could identify me by the case report number. In this way, I at least had some kind of means of proving my identity and I also had the cash I would need to get fuel, food, hotel rooms, and so on.


Lesson #4) - It doesn't matter how quickly you think you can make it somewhere, leave EXTRA early!

This is another thing that I normally do. It's a good thing too, because on the leg of the tour where I had to travel from Greenville, South Carolina, to Maryville, Tennessee, I encountered a road closing on interstate 40 because of a huge rock slide that had covered the highway. There were two detours offered. Both would eventually get me to the Knoxville region (Maryville is a suburb of Knoxville) so I choose the one that I figured was the shortest. After a little more than a half hour of driving, I came up to another road closing. They crew there told me that they had just closed the road an hour previous because of another rock slide! They told me that from there I would have no easy route to get to Knoxville, so I would have to turn around. I turned around and went back to the spot of the original rockslide that I had to detour at.

This time, instead of following the second detour sign, I let my temper get the better of me and I decided to use my GPS to find myself a faster route around the rock slide and to my destination. The only problem was that after following the GPS for about 30 minutes I ended up on a dirt road that was obviously going to take me straight to the front door of somebody's ranch! Once again I turned around.

Finally, I decided to follow the second detour that was listed at the original rock slide. It did indeed take me to my destination, but it did so by bringing me an hour and 45 minutes out of my way, where as if I could have stayed on interstate 40 I could have been there in only about 30 minutes or so! All said and done, I had added nearly 4 hours to my trip! However, because I left super early that day, I actually arrived at the venue with about 30 minutes to spare. I was somehow able to get set up very quickly (and this particular venue required that I used every piece of equipment I had brought with me from home) and I started the program only 5 minutes late!


So anyway, those are the 4 most valuable lessons that I learned while on this particular tour and I hope some other musicians, and maybe even some regular folks out there, may be able to benefit from them. In closing, here are the two other videos that I shot during the tour:

The Concept

I've sat, and I've thought, and I've pondered, and I've mused...what could be the concept behind my next album? And, how would that concept help me come up with a name for the album? After much deliberation, I decided to look back at my last album, "Front and Center", for some ideas.

Back in 2006, while I was recording "Front and Center", the whole idea was to basically introduce myself to the listeners. Additionally, I wanted to show my versatility as a musician, which is why there were such a variety of subgenres of jazz that was present. This time around, though it seems versatility may still play a role judging by the tunes I have composed so far, I decided that there are a few things that I want.

First, I want all of the tunes to be original compositions...no standards this time. Second, I don't want to have to resort to using 2 different guys for each position in the rhythm section. Last time around, schedules were so scattered for the guys in my quartet that I could only use one of them (drummer Kyle Struve), and that was for only two or three of the nine tunes on the album. For this project, I really want to use the guys that I play with on a regular basis from my quartet. Especially considering that, by the time we record, we would have performed the tunes in live situations a few times. And third, I want the album to be centered around a concept that everyone can relate to. It's because of this last reason that I have decided to name the album "A Day in the Life of...". I leave a space after the word "of", because I want the listener to fill in the blank with the name of someone they know that the style, personality, and titles of the tunes remind them of.

Each song title on the album will have something to do with everyday life that we all experience, whether it's running around and trying to get everything done, or just the relief you may feel when you realize it's time for lunch. For example, the three tunes that I have composed so far are called "12:00 Strut", "Runnin'", and "Quiet". "Quiet" is interesting because it sounds more like a classical music piece than anything from the jazz idiom. I even had to compose a full score for it, rather than a lead sheet, which is how I usually write the charts for my tunes.

As May 26th (D-Day for the recording) gets ever closer, I'm getting more an more excited. And, for that matter, so are the cats involved! In fact ,the recording engineer for the project (John Zych) and I visited the recital hall of the Staller Center on the campus of Stony Brook University in New York to figure out some of the logistics regarding how we will be setting things up. During that visit, John said that he has been looking forward to this session for months and can't wait to do it. That sure felt good to hear!

by Shenole Latimer

Musicians Shouldn't Get Paid

There's a phrase I hear a lot of. And, I've been hearing it long before the economy tanked. It goes something like this: "I love how you guys sound! I'm an organizer for (just fill in the blank here) and I would like to hire you to give a performance there. We don't have much money though."

Bingo! There it is! The "we don't have much money" statement.

Now, that is all well and good. People are always going to try and get your services for free or next to nothing. Also, there are certainly times when that statement may be legit. However, I recently heard this statement when I was a sideman for an artist, who I will not name. A woman came up saying that she was the event coordinator for a yacht club, that I will also not name, and she said the very same words that are in the first paragraph of this post.

