I’m on the road for a long weekend with guitarist Tom Guarna and pianist George Colligan. We are playing at Frankie’s Jazz Club in Vancouver, BC, on Thursday, May 15, at the Seattle Jazz Fellowship on Friday, May 16 and then down to Portland to play The 1905 of Saturday, May 17.
Then it is back to Seattle for two night at The Triple Door with pianist Chuchito Valdes (Tue-Wed, May 20-21) before heading back to The 1905 in Portland … this time with Chuchito Valdes on Friday, May 23!
In addition to teaching at Shoreline Community College … I’ve been busy with a few music composition projects this Spring.
I’m teaming up with director Bryar Golden (who I previously collaborated with a play at SCC) on the play Drinking Habits which is running at Edmonds Driftwood Players from May 16 – June 8. I wrote a couple of musical numbers and did sound design. It is a funny play … I recommend you get tickets now, the run is nearly sold out!
In April I finished music for a short documentary about the Aldarra Foundation which does a ton of great work throughout the Pacific Northwest.
I’m in full-swing with projects for Cascade Public Television. The Cascade PBS Ideas Festival is happening the end of May and I did music for the promos currently airing. Recordings of the festival will air on KCTS9 in June and my music will be on the broadcast as well. A new season of SIFF Selects in is works for later this year plus a couple of other exciting projects.
I am also honored to be included in two Pacific Northwest Regional Emmy Award nominations for my work with the Cascade PBS creative teams. I’ll be at the event June 7th in Seattle!
Hello friends …after the New Music Review on Saturday I’ll be heading to Ballard for the revival of the John Coltrane Birthday Celebration at Egan’s Ballard Jam House.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 / 7:00PM EGAN’S BALLARD JAM HOUSE 1707 NW Market Street Seattle, WA 98107
Reservations: 206-789-1621 | Sets at 7:00 & 9:00pm.
Featuring: Jay Thomas – saxophone Roman Goran – piano Paul Gabrielson – bass Matt Jorgensen – drums
Recently updated my composing reel of public media projects. I’m really fortunate to work with a great group of creatives at both Cascade Public Media as well as KNKX 88.5fm. Take a look at some of my recent work!
My oldest daughter graduated from High School this year so we rounded up the family and took a three week trip to Europe. Starting in Paris, we got there right as the Olympic prep was in full-swing. Sidenote: really fun to watch the Olympics Opening Ceremony and know where everything was taking place. We then visited the Normandy beaches for 2 days before coming back to Paris for night and then visiting Switzerland and Italy.
When I got back to Seattle I had a full week of shows starting with two nights at Jazz Alley with legendary guitarist Stanley Jordan and then with pianist George Colligan at the Seattle Jazz Fellowship.
On the composing side … I just finished up the score for the short film Tadpole: an Origin Story which will debut at the Seattle Film Summit on September 7th. I’ve contributed music for a few episodes of the new season of Mossback as well as few Cascade PBS promos.
Lots of fun stuff coming up … of note, the return of the John Coltrane Birthday Celebration on Saturday, September 21st at Egan’s Ballard Jam House!
In 2018 I wrote original music and created sound design for Strawberry Theater Workshop’s production of Paula Vogel’s powerful play How I Learned To Drive.
This past month I was contacted by Lee Street Theater in North Carolina about licensing some of my music and sound design for use in their production (which runs June 13-15 … support live theater!).
Here is a bit about what I wrote about the project at the time …
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One of the few comedic reliefs was the juxtaposition of subject matter with the theme of a 1950s-1960s PSA Instructional Video and the Drivers Manual. So I created a theme called “Safety First: You and Driver Education” which was used at a couple spots during the play.
On Friday November 10th, I was walking around Seward Park with the family when I got a text from KCTS9 asking if I could crank out some music quickly for a commercial … a promo for The Beatles mini-doc about the making of Now & Then which was airing the following Friday night. A couple hours later, with the added guitar from Dave Dysart, I had a tiny tiny tiny bit of something attached to the band that started me on my musical journey.
Had a fun two night performing with guitarist Peter Bernstein at the Seattle Jazz Fellowship in February. Peter was passing through Seattle on his way up to Vancouver BC so we put together a quartet with Tony Foster on piano and Michael Glynn on bass.
While in New York City over the holiday I had an opportunity to lead a band at Smalls Jazz Club. Check out the archive of the show from the Smalls YouTube page!
Set 1 starts at 22:09 | Set 2 starts at 1:54:00
featuring: Wayne Escoffery – tenor saxophone Jon Davis – piano Marty Jaffe – bass Matt Jorgensen – drums
A clip from Stanley Jordan at Jazz Alley. It was fun to play this music for a couple nights. Big appreciation to Dean Schmidt for holding it down on bass and thanks to Jeff Kashiwa for the video!
I’m fortunate to collaborate with an amazing team of creatives at KCTS9. I was part of the team that was awarded the 2021 Northwest Regional Emmy Award for Program Promotion – Campaign.
I composed music for two different shorts in support of the Ken Burns documentary Muhammad Ali. You can view them on the KCTS9 website:
A few new episodes of MOTOTREK have been released this month. It has been such a fun journey to work with this show … as of August 2022 I’ve written music for 98 episodes and it is approaching 24 million views. Thank you to Tim Tyler and Inventive Pictures for bringing me along on the journey.
Just wrapped a project composing music for the 2021 Crosscut Festival which was streamed online and later broadcast on KCTS9 in Seattle.
Here is a snippet from the May 13, 2021 broadcast where four of my music cues aired back-to-back … including a spot for support of Public Broadcasting which I brought together many of the KCTS9 themes I have been working with over the past couple years.
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