I cannot believe it’s been over a year since I’ve updated this website. It’s actually been an amazing 13 months since my last post in February of 2019. Mere days after that last post I traveled to Edmonton, Alberta Canada to perform with Detroit’s Queen of the Blues, Thornetta Davis. Here’s our set from the previous year’s Montreal Jazz Festival.

After that I went on tour with the wonderful James Armstrong, a blues guitarist and singer originally from Santa Monica, CA. We headed down Englewood, FL and my father in law came out to the show. Little did I know that would be the last time I’d see him. He passed from lung cancer mere weeks later.

Local gigs and dozens of piano tunings filled the rest of March and early April until I traveled to Italy in mid-April for the spring edition of the Umbria Jazz Festival, again with Thornetta. That was one of the best experiences of my life; playing with that incredible band and enjoying the unrivaled hospitality of the Italians. A week after arriving home from that, I went back to the Great White North with Thornetta again, this time passing through Montana as well. We did three shows with a very stripped down arrangement; myself on organ and piano, Thornetta, and her husband James on percussion. It was magical and so much fun.

The month of May was more local gigs and tunings, with some trips to Chicago to play with Laura Rain and the Caesars.

In June I taught at the Brevard Jazz Institute and had the honor of sharing the stage with the one and only David Sanborn.

In July, Thornetta and the band returned to Italy for the summer edition of the Umbria Jazz Festival. That trip was even more magical than the first. Perugia is now one of my favorite European cities. We played every night over the course of the week, plus we had the opportunity to see the fantastic headliners like Chick Corea, George Benson, and my personal favorite King Crimson.

In early August, I flew to Minneapolis to do one show with the incomparable Bettye Lavette and her amazing band. No rehearsal, just fly-in, sit down behind the backlined rig, and play the set down. I had never performed with her before but it was a true pleasure. Later that month I did a week-long tour of lower northern Michigan with James Armstrong. Oh, I did that same tour circuit with organissimo earlier in July as well.

September was filled with local gigs and tunings and a really fun recording session in NYC with Michael Dease for Posi-Tone Records. In October I went back to Europe with Thornetta, performing at two blues festivals in Denmark. And in December I flew to Belgium to record with Big Apple Blues in Leuven. This time my wife came with me and we had a wonderful week-long work vacation.

I am writing about all these gigs and traveling not to brag but both as a reminder to myself what I’ve done in the last year and to illustrate in brief the busy life of a musician. Like other musicians, I wear many hats. I tune and repair pianos and electric pianos. I’m learning how to repair vintage organs. I engineer recordings. I also mix and master them. I consult and help people with instruments. I do product demonstrations for various companies. I design CD covers, vinyl covers, posters, slates for social media, maintain my own websites (poorly lately), and repair a lot of my own gear. I read manuals and figure out how to work new and old gear. I play in cover bands and blues bands and jazz groups but I also have my own progressive rock project and electronica music. I do some teaching and some mentoring as well.

This year I’ve already traveled to the west coast on tour with Armstrong, then another NAMM show with Hammond and IK Multimedia, then on the 34th Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise with Thornetta. Finally, I toured Spain for two weeks and back up to Alberta (Edmonton and Calgary) with James Armstrong. And now I’m finally home for…

… well, it appears I’m home for the foreseeable future. All my gigs through April have been cancelled. I am still able to tune pianos thankfully. But regular clubs and festivals have all been shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s very frightening for my wife and I since we both are self-employed freelancers.

This is the reality of the gig economy. We musicians work 7 days a week either playing gigs, hustling gigs, practicing for gigs, promoting gigs, booking gigs, or researching how to get another gig. We rely on each other, our fans, and venues to keep working, to keep food on the table for our families, and to keep sane. And now that world is shut-down. What can we do?

It isn’t just about our livelihood either. Music is the universal language. It brings everyone together. We need music and art and dance and song and creativity in our lives. We need the fellowship, the shared experience, to keep us human and alive.

