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

Jam Sessions

Over the past few days, I've been pondering the importance of jam sessions and how they serve a variety of functions. I think what brought this on was a college musician who invited me down to their weekly Wednesday night jam session. I tried to explain that I didn't have a lot of free time these days and certainly not the time to play without getting paid. His facial expressions made me realize that he took it the wrong way. I believe he thought I said that because I felt like I was too good to be hanging with him and the cats he plays with.

Jam sessions are indeed important to any music scene and all genres. They are a barometer of the health of a region's music scene and serve as a sort of "convention" for musicians to network with other musicians, which in turn means possibly getting future gigs. The only problem is that, unless you are with the house band, you are not getting paid for the night...and even some house bands don't get paid! This aside, I can certainly see the logic that not getting paid for one gig (jam session) could lead to several paid gigs with other musicians and bands. But, this still doesn't solve the problem I have with lack of free time.

Yes, I am a musician. But, I am also a father, a husband, and a homeowner. This places a very high importance that any excursion outside of my home, musically speaking, must result in me bringing home money...period. What gets lost by some younger artists is that, as an artist, you are self employed. And, the older you get, the more financial responsibilities you have. Thus, time is very valuable. My wife can testify to the fact that when I'm home I'm still at work. Even the very blogs that I post are actually work. How, you ask? Well, one of the primary goals for any artist is to increase their presence...especially their web presence now-a-days, as people are not going out as much as they used to for the performing arts. Posting blogs is a very efficient way of increasing your web presence, because they are a priority target for search engines.

Then there is the marketing aspect. Anyone who has studied modern marketing knows that today's western society has gone into a much more "personal"mode of thinking. In other words, people are looking more and more for very specific things that cater to their needs or wants. This is all thanks to the internet, which makes it incredibly easy for people to find things within their particular interests. Also, people have a greater interest in what is going on with the lives of others, including any artist that they may want to invest both time and treasure in. They want to have a greater (if not personal) connection with an artist and get to know about that artist's personality. Blogging is an incredibly efficient way of doing all of this. Not just because of the search engines, but because of the fact that blogs can be syndicated into feeds, which can turn the blog into a form of viral marketing.

That was a whole lot of words just for me to say that I can reach a whole lot more people just through my blog alone, than I can by playing in some venue every week in a situation where: A) most people coming down aren't fans anyway, but are other musicians, B) most listeners, who aren't musicians, are more interested in what's happening on the television screen above the bar, and C) I'm in a situation where I have to spend money on gas to get there, most likely buy a couple of drinks or pay a cover (or both), possibly pay for parking (particularly if it's in New York City), while not getting paid. All of this in turn means that, not only would I not be coming home with very, very badly needed cash, but I wouldn't even be breaking even! I would be coming home in the negatives...and how many gigs am I GUARANTEED from making it to a jam session? How many gigs would I get in a "timely" fashion to compensate for the money spent? Not at all a situation to find yourself in when you have a mortgage, an out of work wife to try and support, and a toddler who needs food and diapers.

Of course, I realize that I can't effectively do everything that must be done to grow my career from my computer desk. I think it's much like trying to conduct a war by exclusively utilizing air power...at some point you will need boots on the ground!

So, what is my final verdict on the importance of jam sessions? Like I said earlier, they ARE important and help to ensure the health of a music scene. However, I think that once a musician reaches a certain phase in their life, they have to really choose when it is a good time to go to a jam session and would it be a fruitful outing in terms of new phone numbers obtained, new ideas and information exchanged, potential gigs, etc.

For me, I already know or have access to so many musicians (be it from cats I met at jam sessions when I was younger with far fewer responsibilities, or the musicians that they themselves know and play with), that I have no need to go to a jam session for phone numbers. I don't have any problems finding gigs or creating them for myself, so there isn't too much of a need to go to a jam session to try and land a gig with someone else (unless there is someone in particular that I would like to play with, who doesn't know who I am). This just leaves the exchange of information and new ideas. I get a lot of information from my daily research sessions on the internet, though I'll be the first to admit that it isn't quite the same as receiving information first hand and in person from the person who has it to give.