OK, here's the thing. First of all, I grew up near this yacht club and have seen a number of the events that they have. They are pretty lavish. Secondly, I knew people, during different periods of time, that have worked there. Every last one of them, including someone who has worked there within the last 4 months, have each told me how much money flies around there...and not just from the clients. With all of that, and the fact that it is a YACHT club, I'm I expected to think that I (or I should say the artist that I was the sideman for) can't ask for at least my normal performance fee?

Yeah...I could swallow that one, just like I could a 10 pound horse pill!

Look...non-musicians...people who would hire a musician or a band for their services...do you expect to have a plumber, who charges say $300 for a job, come to your house and do the job, but accept that you will only pay them $50 because you like how they clear up your plumbing but you don't want to pay their rate? How about taking your car to the shop. A lot of shops charge about $90 per hour for labor. Do you realistically think that you're going to bring your car to a shop...any shop...and have them agree to only charge you $15 because you tell them that your car isn't running correctly, you like how they fix cars, but you don't have much money. What would happen is that shop would send you on your way and ask you not to come back.

Musicians...you cats that play instruments or sing for a living...WAKE UP! Has it ever occurred to you that people don't take yourself seriously because you don't take you seriously? Before you bristle your feathers over that, what I mean is that you don't present yourself in a business-like fashion. The truth of the matter is, one of the problems for us is that too many of us have too casual a manner about ourselves when we are conducting business. Some of us forget that the person on stage is the entertainer and the person that steps off that stage is a business person. We have to wear different hats and be able to switch them, at times, instantaneously.

If you're not going to get serious when you conduct your business, at least come up with a pricing plan to cover different situations, so that you're not stuck looking like a deer in headlights when someone asks you what you charge. All of the serious musicians I know, including myself, have a pricing "menu" for all sorts of different performance situations and configurations. Every now and then someone will come up to me and ask me what I charge for a situation I have not thought of. You know what I tell them? I say that I'll have to call them back because it is a situation I haven't done before and I need to sit down and consider a fair way to do it.

One more thing, musician type people. If someone offers you a price that is well below your normal asking price, or even ask that you perform for free, there is a magical word that you can use that will stop you from playing a 2 - 4 hour gig that you end up regreting, hauling all of your gear, and listening to unhappy bandmates who are underpaid. This incredible word is "No". You have to remember that the people hiring you have absolutely no clue that you've spent thousands and thousands of dollars on your gear, many hundreds or even thousands of hours practicing and honing your skill, sacrificed valuable time with family and friends, etc. But, YOU know and that is my point!

With all of that said, by no means does that mean I don't work with people regarding rates. But, I won't be giving the farm away. I have done this long enough now (I've been playing music in a public fashion for about 15 years and full-time for over 10 years now) that I know the minute someone says that it doesn't pay but it's good exposure, or that they don't have much money, that the gig will most likely not be worth my time. In my 15 total years of doing this thing called music, what I have learned is that those kinds of gigs almost always end up being much more stressful than most of the gigs I have that pay better. Every once in a while there are some "exposure gigs" that are good, but you have to really weigh those and give them a lot of consideration before you do them.

Well, I guess I've said what's on my mind. I'll tell you one thing, though. If a band is just playing terribly and stinking up the place, and they are not conducting themselves in a professional manner, those are the times that musicians shouldn't get paid!

written by Shenole Latimer

Look...DON'T TOUCH (The Musician's Universal Plea)

A couple of weeks ago, I had an experience that has put me on a personal crusade to educate people about musicians and their equipment.

Now first of all, if you are a fan of mine, I hope that you will not take offense to this statement, but people simply don't have a single clue as to how expensive our equipment is and why nobody, other than the musician who owns it, should ever bother trying to touch ANY OF IT! So, with that said, here's what happened a couple of weeks ago.

I was in the auditorium of a library and was setting my gear up because I had one of my educational presentations that I do. It was still at least 30 minutes before the program was suppose to start, and I was pretty much finished setting up, when two ladies walked in. We then struck up a conversation. Eventually, the conversation went more towards just one of the ladies, while the other walked away. Something told me to look in the direction of the woman who had walked away. And, it's a good thing that I did! I was horrified to see the second woman proceed to grab my alto saxophone by the neck in order to pick it up off of the sax stand that I had it placed on. I immediately started yelling, "no, no, no!"

I arrived just in time to grab my sax from her before she could fully lift it up. By the time I reached my sax, I was actually fuming mad because I had just spent $500 getting extensive and much needed work done on it. At the same time, I was trying to stay polite and in control of my overall reaction. The lady then told me that she only wanted to look at it and that she knew what she was doing because her father had been a musician. Her comment almost made me loose it because, if she had indeed grown up around a PROFESSIONAL musician, surely one of the first things she should have learned was DON'T TOUCH. Besides, he may have dabbled with music, but was he a FULL-TIME, PROFESSIONAL musician like me? As I always say, "just because you can screw in a light bulb, it doesn't make you an electrician. "

More to the point of things, it was MY equipment that she was handling and I simply DO NOT LIKE people touching my stuff without my permission.