What is life without art? What is a musician without performing? As we all hunker down and do our best to remain safe, I can’t help but think of my fellow musicians who don’t have that extra piano tuning skill to fall back on. What will they do? So many of us are a simple expensive car repair away from being homeless. Now we have no work for the next month, maybe two.

I remember saying after the whirlwind January and February I just had that I needed to find a better balance between being on the road and being home. From January 6 to March 8, I was home for less than two weeks. In the last two years I’ve been steadily getting more and more road work, after having left the road at the end of 2014 to spend more time with my kids. But I guess this is the perfect case of ‘be careful what you wish for.’ I didn’t expect nor want the pendulum to swing all the way to the other side. Feast or famine indeed.

In that light, I’ve started a new live-streaming concert series called Live From Jimmy’s Basement. I will be live-streaming concerts every week on Facebook. If you can’t come to the music, I will help bring the music to you via the internet. And hopefully you’ll enjoy it and put a couple bucks in the virtual tip jar. All proceeds will be shared equally with the musicians involved with a bit taken off the top to keep the equipment running optimally and invest in bettering the experience.

The first test stream was yesterday and it was a roaring success. I will post every stream on YouTube the day after.

Please consider visiting the official FB page and hitting that LIKE button. Our next live-stream is this Saturday, March 21st, with my friend and soulful blues vocalist / guitarist Greg Nagy.

Live From Jimmy’s Basement Facebook Page

In my next post, I will detail the gear I’m using to stream. I have received many requests from other musicians concerning the specifics. I hope I can help my fellow artists survive the next few months.

Keep playing and enjoying music, my friends. I’ll see you online.

Hi friends,

I can’t believe I haven’t posted on this site in almost a year. Well, what to say except that it’s been another incredibly busy year. I’ve been all over the US as a sideman with various Detroit-based bands including the fabulous Thornetta Davis and a ton of hits with Laura Rain & the Caesars. This month, I will be heading to Europe with Chicago blues guitarist James Armstrong. I’ll update my calendar to reflect the dates.

Speaking of Europe, my eldest daughter was invited to join the Blue Lake International Symphony next year on French Horn. We’re very proud of her and are looking for some support to afford the trip. You can check out her GoFundMe page here:

https://www.gofundme.com/zora039s-international-tripblue-lake

On the gear front, not a lot has changed. I’m still rocking either the Hammond SK2 or the XK5 (which is amazing… videos coming soon) and the Kurzweil Forte7 as my two main axes. I joined a Pink Floyd tribute band called Echoes of Pink Floyd and spent about a week of six to eight hour days programming all the sounds necessary on the Forte7, which handled everything I needed to do with aplomb. A huge thanks to David Weiser at Weisersound for his guidance and help. Additional programming help and sounds came from Enjoy the Sirens. Check out his patch for the intro to Shine On You Crazy Diamond. It’s so good. On our show in August, I added the Prophet 12 to the rig. If you’re on Facebook, you can see a little snippet of that here:

Otherwise, I’m just out here doing my thing! Playing organ, recording small jazz combos, working on THEO II (which is pretty much done), planning another Jim Alfredson’s Dirty Fingers recording, and generally having a ball!  Just need to find more time to keep this site updated.

Lastly, check out my video review of the new Lounsberry Pedals offering, the Tall Fat & Wide. This is a stereo version of the Tall & Fat pedal and is designed to add some warmth and glow to your static, stodgy clonewheel. The stereo version is specifically for those that do not have an external rotary speaker simulator and want to use their clonewheel’s onboard sim in stereo.

And here’s Part II, by request. Some folks were asking what it sounded like when really pushed into overdrive rather than just the subtle saturation of the first video.

That’s it for now! Happy fall and be safe! Support live music!

This will not be a post about how hard it is to be a musician in the digital age. We all know it isn’t a cakewalk. That said, I would rather be doing what I’m doing than work for someone else in a cubical somewhere making shareholders rich. I may not be a millionaire (or even a hundred-thousandaire… or even half that… I’ll stop now before I get depressed) but I am happy with my work.

