The Next Best Thing

Highlights from March 18, 2010 at Barbès. Let’s go to the audiotape! Excerpts are from:
1. Scott Joplin, “The Easy Winners”
2. William Bolcom, “Graceful Ghost Rag”
3. Randy Newman, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”
4. Joplin, “Bethena”
5. Newman, “One More Hour”

Here’s a taste of the sounds made at the debut gig by the band whose name may end up being, until something better comes along, Music Joy Group.

Please note that Alessandro Ricciarelli will be playing guitar with the Still Unnamed Band this coming Thursday at Barbès.

Everything else remains the same.

We will still play my funked-up arrangements of ragtime hits – written not only by Scott Joplin but also by Jimmie Rodgers, William Bolcom, Randy Newman, and Claude Debussy.

We will still be without a name, no doubt. If you come, perhaps a good idea will come to you and you’ll share it with us.

Hope to see you this Thursday, March 18 at 8pm!

before taping all the parts together for the March 18 gig at Barbès. Three Scotch tape dispensers later, I am still not done.

What baffles me is that e-readers have not been embraced with abandon by musicians. It’s such a no-brainer. The ideal solution would be a foot pedal attachment that would allow you to move farther along in the score. Even just touching the screen would be so much better than turning pages made out of paper.

iPad developers: do not delay.

is not that the good ones are all taken (as the Wall Street Journal would have you believe); it’s that there are too few good ones to begin with. These may be two ways of saying more or less the same thing. But since I happen to be stuck in the middle of this task myself, it has brought home just how hard the job is.

The challenge here is to come up with a name that evokes a feeling without being too literal. The band in question, which makes its debut March 18, 8pm, at Barbès in Brooklyn, will play my arrangements of classic ragtime. The sound will not be historically authentic—in other words, not Victorian or four-square. Instead, imagine a collision between Scott Joplin and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Another inspiration is Brave Combo, which began life as a punk polka band.

To be avoided at all costs: puns, which are essentially acts of violence against language. This is why the word rag must not appear in any shape or form. I toyed briefly with Cakewalk, but there is music software with that name, and who needs a lawsuit?

Titles by Scott Joplin are an obvious start. Perhaps too obvious? We may end up being Dean Olsher and the Easy Winners. But then I also love Euphonic Sounds. I may be the only person who does. One friend has recommended another Joplin tune: The Strenuous Life. If you come up with something better I promise a suitable reward.

Thanks for asking.

I’ve been laying low while bringing various projects to fruition. And now some of them are ready, so here I am to tell you about them.

Let’s go in chronological order.

• Tonight at 9pm I’ll break out the old upright bass to accompany singer Katie Dixon and the Broken Arrowz at Red Hook Bait & Tackle for a set of her original songs, which are surprising and satisfying in all the right ways. As she puts it, “It will be country and it will be fun.” (Oh, and check out her poster, which she had made at Hatch Show Prints in Nashville. They’ve been in business since 1879 and have made the posters for the Grand Ole Opry since its earliest days.)

• Next up is Heartbreak: A Competition. Maria Finn, author of the new book Tango Me Home has issued an open invitation to write about your tale of heartbreak in one to two hundred words. She’s also accepting videotapes one to two minutes in length. The winning entry will be made into a tango song by Marian Berry. Why am I telling you all of this? Because I am one of the judges.
• One more thing. There’s been a project percolating for several years now and it is ready to be poured. I’ve been writing my own arrangements of classic ragtime, unpacking all of the musical styles that ragtime became in the 20th century: swing, bebop, rock, funk. This is the music Scott Joplin might have written, had he lived (to the age of 143). Still haven’t decided 100% on a name for the band. Cakewalk seems promising; what do you think of that? What I can tell you is that our debut gig has been booked for March 18 at 8pm, at Barbès, which is the jewel in the crown of the Brooklyn music scene. Stay tuned for updates (and feel free to nominate ideas for a band name).