March Musings

Plus new Sip & Spin date!

How are you doing? March can be a strange one, it’s a transitional month and I definitely feel like I was caught up in it…

March means Spring Equinox (and the start of baseball season), but you never know what you’re going to get. Opening day could bring snow or be 70 degrees and sunny.

I didn’t engage with that many new things these last few weeks. I spent a lot of time thinking and planning - which I need to turn into action. That said, here are a few things that did grab my attention…

Music

I didn’t listen to much music this month - funny, considering how that was such a focus for February.

Jakob Bro - Live at Village Vanguard

In late February, I went to see Jakob Bro, Joe Lovano, Larry Grenadier, Anders Christensen, Thomas Morgan, Jorge Rossy, and Eric Harland perform the music from Once Around The Room, an album that is a tribute to drummer/composer Paul Motian, at Village Vanguard.

I think the beauty of Jakob’s music lies within the space. It’s music that really draws you in to listen. There is so much room for reflection, and the melodies are beautiful and open enough to not persuade you to feel a particular way. Complementing this is the classically spacious and reverb dense sound of ECM, which has been releasing Bro’s music since 2015.

I didn’t know what song to highlight in particular from Bro’s discography, but this is a really nice in-studio video:

Alice Boyd - Field Recordings in Music

I came across Alice’s work through her YouTube channel, with one of her field recording videos popped up in the algorithm. In the video she was walking around King’s Cross in London, recording the different scenes she encountered and talking about the coexistence of nature and humans.

Over the last few months, I’ve had a renewed interest in field recordings and their integration into music production (something I was getting into from like 2018-2020 while I was playing with modular synthesis) which is something that Alice does wonderfully. Listening to her music and going through some of her videos has me looking around the studio for my field recording kit…

Enjoy her video and some of her music below:

Sip & Spin updates!

We had our first Sip & Spin at the end of March! We listened to John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, drank coffee from Methodical and had tea from Kettl. After the album finished, we spent a little time reflecting on what we felt, thought of, and heard while listening (it was some people’s first time hearing the music) and it was all really special.

If you missed out, don’t worry! Our next one will be on April 27th! We’ll be listening to Martha Argerich and the RSO Berlin playing Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3. If you’d like to attend, send me a message!

Tennis, Courage, & Discomfort

I started playing tennis during the 2020 lockdown because one of my good friends convinced me to, and riding our bikes to meet at the courts was one of the few ways that we felt comfortable still hanging out. Since then, I’ve been hooked (obsessed). I’m a big believer in having hobbies (maybe I’ll write you about it one day) and tennis has become an important hobby in my life.

Because of my late fandom into the sport, I never had the chance to watch Andy Roddick play. If you don’t know, Roddick was one of the top players during the early 2000s and even ranked number one in the world in 2003.

My real introduction to Roddick, then, was through his podcast he started last year. It’s a very in-depth show about the inner workings of tennis, covering everything from the business side of the sport to up-to-date recaps of ongoing tournaments. In one of the latest episodes, he interviews Brené Brown.

Brown is an author and researcher who focuses on leadership through the lens of courage, empathy, and vulnerability. As someone working in the arts, and also as someone interested in just being a better human to others (and myself), these are all topics that I’ve been interested in for a number of years.

Being familiar with Brown’s work, I was very excited when I saw Roddick was having Brown as a guest on his show. One of the reasons I enjoy tennis so much is for the “self adjustments” and realizations that you need to have on the court. In this episode they dive into that and so much more - the courage it takes to commit to hard work, “winning” mindsets, and the joy of craft.

Legacy, Surfing, & Music Production

The Surfer’s Journal is an outstanding magazine that covers the surfing world beyond the world tour - it is a documentation of the art and culture of surfing that supersedes the competition aspect.

As part of its publication, they release a monthly podcast where former pro-surfer turned writer Jamie Brisick interviews surfers from around the world. In the latest episode, Jamie interviews Lee-Ann Curren, who, admittedly, I was not familiar with at all - aside from recognizing her last name.

Born into a surfing family, her grandfather, Pat Curren, is a big-wave surf icon - an early pioneer of Waimea Bay (an important spot in surf history) and an influential surfboard shaper. Her father, Tom Curren, is one of the legends of modern surfing. “Your favorite surfer’s favorite surfer” type of legacy. And her mother, Marie-Pascale, is a top-ranked European surfer in the 1980s.

Lee-Ann is a fantastic surfer in her own right, fitting into the “free surf” category - meaning she’s a professional surfer who does not compete in the world tour - but travels the world discovering interesting waves and documenting them. In addition, she’s also a musician and scores her own surf films.

That’s all for now!

‘til the wheels fall off!

Jason