But it bears repeating as often as possible that when it comes to online streaming, which unfortunately appears to be the new form of distribution replacing physical sales, musicians are getting completely screwed.

Just how screwed? Back in 2010 the site Information Is Beautiful created a stunning infographic displaying how many streams an artist would need per month to generate enough income to be on par with a minimum wage job. And the results were horrifying.

Yes, dear struggling independent musician operating in either a niche genre with less worldwide fans than your average hockey stadium capacity (ie, jazz) or (worse) in a popular field with millions of other competitors (ie rap, rock, pop): You are screwed. You need over 4 million streams per month to make a measly $1,160 which is probably not even enough to pay your rent and car insurance.

Now Information is Beautiful has updated the stats for 2015 and the good news is that the rates have increased due to public and political pressure. It now takes about 1 million plays on Spotify to reach minimum wage. So that’s an improvement, right? Sure, but let’s be honest here: If you’re getting 1 million plays a month on Spotify you’re probably already a big name in the business.

This begs the question: What artists are getting around 1 million streams per month? Thankfully this is answered very easily via Spotify’s own charts. As of this post, here are the artists that are getting about 1 million streams per month. Please note that many of these artists also appear higher in the chart for different songs.

What’s the point of all this? Well, nothing you haven’t heard before. Streaming services are not direct income generators for most artists. This goes for Pandora, LastFM, Youtube, etc. But they are good means of distributing your product as a relative unknown. I have reached a lot of people via my YouTube channel and I make a few hundred bucks a month from it, which is nothing to sneeze at. And I’ve certainly gained new fans from Pandora and other services. I’m confident that some of those fans actually do buy physical product or at the least some downloads from iTunes and the like. But as streaming becomes even more pervasive and convenience continues to trump all else, I’m sure those sales will drop as well.

So what’s the solution? I don’t really have one except to keep making music and perhaps put the focus on formats that are not yet streamable, like 5.1 surround. I’ve discovered a vital community of surround enthusiasts since releasing THEO. And they are hungry for more content which is why my next two releases (organissimo and another electronica / ambient project) will also have 5.1 versions. Vinyl is another viable option to spur actual physical sales.

One day maybe I’ll be well-known enough that I can pull my catalog from Spotify ala Taylor Swift. But until that day, it’s best to focus on the strengths of the format rather than the pitiful payments.

“The Loudness Wars” is a phrase coined in the 1990s to describe the growing demand by labels for increasingly louder mastering. As the Compact Disc format gained prominence, engineers began pushing the limits of it’s upper dynamic range, squeezing every last bit out of it before hitting digital zero (and thus distorting). A loud master translated to a louder sounding song on the radio compared to the competition. And since our ears perceive louder as better (in general), the louder sounding your song was, the more people would buy it, right?

The problem with this concept is that as soon as one label did it, all the labels began doing it, trying to outdo each other and things quickly got out of hand. Wikipedia has a wonderful article on The Loudness Wars complete with the following graphic example:

Different releases of Michael Jackson’s song “Black or White” show increasing loudness over time: 1991–1995–2008.

Thankfully after the 2008 fiasco involving Metallica’s Death Magnetic album, where the mastering was so loud as to actually digitally clip in most CD players, mastering engineers began fighting back. But considering the massive amounts of dynamic range available in modern digital systems, engineers still seem afraid of allowing music to breathe. Recording at 24bit yields a theoretical dynamic range of 144db, more than enough for any real-world application. An orchestra has a dynamic range of 70db, which is an incredible swing. I’m not advocating that kind of variation in other forms of music, but I’d wager that most pop right now has less than 3db of range across the entire album.

I bet this sounds great! A screen capture from an album by a band named Hypocrisy, courtesy of tvtropes.com

Overall, it seems the most extreme examples of the Loudness War are in the past. That said, there are still records being released that seem afraid of the possibility that a listener out there might have to actually adjust his/her volume now and again. Why is this?

