Quite a few years ago, I came into the possession of a book entitled Zen Guitar.  I didn’t think much of it at first.  It had some interesting things in it, a lot of good quotes from a varying stable of well-known musicians and some deep, thoughtful insights.  A few years after receiving the book, however, the true power and meaning of its message hit me in a new light.  Zen Guitar delved wholeheartedly into a subject much deeper than just being a guitarist.  Zen Guitar provides an incredibly well thought out interpretation of how one can apply a joyful process such as playing the guitar to the life we live everyday.  Being someone who never studied the philosophy of zen, I’m sure the views and practices suggested in Zen Guitar are nothing new under the sun but for me, it shined a lot of light on beliefs I had long harbored as a guitarist and a retired guitar instructor.  Zen Guitar is a great book for reading cover to cover or, even better, it is a great book for picking up and opening to any random page and finding a brief moment of inspiration in the middle of a busy day.

http://www.maui.net/~zen_gtr/index.html

We found out this week that not only will there be a PBS placement of an Alex Gordon Hi-Fi song in season 7, episode 1 of Roadtrip Nation, but there will also be a placement in of another song in episode 6!!!!  We are so excited to be a part of the show!  Please check out the website and let us know when you hear Hustle Bustle in Episode 1…  You can watch the show online or wait for an airtime in your area!!!!

http://roadtripnation.com/watch/watch_hub.php

Alison Harbaugh of Freckle Photography took some shots of Alex when he was supporting Ace Elijah for his CD release at 49 West.  She got some AMAZING shots!

Thanks to Alison for having the vision and ability to capture these shots. They are exactly what we needed and it was a great surprise to see her there capturing the evening.  Think about her for your next event!

Which one is your favorite?



The term Jazz Months was just something my friend, Chris Moses, and I came up with a few years back to describe this magical time of year.  A time of year that is so perfectly encapsulated by the sound of jazz.  More specifically, organ jazz (to my mind anyway).  Changing leaves.  Crisp, breezy nights.  Apple cider and pumpkin flavored foods.  There’s just a mood to it all and the sound of organ jazz matches the mood so perfectly.

Tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine’s recorded collaborations with his then wife    and organist, Shirley Scott, always fit the bill.  As do any number of assorted organ greats.  Some suggested albums of interest for the Jazz Months could be:

Stanley Turrentine – Hustlin’

Ike Quebec – Heavy Soul

Johnny Lytle – The Village Caller!

Lonnie Smith – Think

Shirley Scott – Soul Sister

Of course, the Jazz Months are not limited to organ jazz.  That is simply my preference.  Most types of jazz can apply.  As long as it swings, it can certainly qualify for inclusion in the Jazz Months.  Some non-organ jazz selections might include the following:

Big Al Sears – Swing’s The Thing

Hank Mobley – Workout

Victor Feldman – Merry Olde Soul

Red Garland – Red Garland’s Piano

Art Pepper – Meets The Rhythm Section

By no means is this a comprehensive list.  Simply a starting point.  After all, the Jazz Months can stretch on well into winter.  Soothing swing can blend easily with a few inches of snow and ice too.  Though the image of snowflakes falling across the glow of a streetlight often conjures the sound of a velvety crooner from the 1940′s like Columbia era Sinatra.  That’s probably an entirely different topic though.  So, Happy Jazz Months to one and all and to all, a good night.

it seems to me, as a “professional” artist, there are no absolutes here.  these are very difficult questions (and situations) that can very easily arise when one decides to remove all focus from the “reality” of bills and society and decides to place all attention on the creation of one’s art (with the obvious intent to eventually make one’s living off of said art).  one thing’s for sure.  there’s never a shortage of opinions.  family and friends certainly seem to enjoy weighing in on the issue.  even artists who have gone before in either a successful or unsuccessful fashion, feel an urge to spew their wisdom on this topic.  they write “how to” books and manuals on how to succeed as an artist.  some of them are helpful.  even the advice of non-industry folks can prove handy.  lawyers, accountants, business coaches, etc.

