Update Nov 18th 2015
It has been a powerful Fall 2015- I can tell you that for sure. This terrible shift towards domestic and international terrorism is providing a dose of humility towards us all and the roles play in our families and communities. Tomorrow is not promised. I feel like this awakening however rude it is renews the call upon artists to be the peacemakers around the world. Music is our artistic bridge and that cultural thread of relativity. Dizzy Gillespie’s simile of musicians being like medical doctors has become literal. We must make the world a better place through our music. Art is life. Life is love.
I’m not a huge fan of travel (unless it’s a vacation!) but I give it up to long plane rides- you can get a lot of things done! One of them is this blog. Here there are no Twitter character limits or Facebook-Safe considerations. If you have found your way to my website and clicked on this blog, I’m going to take that as a cue that you are interested in what's going on over here- good, bad, and well… you know. To start with some good, the jazz students at MSU are sounding great and making big strides. I direct the jazz trombone studio, big band and beginning improvisation class and it’s inspiring to see how they grow inside a semester. The jazz trombone students are really bringing it to lessons.
Big news at the Dease house continues to be our forthcoming baby girl whom we named Brooklyn Parker Dease. Her due date is Jan. 23rd and we are ecstatically prepping the house for her arrival. Grandma picked her out some beautiful furniture, and we’ve decorated her room with all kinds of colorful wall patterns and stickers. She has about 300 stuffed animals already so when she’s old enough to snuggle with them- that’s covered. We named her after my Mom’s birthplace Brooklyn, NY (also my old ‘hood) and after saxophonist Charlie Parker. Yes, we are slowly preparing for her to not want to be a musician! lol
This Summer and Fall has been exciting music-wise. Look for recordings in 2016 with my good friend saxophonist Jason Hainsworth and his killing band Glenn Zaleski, Adam O, Jonathan Blake and Josh Evans. Bassist Ark Ovrutski had me produce his forthcoming CD on Origin Records called “Intersection” with legendary drummer Duduka Da Fonseca. We’ve also had some amazing gigs with Christian McBride’s big band and I believe a new record is dropping in 2016 on Mack Avenue Records. I’m still getting some great feedback from my latest CD for Posi-Tone Records “Decisions” - thanks everybody for checking it out and supporting my music. We just finished a 4-night residency at Grosse Point, Michigan’s stellar jazz establishment, The Dirty Dog Cafe to a sold-out weekend. It was great to get to that music again with my partners Rodney Whitaker, Sean Dobbins and especially two of the our students at MSU Pierre Charles and Markus Howell.
***Pause for sleeping through this 9hr flight. ***
Just landed in Kiev, Ukraine on the way to Odessa. I’m here to play trombone as the special guest with several big bands as part of their Jazz Festival. I’ll save some of the rest for another day- I gotta build my blogging chops!!! Thanks for checking in over here, and see you next week.
PS, if you dig blogs like this- let me know! Would love to hear from you.
Michael