Why is modern music production so scared of dynamics? I was listening to a new release on k-scope via progstreaming.com and while the music was very interesting, blending electronica and progressive music in a novel way, the lack of dynamics ruined the experience for me. Progressive music should have a lot of dynamics! That’s one of the things that makes such music interesting beyond the odd time signatures and long song forms.

The beginning of one song was especially egregious; it was obviously intended as a quieter part in the music, consisting of a lovely high falsetto lead vocal, piano, some atmospherics, and a bit of processed electronic drums. That all sounded great. Then the full band came in, acoustic drums channeling Bonzo, on a section that is (again obviously) supposed to be very powerful and the overall volume didn’t change at all! It stayed the same volume, sounding weak and neutered.

We have more clean dynamic range than ever before. Even the best analog master tape only had a 14bit depth (in digital terms) and at best 80db of useable dynamic range and yet those old Yes, Genesis, and ELP albums have far more contrast between the soft and loud passages than their modern counterparts.

Courtesy of zeitgestmastering.com

Let’s not be afraid of dynamics. There’s nothing more powerful and simple than a rousing crescendo or a gentle decrescendo.  Music without dynamics is like painting without texture. Or food that is decadently over sweetened. Sure, it tastes good for a little while but you quickly become fatigued and long for something with substance.

… and a plea from a fellow musician.

I love technology. Though I sometimes feel musically anachronistic since I tend to favor styles from the past like 60s soul-jazz, 70s progressive rock, and 80s new-wave, I am absolutely enamored with modern music tech.  I am thankful to be alive right now when you have access to an incredibly powerful recording studio in the palm of your hand on your tablet or on a desk via a laptop. It is truly amazing.

Like all technology, however, modern digital musical instruments / software exhibit pros and cons. The pros include obvious benefits like affordability, usability, flexibility, and high-fidelity. Ease of access is another biggie. I have sounds that emulate every classic keyboard instrument you can imagine, literally at my fingertips.

Steinberg Cubase 7.5 – My DAW of choice. If the engineers at Abbey Road had this back in the 60s…

The cons are a little less evident. The enormous wealth of options available can be paralyzing. What sound should I use for this particular section? Well, I could use a nice synth pad. Okay. A synth pad from what software synthesizer? And hours go by while I decide and scroll through endless presets.

I try to keep my collection of softsynths relatively small and yet I still routinely choose between PadShop, HALion Sonic (which contains numerous synth engines), Diva, Alchemy, Korg Monopoly, Zebra, FM8, Massive, or Dark Planet for that perfect pad sound. Oh yeah, I almost forgot; I also have the CS80V, Prophet V, and Oberheim SEM V available. And each of those synths has hundreds of different sounds to audition, not to mention the temptation to spend even more time making your own. And let’s not even mention my hardware synths. It can be truly overwhelming.

Another con is that despite some real stand-outs in the field (like Alchemy, Zebra, and PadShop), a lot of softsynths tend to sound mostly the same and feature the same categories and re-creations of sounds.

Beyond that is the nature of digital sound itself. What do I mean?

First a little backstory: When my father passed in 2008 I had been studying with him for about a year to learn the art of piano tuning. My dad raised his seven children with piano tuning, repair, and restoration. It’s a satisfying job and I always feel close to his memory when I tune especially since he bequeathed his tools to me. When I am home from touring, I sincerely enjoy tuning pianos, even the awful ones. Why? Because every single piano is different. Every one is a challenge. Every one requires special attention to bring out the best the instrument can offer. And each one sounds unique.

The tools of the trade.

Which finally brings me to digital pianos. No one can dismiss the convenience of digital pianos. I’m utterly amazed and delighted that Casio makes something as great as the Privia PX-5s, which weighs a mere 23lbs, plays and sounds beautiful. How far the technology has come! Digital pianos are wonderful especially on the road. I certainly do not long for the old days of the CP70, RMI Electra-Piano, and Kurzweil K250. Modern digital pianos are also indispensable in the studio for songwriting and production.