So, you want to hit a jam session? By all means do it! It's an important part of every musician's growth. Just make sure to get plenty of jam sessions in before you get married, own a house, and find yourself being a parent!

Written by Shenole Latimer

2010 Album Project - Inspired!

I don't know what it's been...the financial hardship my wife and I have been facing for the past year, some new genres of music I have been exposed to that I didn't used to listen to, a special alignment taking place within the universe, or all of the above, but I'm finding myself with no shortage of ideas for songs to write. In fact, I've been feeling so inspired that I actually have a different kind of problem: Are these songs lacking a "homogeneous" sound that will keep them from making sense together on the playlist of a CD?

What do I mean by a homogeneous sound? Well, when you purchase the album of your favorite band, you pretty much have some idea of what the overall sound of that album will be, even though you may not have heard the songs yet. You know that "X" band has a guitar player that plays a certain way, a vocalist that has a particular sounding voice, and songs that have a certain style to their compositions. The problem with the tunes that I have been in the process of committing to paper (there are currently four), is that, although the musicians will all be the same and they all have a playing style and sound familiar to most of my fans, the compositions are all very different in style.

For example, on one tune I'm hearing a light hearted blues structure, with a slight funk twang to the swing feel, over a more modern and hip sounding set of chord changes. Meanwhile, on another tune, I'm hearing a more "epic" sort of sound with orchestral backgrounds, an electric guitar, and a driving rock beat...sort of like the sound towards the end of "Kashmir" off of Led Zepplin's "Physical Graffiti" album. Yeah, I know...go figure!

Well, now that I've probably scared off anybody who may have had an interest in adding this album to their jazz or music collection, let me temper all that I just said by saying that I am actively trying to pull in the reigns a bit on my creativity! I certainly don't want an album that sounds like some sort of "hodge-podge" of music.

At any rate, I guess the good news is that I'm feeling very creative and inspired!

Written by Shenole Latimer

April, 2010 Tour Plans Almost Complete

After four months of constant phone calls, carefully making travel and hotel arrangements, and all that other fun stuff, my east coast tour is almost entirely put together. I'm currently just trying to squeeze in three more stops, but here is how the tour is looking so far:

• April 6 - Vienna, VA
• April 7 - Reston, VA
• April 8 @ 12pm - Myrtle Beach, SC
• April 8 @ 6:30pm - Conway, SC
• April 9 - Jacksonville, FL
• April 11 - Day Off for Rest
• April 12 - Maryville, TN
• April 14 & 15 - Norfolk, VA
• April 16 - Day Off for Rest
• April 17 - Cape May, NJ
• April 18 - Montclair, NJ
• April 19 @ 2pm - Ocean Pines, MD
• April 19 @ 6:30pm - Snow Hill, MD
• April 20 - Princess Anne, MD
• April 21 @ 4pm & 7pm Dumont, NJ

The three locations that may be added within the next couple of weeks are:

• April 5 - Washington, DC
• April 10 - Atlanta, GA
• April 13 - Durham, NC

With all the driving that I'm going to be doing, and with the relatively packed schedule, I felt it was important to include at least a couple of days where I could get some rest and also do some of the things that people don't generally associate with touring. Things like laundry, for example!

I'm thinking about making a separate section in my blog just for this particular tour, though I don't know how much free time I will really have to make entries. My past experience with touring and road trips have taught me that, when you reach the end of the day, all you really want to do is go to sleep! Another idea may be to just have a series of Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter status reports...a sort of "Tour Tweet" or "Update from on the Road". One way or another, I do think I should find some kind of way to document the tour so that all of my fans can get an inside look at things, and so that I can reference it later for any lessons learned.

So anyway, now that the tour is only a few months away, I need to start compiling my list of media contacts so that I can be ready to send out press releases and also schedule interviews on radio and in periodicals. Fortunately, I have had some help from a very trusted and hard working student of mine. He's been busy getting together a bunch of media outlets for me to pursue.

All in all, things are really coming together and I think that this tour is going to be quite successful. In fact, I'm already in the process of planning tours for the North East and the West Coast!

Written by Shenole Latimer