Jason Parker Quartet Pays Tribute to Miles Davis This Friday at Lucid

January 27, 2010

Every jazz trumpet player in the world has some kind of relationship with Miles Davis. Love him or hate him, study him or eschew him, we’ve all had to deal with Miles in some way. He’s that much of a giant. In a career that spanned 50 years, Miles was at the forefront of many […]

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Seattle Jazz Community Haiti Fundraiser a Huge Success – CBS Evening News Was There!

January 23, 2010

I was so proud to participate in the Seattle Jazz Community Haiti Quake Fundraiser last Wednesday. I played at LUCID Jazz Lounge with four of my great friends, and there were 6 other bands in 6 different venues up and down University Avenue in Seattle. Overall we raised more than $4000 which will be sent […]

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Bringing Jazz Straight to the Kids – My Dizzy Gillespie Moment

January 22, 2010

I had a truly remarkable “full-circle” moment last Friday that I’ve been wanting to share with you. You can read some of the backstory here. The short version is that 35 years ago I had a life-changing experience when Dizzy Gillespie and his band descended on my elementary school and played a short show for […]

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Seattle Jazz Community Haiti Quake Fundraiser – Wednesday Night

January 18, 2010

The tragic earthquake in Haiti has hit close to home for the Seattle jazz community. David Pierre-Louis, owner of LUCID Jazz Lounge and one of the biggest supporters of jazz in Seattle, flew to Haiti on Thursday to search for his family and the family of friends. Thankfully he was able to find his mother, […]

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The Help Haiti Blog Challenge

January 15, 2010

My wife alerted me to yet another way to help spread the word about people in the blogosphere doing things to help out with Haiti earthquake relief. Through Danielle LaPorte at White Hot Truth.com she found out about the Help Haiti Blog Challenge put together by Kelly Diels. Kelly says: You’ve got something to offer: […]

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Seattle Jazz Musicians Uniting to Help with Haiti Quake Relief

January 14, 2010

UPDATE: Lucid and other University Ave businesses are planning a benefit on Wednesday. Details ASAP. I’ve been seeing the images from Haiti off and on for the past day and I can’t even believe the destruction and tragedy that is happening there in the aftermath of Tuesday’s earthquake. The word tragedy gets thrown around a […]

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Planning a Tour – Where to Begin?

January 9, 2010

As I mentioned in this post, 2010 is the year The Jason Parker Quartet will finally tour. We have been playing together for almost 3 years now, have 3 CD’s to our name, and have played some out-of-town gigs around Washington State. But we’ve never crossed a border. With the release of our latest CD, […]

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Dizzy Gillespie and Me – Full Circle, 35 Years Later

January 4, 2010

If you’ve read any of my online bios or the early post on this blog called First, a Little History you already know my Dizzy Gillespie story. If not, read on… When I was growing up we listened to lots of classical music around the house, as my dad was a big fan. The first […]

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The Best Advice for Musicians that I’ve Heard in a Long Time

December 30, 2009

Thanks to a tweet by Bob Lefsetz I came across the blog of Danny Barnes. I’ve been familiar with Barnes since my friend Matt turned me on to his band Bad Livers many years ago, but I had never seen his site before. Not only is the whole website beautiful and easy to navigate, Barnes’ […]

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Dear 1999…

December 30, 2009

MusicianWages.com has organized a group blogging event for all musician bloggers. They asked us to blog today about the many changes, opportunities and surprises the music industry has seen in the past decade. The idea was to write a letter titled “Dear 1999” that answers the question “If you could go back to 1999 and […]

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