So what’s my beef? My beef is the sound of pianos on modern recordings and how they all sound the same. I love the pianos on older recordings because they are real pianos and as I mentioned above, each one is different and has its own character. And every engineer miked and EQ’d them differently. I am especially sensitive to this on my prog rock project. I love the piano on Firth of Fifth by Genesis (and the iconic intro by Tony Banks). It sounds different than any other piano because it was a unique instrument, the tuning wasn’t always perfect on every note, and it had its own idiosyncrasies. In the age of digital, it is too easy to be perfect. This is true for singing (pitch correction software), drums (samples + beat detection / grid locking), bass (samples, amp sims, micro-editing), guitar (amp simulators and micro-editing), and everything else. But it especially bothers me when it comes to pianos, probably due to an increased sensitivity from years of tuning.

It seems like everyone tends to load up their favorite piano sample library and that’s that. For awhile the sample library Ivory was ubiquitous. I could tell when they (the engineer and artist) used it. And there’s nothing wrong with that per se. But the sample libraries, as good as they are, still miss that realness and individuality. They are too perfect and they are always the same, every time you load it; like little clones of each other on every recording. Or like everyone is recording the same piano on the same day with the same mics, pitch-corrected, gated, and mathematically perfect.

My daughter Zora, age five, at the 1913 AB Chase baby grand. Photo taken in 2009.

All this is to say (and perhaps justify to myself) that on my upcoming prog album, I will be recording a real piano. And if I can swing it, not just any piano but a beautiful 1913 AB Chase baby grand that I found and brought home in 2009. It’s small, yes. And it needs some work. But I fell in love with the tone when I first played it even though it was horribly out of tune. It is rich and full and beautiful. And most important, it is unique.

To get it ready, I am going to replace all 46 bass strings, most of the middle strings, the hammers, the dampers, and all the key punchings. I will also refurbish the smaller action parts and regulate everything. Once ready, I will move some furniture in our living room and place the piano in the middle. I will mic it with some high-quality mics (not sure which ones yet) and record all the piano parts that I already played and edited via MIDI. I’ve been using Pianoteq for the demos and it sounds great, but I want character, the kind of character only a real piano can give due to it’s individuality.

Pianoteq from Moddart. Pianoteq is a virtually modeled piano utilizing no sampling.

The AB Chase has been recorded before, on Greg Nagy’s last CD Fell Towards None. The part was very sparse and I purposely avoided the deadest of the 100+ year-old dead bass strings to make it work. It is one of my favorite tracks on the disc (the title track) because of the dark atmosphere the AB Chase created. But for the prog project, the piano needs to be in tip-top shape. It’s going to be played hard!

If I cannot get the AB Chase ready in time, I will rent a piano from a local dealer who specializes in restoring vintage Steinways, Mason & Hamlins, Chickerings, etc. I will find one that speaks to me in it’s own voice. It doesn’t even have to be a grand piano. Just the other day I tuned an old upright from the 1920s for a client (I forget the brand name but the company is long gone). While checking the tuning afterward I marveled at the gorgeous, warm tone from that old beauty, even with old dead bass strings and the original hammers. The old wood and steel and cast iron resonated in the room and spoke to me.

To my fellow musicians; use a real piano for recording whenever you can, even if it’s a little console, upright, or spinet (I used a Wurlitzer spinet on Root Doctor’s cover of I Wish It Would Rain and it was just perfect in that instance). Yes, that newly released sample library might sound amazing, but does it sound like you? Does it speak to you? Or does it make you sound like everyone else?

A 1903 A.B. Chase upright that I restored and sold in January 2014. My father’s piano tuning tool kit (the wooden box) is in the right corner. This piano had a gorgeous sound as well especially after I installed new hammers.