XMAS
Hello all, first off let me wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Its been quite a year at the club, many ups and many downs but we are still here and we had a fabulous December capped off with another stellar appearance from The good Dr. Lonnie Smith. The first two nights were a huge success musically and club wise with people loving every minute that the Doc tickled the Hmmond ivories (plastic).
Some fun notes, Cellar Live has received a grant to attend this years MIDEM conference in Cannes, France. I'm heading over there to on January 17th for 10 days with a quick stop in New York where I will have a lesson with tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander and alto saxophonist Vincent Herring. I'm a little nervous about it but am hoping that they will be nice to me :) MIDEM is a chance to hopefully obtain some distribution worldwide as well as look into some licensing opportunities especially with the xmas record. Its a pretty overwhelming conference and I'm hoping to simply make some contacts and network with some people and get the Cellar Live name out there. We have just designed our catalog that looks spectacular so we will be look professional and be well represented.
The Cellar has just announced that tenor saxophonist Chris Potter will be making an appearance at the club in February. This is something that I have been trying for for quite some time and it has finally come to fruition. To be totally honest I was hoping that I could convince him to come and guest with The Brad Turner Quartet but in the end he understandably wanted to come with his own band which I totally respect. I have known about Potter for years, since he was 18 actually playing with Red Rodney. I remember telling all my buddies at Cap College about him and them looking at me as if to say 'as if Weeds knows what he's talking about.' Then about 2 years later when he finally broke out into the jazz big time or at least became better known those same guys came to me saying 'hey Weeds have you heard of this guy named Chris Potter?" Hilarious!! It will be a fun show and I'm particularity interested in the fact that there will be no bass player. Fender Rhodes, drums, guitar and of course Potter on saxes.
Now onto another rant. Where we as consumers purchase our music is really a personal thing. I for one buy on the internet a lot, ebay, amazon.com, artistshare.net etc. Its not that I don't like the local shops but lately the availability of jazz titles has been quite limited however I do still try to support the local shops as much as I can which brings me to my point.
I as I'm sure many other Miles Davis fans have, been waiting for the release of THE MILES DAVIS GROUP Live at The Cellar Door Sessions. It got reviewed in all the major jazz pubs and then went through 4 so called release dates before it was finally released just before Christmas.
I was at the HMV on Robson a few days before Christmas and saw the set there for $156.99 and almost splurged but thought 'hmmm, two days before Christmas is not a good time to buy something for one self.' I put it down and didn't think of it again until the hustle and bustle of the season ended and I did not get it for xmas so off to A&B Sound I went. There is was in a huge rack for the low price of $99.00. If my math is correct that's a $57 price difference which to me is simply a joke. A $57 difference is not what I would call being competitive. My point to this whole rant is although A&B has gone through its fair share of pains over the past few years they continue to be the cheapest outlet for CD's in this city and perhaps even in this country. Bob Bell is great down there and is a tad out-spoken but knows his shit and can order you in anything you want.
HMV has shown no interest in offering its consumer fairly priced CD's and although their selection is far superior, A&B does a much better job and as pointed out earlier can order in whatever you want.
Some fun notes, Cellar Live has received a grant to attend this years MIDEM conference in Cannes, France. I'm heading over there to on January 17th for 10 days with a quick stop in New York where I will have a lesson with tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander and alto saxophonist Vincent Herring. I'm a little nervous about it but am hoping that they will be nice to me :) MIDEM is a chance to hopefully obtain some distribution worldwide as well as look into some licensing opportunities especially with the xmas record. Its a pretty overwhelming conference and I'm hoping to simply make some contacts and network with some people and get the Cellar Live name out there. We have just designed our catalog that looks spectacular so we will be look professional and be well represented.
The Cellar has just announced that tenor saxophonist Chris Potter will be making an appearance at the club in February. This is something that I have been trying for for quite some time and it has finally come to fruition. To be totally honest I was hoping that I could convince him to come and guest with The Brad Turner Quartet but in the end he understandably wanted to come with his own band which I totally respect. I have known about Potter for years, since he was 18 actually playing with Red Rodney. I remember telling all my buddies at Cap College about him and them looking at me as if to say 'as if Weeds knows what he's talking about.' Then about 2 years later when he finally broke out into the jazz big time or at least became better known those same guys came to me saying 'hey Weeds have you heard of this guy named Chris Potter?" Hilarious!! It will be a fun show and I'm particularity interested in the fact that there will be no bass player. Fender Rhodes, drums, guitar and of course Potter on saxes.
Now onto another rant. Where we as consumers purchase our music is really a personal thing. I for one buy on the internet a lot, ebay, amazon.com, artistshare.net etc. Its not that I don't like the local shops but lately the availability of jazz titles has been quite limited however I do still try to support the local shops as much as I can which brings me to my point.
I as I'm sure many other Miles Davis fans have, been waiting for the release of THE MILES DAVIS GROUP Live at The Cellar Door Sessions. It got reviewed in all the major jazz pubs and then went through 4 so called release dates before it was finally released just before Christmas.
I was at the HMV on Robson a few days before Christmas and saw the set there for $156.99 and almost splurged but thought 'hmmm, two days before Christmas is not a good time to buy something for one self.' I put it down and didn't think of it again until the hustle and bustle of the season ended and I did not get it for xmas so off to A&B Sound I went. There is was in a huge rack for the low price of $99.00. If my math is correct that's a $57 price difference which to me is simply a joke. A $57 difference is not what I would call being competitive. My point to this whole rant is although A&B has gone through its fair share of pains over the past few years they continue to be the cheapest outlet for CD's in this city and perhaps even in this country. Bob Bell is great down there and is a tad out-spoken but knows his shit and can order you in anything you want.
HMV has shown no interest in offering its consumer fairly priced CD's and although their selection is far superior, A&B does a much better job and as pointed out earlier can order in whatever you want.
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