2003 Chijazz Festival

Let me say this: The festival was awesome period :) no regrets going. enjoyed myself thoroughly. i wun go into details now cos i'm kidna tired and there's a sax lesson first thing in the morning~ well, let's just say dat there was a great mix of diff kinds of jazz, tenor was the main sax today and man i gotta tell u about this sax chick by the name of Nicky deu-something, i cant remember her surname and i cant spell it either. i must admit dat i found it a little hard to concentrate on her music not only because it was very acid, freestyle kind but also... SHE LOOKS GREAT MAN!

She's so petite as in very slim but man she plays a mean mean tenor ok? she er.. blew my mind~ yes~ the first ever female saxophonist i've heard and she was just so good. for her slim figure, she can outblow many other players~ awesome acid jazz and improvisation~ and she is the epitome of a SAX CHICK~ pretty, beautiful and plays the tenor with such authority dat it's intimidating to many of the men out there! i admire her stuff man~ two thumbs up! ok, more tmrw~ i needa crash~ :P

Part II

Okie yes, finally am settled down~ ok, i stopped at Nicky. Yes, Nicky with the 2 syllable surname which i cant spell but i definitely know how to say it. It's pronounced as "Du Fell" with the emphasis on the 2nd syllable. Anyway, yeah that's the hottest, most babelicious sax chick i have yet seen! There's certainly something very very cool and saxy AND sExy with THE CAPITAL 'E' of cos, about babes how can play the sax and who play it as well as this lady i saw and heard last nite~

There was alot more: Vocalists Aubrey, Claressa Monteiro, and Mandy Gaines who really rocked the crowd~ Featured instrumentalists included the great saxophonist Ottrie Barrett Jr., Chromosome bassist Christy Smith, Drummers Edmund Branson and Tama, and also one of Singapore's best jazz pianist May Sheum~ dun miss next year's jazz fest~

Lesson 29 - Baffled No More

TOday's lesson was particularly fun? We're advancing much faster now. This day i was introduced to play-along-music. To the tunes of Jazz blues, Bebop, Fusion and more improvisation styles of playing~ amazing~ i'm actually gonna start playing real music! but BC says it's jsut to add a lil more balance to the current curriculum now~ too much scales and all can get dry sometimes so he felt dat i was gd enough to do such things, so he spiced up the palate a little~ we'll have fun first before getting into more serious study bout the blues, funk and wat not~

besides dat, i did sumthin pretty radical today. i had the epoxy baffle totally removed. BC noted dat i was gettin a little too bright which is a good sign~ dat means dat i'm learning how to manipulate the mouthpiece to bring out its true playing ability. but being too bright, i was left unbalanced. The lower register just didnt sound robust~ i was also having difficulty playing the lower notes and there was this hissing of air which was caused by the baffle and it was very audible. so i had the baffle cleared and when i blew again, man, i maintained the brightness but this time the lower register was SO DAMN beautiful~ my gosh i tell u, the sound was abso-freakin-lutely perfect~

so wat's next? hm, well let's the the blues man~