Tag: jazz

PRISM Out Today!

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My new album, PRISM, is out today, Friday, 7 February 2025. Use promo code “photon” to get 20% off this release, my biggest and longest to date!

PRISM follows the journey of a single photon through the spectrum of light, flashing from darkness through the dazzling light and color of the rainbow.

The entire album clocks in at fifty minutes, and features my longest composition to date, the title track, “PRISM.” It also comes packed with bonus material, including the following:

  • Full PDF scores of each piece!
  • Unique artwork!
  • Original, handwritten manuscript scores!
  • Original music videos for nine of the eleven tracks!

PRISM is a conceptual musical journey that encourages deep, meditative listening. It also makes for good background music if that’s more your speed.

PRISM is available on the following platforms:

Remember, use promo code “photon” for 20% off!

Happy Listening!

Open Mic Adventures CIX: “Funny Phantom”

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Pickup my newest release: Leftovers III!  Use promo code ziggurat to take an additional 20% off all purchases on Bandcamp!  Code expires at 11:59 PM UTC on Tuesday, 31 December 2024.

I’ve just released my tenth album of the year, Leftovers III.  It’s really an EP, as it just contains five tracks, but it also contains the longest piece I’ve ever composed, “Hanging Gardens.”

This week I’m featuring the sixth and final track from the album, “Funny Phantom“:

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Open Mic Adventures CVIII: “Skittlebräu”

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Pickup my newest release: Leftovers III!  Use promo code ziggurat to take an additional 20% off all purchases on Bandcamp!  Code expires at 11:59 PM UTC on Tuesday, 31 December 2024.

I’ve just released my tenth album of the year, Leftovers III.  It’s really an EP, as it just contains five tracks, but it also contains the longest piece I’ve ever composed, “Hanging Gardens.”

This week I’d like to feature the fourth track from the album, “Skittlebräu“:

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Open Mic Adventures LXX: “Moody Noodling”

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A couple of weeks ago I purchased a Slade saxophone from Amazon.  Amazon is notorious for selling tons of junky Chinese saxophones in garish colors for low prices.  These horns are often barely worth the brass and cork they’re made from, but parents looking for affordable horns for their kids buy them without knowing any better.  The result is typically frustration with the instrument.

Yours portly desperately needed a reliable saxophone for some upcoming gigs, and repairs to my existing saxes (one alto and two tenors) are prohibitively expensive at the moment.  Also, my repair guy is a cantankerous old Northern guy who lives way far out, and the combination of expense, inconvenience, and a Yankee tongue-lashing for not maintaining my horns adequately had yours portly running to the arms of our Chinese overlords.

Well, Slade makes a surprisingly good sax for $230.  Typically these Chinese horns have all sorts of problems:  leaky keys, pads that don’t seal properly, etc.  Horror stories abound of purchases paying the equivalent of the horn’s price (or more!) to get it setup properly.

I decided to bite the bullet and try it after watching a video from Better Sax on YouTube, in which he compared one of the saxes to to his gorgeous (and $4000) Yanagisawa alto:

I ordered the cheapest possible sax, even though I could have spent another $40 or $50 for some cool colors.  When the sax arrive last Tuesday night, I was pleasantly surprised to see they’d sent me the wrong sax—their blue model!  It is an absolutely gorgeous instrument.

Check out that beauty!  Such a beautiful instrument, of course, demands to be played, so I did just that.

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