Happy New Year! I’m glad January is a boring month. I’m playing a bunch of restaurants and taking it easy after the craziness of December. I’ll be at all the regular places: Travinia, Bourbon Bayou, and Lightfoot. Also, on the 14th I’ll be at Middleburg Library.

I guess I’m a bit goal oriented—so every year I count how many gigs I played.

273. That’s the number of gigs I played in 2022. Some were amazing and inspiring. Some were on old out-of-tune pianos. Some felt like soaring through musical clouds, some felt like a slog through the dissonant mud. I finished some gigs with, “Wow. Where did those three hours go?” Other with, “Those two sets felt like six.” Still, I’m grateful for every single one. Each is part of the journey.

I have at least four jazz-related goals in this new year:
1. Find a coach for a monthly lesson. (Done. I’m back with my old teacher, Bob Larson.)
2. Focus my practice time on ear-training and transcribing. Everything else is secondary.
3. Play 12 concerts.
4. Do a bit of recording.

Here’s the one piece you can help with:

If you know of any possible concert opportunities, I’d love to hear about them. Some of what I play is private event background music. Even in that situation, there’s will always be a grateful listener who comes up and gives some appreciation. Some is retirement community or restaurant work where people definitely come out to listen, but it’s not a listener-focused experience.

In this year I’m looking into playing at least a situation a month where the music is the focus and purpose. I’ve played concerts at Ashby Ponds, Barns of Rose Hill, Classical Movements, Franklin Park Arts Center, Milian Park, Hillbrook Inn, Ronald Reagan Building, and Shenandoah Valley Westminster-Canterbury. The concerts I have in mind can take the shape of piano trio jazz with a significant number of original tunes thrown in, or concerts with Sweet Something. So if you have an appropriate venue in mind, I’m contacting them now.

Thanks for listening and appreciating jazz. See you out there in the jazz world in 2023.