Still trying to keep my composure, I went on to explain that my sax was not a cheap beginner's model and that I depended on it for my livelihood. I then politely clued her in that she didn't actually know as much as she thought she did, because she was about to pick the sax up in the worse manner that you could possibly pick a saxophone up by. The neck is a separate piece from the body of the sax and can be very easily separated, even after applying the screw for the clamp that holds it in place. In other words, she would have picked the sax up by the neck, the body of the sax would have detached and fallen on the ground, and I would have been looking at anywhere between $500 - $1,500 worth of damage. Experience has taught me that, once an instrument falls to the ground, it NEVER plays quite the same ever again, no matter how much money you dump into getting it repaired.

The end result is that I managed to get her to understand the situation.

As for the public at large, people simply have no idea the worth of musician's instruments. Between the 5 saxophones that I own ( 2 altos, 2 sopranos, and a rare C melody sax), I'm looking at around $23,000. And that's just my saxophones! If you add up all of the equipment that I own for the purposes of making my living in music, the grand total is just under $41,000. Believe it or not, that isn't even on the more expensive end of things regarding what some professional musicians have spent on their gear. Todd Coolman, the esteemed bassist who was my first jazz instructor at Stony Brook University and is currently the head of the SUNY (State University of New York) at Purchase Jazz Program once confided in me that his prized bass, which is the one he uses on important gigs and recording sessions, is worth about $85,000. He uses a different bass that is worth (I think I remember him saying) about $12,000 for most of his other gigs.

Anyway, the point of all of this isn't to just give you a tally of how much we spend on our instruments and gear. The simple fact is that you should NEVER handle a musician's gear, period. It isn't even your stuff to handle in the first place! Look...DON'T TOUCH!

written by Shenole Latimer

2010 Album Project - Getting in Shape!

Earlier today, I gave a lecture about jazz history. There was something that I said during the hour long presentation that really stuck with me. My statement went something like this:

"Jazz suffers today because it is so difficult to maintain a set line up for a band. The result is that you end up with a bunch pick-up bands that are put together for a specific gig based on who may be available because they don't have a better paying gig. This means that songs, within many jazz groups, rarely have the chance to grow and develop, as is the case when you have a line up that has played together for an extended length of time, and so have developed a familiarity with each other and also a heightened ability to interact with each other during improvisations."

Now that's some mouthful!

Anyway, I feel fortunate to have maintained the same line up within my quartet for the past few years, with the exception being my good friend and pianist Kenny MacKenzie, who moved to Florida towards the latter part of 2009. I now have been utilizing the considerable services of Art Hirahara at the piano end of things. This was a logical move for me because Art has played a lot with Kyle Struve (drums) and Thomson Kneeland (bass), who are both part of my regular line up, which means that the rhythm section will remain tight, even as I continue to grow a familiarity with Art's playing style. And, every jazz musician knows that it all starts with a strong rhythm section!

But, more to the point of my statement about feeling fortunate to have maintained the same line up, I think this will aid me in my desire to bring up the level of interaction within the new selections being composed for my upcoming album. There's something to be said about the music of a band that has had time to work together and create a "sound" for themselves.

I'm not knocking my first album "Front and Center". It's just that it was hard to create a "sound" for that album when I was dealing with 2 different bassists, 2 different piano players, 2 different drummers, and all of them performing in different line up combinations based on their availability. How was anybody suppose to interact! And then, on top of all of that, all of those guys were actually sight reading the charts during the recording sessions. This is because it proved impossible to schedule rehearsals, due to conflicting schedules. It's nothing short of a testament to the skill level of the musicians that I was working with that the end product sounded as incredible as it did!

That said, I think with this next album things will be quite different. First of all, as I've mentioned before, I'm going to have the actual line up of my quartet on this one, including the amazing Kenny MacKenzie. Also, in order to gain a familiarity with my new compositions, and to get in shape for the recording, we will be performing the new tunes during concerts that we have and also during small, one hour "pick-up" gigs that we have at a few libraries. The live performance of these tunes in front of an audience will give us the opportunity to air things out and get the tunes sounding their best BEFORE we ever hit the studio to record them.

Our first big opportunity to debut some of the new material will come on February 26, 2010, when we give a concert performance at the Levitas Center for the Arts in Southampton, New York. In case you read this blog post in time and would like to check us out, you can find out more online and obtain tickets for the show by clicking HERE. You can also call (631) 287-4377.

So, short of going into "lock-down" with my quartet a week or two before the recording of the new album, I can't think of any better way to get in shape with the new tunes. If you have a chance to attend my quartet's February 26th performance, or any of the other ones we have before the recording date on May 23rd, I'd love to hear any feedback you have regarding the new tunes!

Written by Shenole Latimer