in the end, however, none of those folks are living my life.  they don’t wake up as me in the morning.  they don’t know the thrill of being me when i’m in the midst of a home concert and i’m into a song i’ve played a thousand times before and i find something new and exciting in it.  they don’t know the thrill of being me when i type out three entire stanzas of lyrics in five minutes as if someone’s whispering them in my ear.  they don’t know the thrill of being me when i know that i’m onto something, that i know exactly how to be me, creatively.  they don’t know that this stuff can’t be predicted, arranged, structured, inherited and it most definitely can never be practical.  this is the ultimate in letting go.  there are so many forces at work when one creates.  art is not mathematical.  it’s not an equation.  and neither, for that matter, is someone’s taste.  how can you explain that for every 500 people who love a specific song, you can most assuredly find 500 people who despise that same song?  art is not exact.  art can not be tamed.  art is emotion.  art is expression in its highest form that is created from the barest of inspirations:  feelings.  how the artist feels when creating their work determines how that work will communicate with those who experience the finished product.  art is everything.  it’s everything and it’s everywhere.  everywhere you look you can see, hear, smell, taste the direct result of someone’s emotional creative expression.  whether they poured their souls into the work or not, that expression is everywhere.  and for every work of art, there is an admirer ready to enjoy it.  there will never be a lack of artists and there will never be a lack of art lovers.

i don’t know about anyone else but i can’t turn my “artist voice” off.  that voice that pushes and shoves me in the head to keep moving forward, creatively.  i’m never satisfied.  i always want to work.  i always want to be heading somewhere with the work i create and i most definitely feel the drastic and explosive desire to share my work with the world.  no one can determine another’s place in the world.  i know my dad had his thoughts on where i belonged.  but he’s been dead for 19 years.  my mom, my wife, my son, my friends.  no one can walk my path.  i must do this thing.  i must see it through.  music and creativity chose me and it seems i had very little say in the matter.  i don’t care though.  nothing has ever come close to the feeling i get when i create.  only i can say when i’ve had enough and i don’t think that’s point is coming very soon.  because what else would i do?  trade action for dollars?  trade my extremely valuable time for pennies that aren’t going to cover my costs in a million years?  it’s a gamble but isn’t everything?  who has security?  who really is secure in life?  in finances?  no one.  things happen all the time.  so it’s a gamble but i’m worth it.  my state of mind is worth it.  the way i feel when i look in the mirror is worth it.  it’s worth it to me to know that i stuck it out.  that i believed that what i do is worthy of the greatest of honors.  it doesn’t have to be art.  it can be anything.  anything that makes you feel as though you really belong here on this planet and that you gave it everything you had.

for me, there is no line, there is no breaking point.  i came here to create.  i came here to do this thing that i do and i came here to watch it become everything that i want it to become.  how many hard luck stories could have become success stories had the subject simply hung in for one more day?  defeat is something that is accepted,  it’s never forced upon anyone.  defeat is something that happens inside.  i’ve heard unbelievably terrible misfortunes that were weathered and turned into virtual miracles.  no one is exempt from possibility.  no one is excused from opportunity.  it’s always there waiting, hoping we’ll grab onto it and seize it.  so, yes, i will keep going.  for me, there is no alternative and i really don’t want one.  i love the work that i do and love having the opportunity to create it.  i will follow my bliss and i know it will lead me on the greatest of journeys.

it was either my mom or i who saw the concert listed as we were vacationing at the jersey shore, just as we had since i was a child.  i remember being a little confused by the Comets listing since i was pretty certain that Bill Haley had died but it felt like a good idea so mom and i went.  the music pier in Ocean City, NJ is a fantastic old building on the boardwalk that is bursting with all kinds of nostalgic atmosphere and is no doubt, a great place to see live music.  as the band took the stage, the last member to appear was the drummer, who apparently was the only living connection to Bill Haley and the reason they were able to appear under the Bill Haley name.  I guess he had played with Haley in the 60′s and 70′s and his entrance at the concert was some sort of a big deal.  once the band had assembled, however, it was fairly obvious that this was no crack unit of energetic musicians in their prime, hot off the success of top ten singles.  far from it.  this was a no-holds-barred nostalgia act,  complete with satin jackets and bad jokes in bewteen songs.  but it never mattered.  never.  what was wholly intact was the beat.  that pulsing, digging, grinding, churning beat that shoved all good fifties rock and roll down the tracks and over the cliff to musical ecstacy.  god, that beat.  it all came rushing back to me as i sat there in the music pier in Ocean City, NJ.

