Nonsequittal Rumblings

Several things have been going on around me this week.

First, on the fansub front.
Froth-Bite took a semi-break during the month of March – we made 4 releases during the entire month. Now, as of April 6th, we’ve already released more than double of that number already for this month, and more are on our way. The Leiji joint project has finally got their senses together, and started working on Space Symphony Maetel again. Finally released first 4 episodes again after taking 6 months break. Some of our own projects had some progress too. Then there is the new joint I’m doing with another group, Minor ja Nai. They’ve lost their translator for MAJOR. And I love that series. So it felt natural to step in and give them a helping hand. They didn’t coordinate the release effort with us very well… They released it while I was still sleeping. But oh well. We’ll live. Sounds like they will be ready with next MAJOR by this Sunday. I better pick my speed up on their project.

On to the music scene.
The leader of the jazz band I belong to has decided to make a career move. He has decided to move to Seattle. So someone had to take over his duties… I was chosen as one of those people. Even though it’s Cessna Jazz Band, there are only 6 of us who actually work for Cessna. We are minorities. Oh well. Poor Carl is brand new to the group, and he picked up co-leadership as well.

And tonight is our first gig under the new management. There are many uncertainties. Will we really survive? We’ll see.

On the different music front, I went to a first music concert in ages. Rajaton is a Finnish a cappella group. It’s a somewhat jazzy, very contemporary, fun group. It was $15 well spent. I love finding all these small, unknown gems. They reminded me of The Real Group – another a cappella group from Scandinavia. I later discovered that I’m not alone having such opinion. They have their similarities, but also differences as well. The Real Group likes to do traditional jazz standards (It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing, Come Sunday) to some pop hits (Drive my car)… Rajaton likes the pop covers (Ticket to ride) and their original tunes. It’s fun to listen to all these Beatles tunes a cappella. Hehehe.

As I read different people’s blogs, I notice…

I’m such a geek.

People write about their daily lives, their feelings, etc…

I write about new open source software I find, programming stuff (I will in the future, I’m sure), etc, etc, and other geeky stuff.

But, hey, let’s face it. This is the stuff I get excited about. And I don’t see myself changing anytime soon. No, if I change, then that wouldn’t be me any more.

So, let’s have some change of mood. I’ve talked about Jazz band before. It’s the band is organized by my work place. We recently had a party of our own. The band played in the back yard of one of the band member’s house – in which we rehears every Monday evenings. They invited their neighbors to let them see what in the world is going on at their place every Monday.It so coinsided with the weekend when Emily flew in from W.V., and Evan was with me as well. It just turned out to be a perfect timing.

Playing music is always fun. I’ve always enjoyed it since the first day I picked up trumpet… 18 years ago. Emily also told me that she had fun listening to us. It was really good to hear. So far, she had no chance of hearing me play with the jazz band I talk about all the time. It’s not a professional band. It’s just a hobbyist group, just for fun… and people love us for it. She loved it! What a great feeling.

Despite the worry about the chapped lips, the performance went rather well. It was a 30-minute gig, and that helped a lot. Since the last gig (Dec 15), we had no rehearsal until this Monday, Jan 19. That’s quite a bit of time not playing at all. Of course, being a good apartment complex residen’t, I didn’t play my trumpet so I don’t disturb my neighbors. (We’ll just ignore my ownership of a practice mute for now.) So my chops were quite out of shape. I could hit high notes just fine, but endurance wasn’t there. By the end of that short gig, my lips were quite tired. Even though my lips were tired, I could hit the high-E (3rd ledger line above the staff) as the final note of the night. So really, it wasn’t too bad.
Sometimes, we had some audio recorder running at each gig. From time to time, I hit a solo that I like. Last night, it happened while playing Here, There and Everywhere. Yes, the Beatles song. (What? It’s not a jazz tune? I know. But it’s jazzistically arranged, so it’s okay. We even play Doors’ Born to be Wild.) The mood of the song really allowed me to go for a lyrical solo. I wish I could listen back to it.

I work for a fairly large company. Being big means easier to find people who share common interest within the organization. That means formation of some clubs and such.
One such organization is the jazz band I belong to. Actually, this band is formed by the employees and non-employees, all of whom love jazz. We may not be the best band in town, but our passion is there. We love playing, and we love playing for good cause.
I actually joined the band before I was hired full time – I was still a temporary worker on hourly wage ($7.50/hr back then). I found a small ad in an issue of company newsletter, looking for more band members. I jumped on the case, and called the number on it.
“Hello, I saw your ad. I’d like to join.”
“Okay, sure. How much of jazz have you been playing?”
“I’ve been playing jazz throughout high school and college – 9 years. Always on 2nd trumpet part.”
“You maybe over qualified, then. But sure, come to at for a rehearsal. See you then.”
It’s a full size big band. The rhythm section is a bit weak (which is a bummer), but I still love the band. And the fact that nobody is really excellent means nobody has one of those “I’m better than you are!” type of ego floating in the band. You’ve gotta love that.
So, we have another gig tonight. And my lips are a bit sore. We’ll see how it’ll turn out…