2009!

The blogging has been non-existent over the past couple of weeks due to the holidays, being out of town, etc., but now we're back! What's been going on lately? Well, we've been taking a bit of time off from playing shows, basically to take a collective breath, and work on some new material. Planning is underway, however, for various 2009 plans that will hopefully take us to your neck of the woods (wherever you are). And, of course, you can still find us holding down our first-Friday-of-the-month residency at the Hideaway in Louisville.

In other "stuff," jazz trumpet legend Freddie Hubbard passed away last week, just before the year's end. As a pianist, I naturally gravitate toward listening to other piano players, but Freddie Hubbard is among my favorite "non-pianist" musicians. He played memorable parts on so many classic albums. A few that jump to mind right away for me are Oliver Nelson's Blues and the Abstract Truth, Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz, Herbie Hancock's VSOP and Maiden Voyage, Art Blakey's Three Blind Mice, Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil, and of course his own records, such as Red Clay.

Whenever a new year approaches, everyone with something to say feels the need to assign rankings to everything that happened over the past year. Usually, blogs like Pitchfork and Stereogum will use things like "best album" lists as an excuse to thump their chests with self-importance and show you all the "hip" bands they listen to that you've never heard of. Then you have the Rolling Stones of the world, whose lists make a little more sense, but tend toward schloky pop crap that may have sold a million units, but are seriously lacking in musical quality. I'll spare you my "best of" lists (no two people ever seem to agree anyway), but I did find this interesting one on Pitchfork: the 20 Worst Album Covers of 2008. I think some of those covers are actually pretty cool, but for the most part I can agree with them. Apparently, the main theme for album covers in 2008 was "random, abstract collage." The Empire of the Sun one takes the cake. If I hadn't been told it was album cover, I would have assumed it was a movie poster for some horrible futuristic sci-fi flick.

Happy 2009!