Al Kay’s Many Festive Gigs of Late 2012

I had a busy December gig schedule with some Christmas TNB events. The first was a grueling drive up the 401 (for a noon concert in Gatineau) with trumpet player Steve Woomert after an 8pm Ellington Nutcracker concert! We arrived around 2:30am, checked into our rooms,...

What is important about improvement?

We are most often paying attention to the upper side of our ability – how high we can play, how fast we can tongue, how loud, how soft .  This is all very important but we should not lose sight of the importance of the bottom – the bottom is our ability on a day we...

Summer Chops Blues

Whether you are a performer or a student, summer is often a time to recharge the batteries and get some time off the instrument so we can come back refreshed and ready to perform.  As good as our intentions are many of us do come back to work after a long break with...