Upon returning from my recent trip to Italy, I was welcomed home by a horrifying NPR report. Officials at the La Scala Opera House in Milan Italy announced that composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to produce an opera based on Gore’s overated film An Inconvenient Truth for the 2011 season. First of all, a documentary as an opera…thrilling. Second, such a narrow approach to one small facet of the larger problems that humanity is faced with is such a trivial avenue to pursue. (See Good Nonsense for more.) Thirdly, Verdi, Puccini, Catalani, Gore…WTF?!?!? (Or maybe he would be the librettist? Would they use text from the script…or maybe statistics set to music…well Glass did something distantly related to this…) Don’t get me wrong, global warming is serious issue that every human being has a responsibility, yes even Christians, to address and take action individually. However, when such a monumental and historically iconic to engage in blatant support of propaganda and then labeling it as art, makes me ask what has happened to art. I guess I just think that art shouldn’t reflect culture if it forces you to become a epic tool box.

Even though, I personally attempt to contrast my own playing to his, there was nothing like Michael Brecker’s playing that just elevated everything in the room. Live, or a recording, it moves everything.

This weekend, I will be performing with Bassist Matthew Wengerd at Lakeland’s annual Mayfaire Art Festival. This will be a Duo gig which is one of the most intimate orchestrations for a group. I liken it to listening to a concert of Jazz Two Part Inventions.

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I’ve been posting way too many videos lately, oh well. Who doesn’t wish that they had done this or experienced it on a college tour?

I was just hipped to a great video of the Tampa Bay area’s very own Buster Cooper. Buster has been playing for years now down at The Garden Restaurant in St. Petersburg and always generously allows young aspiring jazz musicians to sit. Sitting down to talk to him about his experiences is veritable history lesson in jazz and more specifically a recount of the late 1960’s Duke Ellington Orchestra. Here he takes the second solo blowing over “The Opener,” but what’s he playing?