Michael Mull Octet

Michael Mull Octet
Showing posts with label ludes and lullabies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ludes and lullabies. Show all posts

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Keeping Busy (bite-sized news)

Happy Saturday evening...I'm taking this one off and hanging at home! Checking out some music by Goran Bregovic in preparation for the upcoming Orkestar MEZE Night of Peasantgiving! We will be triumphantly returning to Rusty's in Santa Monica on Friday, November 26th (the night after Thanksgiving), to "tvist" and boogie peasant style. Come work off some of that turkey with some Balkan Gypsy Funk! Details coming soon...

Another event earlier next week: one of my favorite bands, Chord Four, will be returning to LA and polishing off their CD release tour with a live recording session at California Institute of the Arts. This is going to take place Monday night, November 22nd, at 11pm in the Roy O. Disney Hall on campus. Very inexpensive (FREE), very musical, and you can be a part of the next record just by being there and showing your enthusiasm! I'll be posting a review of their new album soon (something I'll try to do pretty regularly from now on).

Finally had the first rehearsal today with my new octet, and I couldn't be happier. I've got a fantastic group of musicians, and I can tell by the intense progress we made in one short rehearsal that we'll be ready to perform early next year. I've got to write some more music!

Artwork for the Michael Mull Trio album featuring Ben Shepherd and Cameron Hicks is off to an amazing start, thanks to my artistic cohort and long-time friend, Derek Schultz. By the way, we had an awesome time playing for the Ludes and Lullabies music series on Monday, what a fun crowd and great place to hang! We'll defnitely be back.

I also have a couple of gigs coming up near the end of November/beginning of December with a group of fellow-former CalArtians, guitarist Dave Cipriani, percussionist Aaron Chavez, and guitarist/bassist/saw-player etc. Eric Klerks. It will be a mix of Indian and Eastern-European traditional songs and inspired original tunes, at the Garter in Venice Nov. 29th and Peace Yoga Studio downtown Dec. 3rd. Again, details to come later.

Have a great Thanksgiving week everyone, I'll post details for the MEZE gig on Monday or Tuesday, and I'll see you there!!!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Ludes & Lullabies

Trio gig tomorrow night at the Ludes and Lullabies acoustic music series. Check it out on Facebook. I was checking out the Garter's website, and this place has a great look, I may be there a bit early for a drink. The set is late, I know, but no cover and you know what's even better? Seeing my trio.

Me - Saxes/Bass Clarinet, Ben Shepherd - Bass, Cameron Hicks - Drums.

The Garter
2536 Lincoln Blvd.
Venice, CA (map)

Monday, November 15th
11pm
NO COVER
...but it is a bar, so 21+ only, sorry

Friday, November 5, 2010

A Couple Trio Sets + Chord Four

It's been a bit since I've posted, so we'll get caught up here.

I have a couple trio gigs coming up, the first tomorrow morning (November 6th 10-11am) to open the Granada Hills Charter High School Community Festival, celebrating the school's 50th anniversary. Live music, entertainment, food all day Saturday and Sunday. Schedule, directions and details can be found HERE. The second gig will be for a new eclectic, acoustic music series called Ludes and Lullabies at the Garter in Venice, CA. It will take place around 11pm on Monday night, November 15th, more details to be posted soon. Both of these gigs will be with bassist Ben Shepherd and drummer Cameron Hicks, and we're excited to be playing some more as the album release gets closer and closer!

If you go to one event next week, make it Chord Four at the Industry Cafe and Jazz in Culver City. This is one of my all-time favorite bands, and I'm lucky to know them and have played with them all. Chord Four is kicking off an album release tour on Wednesday, November 10th at 7:30pm, and with their trumpeter Brandon Sherman now a New Jersey resident, opportunities to see them are to be taken advantage of. Industry Cafe boasts some amazing Ethiopian cuisine and a laid-back atmosphere, so come out for some enlightening music and grab a copy of what I anticipate will be an amazing album.

Aside from that, I've finished my first composition for my new octet, entitled "The People Who Raised Us", and I'm looking forward to our first rehearsal in a couple of weeks. I already feel the "stretch" writing for this group; this first piece was a unique challenge orchestrationally (getting used to this new instrumentation) as well as artistically, as I am taking particular care to address some personal aesthetics I'd like to manifest in the octet's music and group sound. I'm so excited to get this thing rolling, and the debut trio album (still unnamed) is slated for a January 2011 release --- a lot to look forward to.