my musical upbringing had only begun a few years before that concert.  it all started with Buddy Holly.  soon after, came Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Eddie Cochran, Elvis Presley, Ritchie Valens, etc.  i immersed myself in those artists as i discovered a world of hypnotic rhythms and infectious beats.  as a youngster in the mid 1980′s where Wham, Culture CLub and MTV were defining adolescence for my peers, i was cutting guitars out of cardboard and lip-synching to Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly in front of a mirror in my bedroom.  i was obsessed with Leave It To Beaver.  i started using brylcreem and wearing my father’s letterman sweater from Rutgers.  it all centered on that beat and that music.  it was my lifeline.  i remember raiding my best friend’s mom’s record collection and making dozens of mixed tapes.  she had all kinds of fifties rock compilations.  i’d go over there for sleepovers with a stack of blank cassettes and a voracious appetetite for oldies music.  it had a stranglehold on me and it had me good, this music, this rock n roll.  i began playing guitar and struggled through that damn near impossible intro to Johnny B Goode.  i tackled the guitar solo to La Bamba.  thankfully the opening chords to Summertime Blues weren’t quite so challenging but they did change quickly.  there was nothing else in my world but that glorious music.  after a few years, however, the natural progression of things took my musical interests in other directions.  a little Stevie Ray Vaughan here.  some Jimi Hendrix there (I always say never trust a guitar player who doesn’t respect Hendrix.  they don’t have to love him but i’m afraid that respect to the man is a requirement for membership in the world of guitarists).  the red hot chili peppers and their, then new, guitarist, John Frusciante got my attention.  a lot of devotion to Ian Anderson’s acoustic guitar wizardry in Jethro Tull followed.  then, Phish started making waves outside of New England and Trey Anastasio’s flawless technique grabbed my ear.  all of these elements (and boatloads more) got into my system and they, as Scooty Moore would say, were entered in my data bank.  soon, i would go so far as to say that i might have gotten a little “too cool” for all that stuff from the 50′s.  now, i didn’t consciously move away from 50′s music or try to deny my love for it but i was in no hurry to announce the existence of my 50′s inspiration.  i was getting on in years, 17 and 18 years old, and i had a musical image to pretend to have.  i had to be somewhat cool for whatever gigs i did play and that 50′s stuff was not that cool.

or so i thought.  well, thank god for Bill Haley’s Comets because as i sat in the crowd that night in Ocean City,  i was transformed.  i was awakened.  awakened by “Shake Rattle and Roll”.  awakened by the unrelenting swing of “Dim, Dim The Lights”.  oh, man i felt alive again.  i felt that thing that moved a whole generation of post-war teens to leather jackets and rebellion.  it was glorious.  so raw and so feral.  it didn’t matter who played it, what they wore or how old they were.  it was that beat, that swing.  i was feeling the magical embrace of music in my blood.  i had come home to my roots and i was delivered home by a nostalgic version of Bill Haley’s Comets.  i immediately dug out my old tapes and found myself again.  all of my old friends were intact and welcomed me back graciously.  that rolling drum beat that kicks off the chorus to “Sweet Little Sixteen”.  the throbbing, spotlessly crystal clear groove on the chorus of “Stranded In The Jungle”.  the reverb drenched guitar that opens “I Only Have Eyes For You”.  the cardboard box drum beat of “Not Fade Away”.  they hadn’t changed a bit.  in fact, they had grown quite fine with age and i was glad to return to them all.

ever since that fateful, almost accidental, life-altering concert, i make sure to embrace the music that moves me.  i don’t care what it is or who thinks what about it.  the lifeblood of creation is inspiration.  inspiration comes in many forms and the greatest asset an artist has is their personal taste.  woven together with craftsmanship, passion and expression, personal taste is what gives an artist their own specific voice.  so i listen to whatever feels good to me and if it happens to be the theme song to “Silver Spoons” then god help whoever’s in the car with me at the time because i’m cranking it.