x64 to ARM, come in ARM

It’s been rumored for a while, but today even Bloomberg is reporting on a possible platform change coming in 2020 to macOS; supposedly Apple is seriously considering making its own chips for Macs, just like it has been doing for phones and tablets for a while now. While in the iOS the transition from Samsung to self-designed SOCs didn’t mean breaking compatibility because just about anyone can use the ARM architecture and build on it, laptops and desktops are a different story.

You see, there are only three entities allowed to build x86 and x64 CPUs, and the Big Fruit is not one of them. What that means is that Apple will almost certainly transition macOS to ARM if it starts making its own CPUs. Now, most discussions I have read on the interwebs focus almost entirely on performance and whether the “mobile” chips will be able to keep up with “laptop” and “desktop” chips. In my opinion, there would not be a problem in that department; especially with higher TDPs Apple’s chips should be just fine. Also, all frequently updated software (think browsers, Netflix, MS Office) should be operational pretty quickly, although there will be some hell to pay in the bug department as there always is with such a major operation.

The real problems will be affecting a small subset of users, among which are a LOT of people I know. This is because there is a whole subset of software that does NOT get updated frequently or at all; I’m talking about Audio Production software. If I had a dollar for every Mac user I’ve heard complain about what happened when Apple went from the G5 to Intel chips…. great plugins, like the Native Instruments B4, were never updated, Spectrasonics stuff was the same. Mind you, on Windows I can and still DO use them (there hasn’t been released anything better!). Now look at Pro Tools: the list of which versions work on which OS is a mind-bender! It’s such a mess that I occasionally get calls from Mac users to see if I can help them, and now the musical director at my church told me he’s fed up with Apple and asked me to help him transition to Windows. There’s simply nothing worse than a company forcing you to give up the tools you already know and love, because of arbitrary reasons. Windows has shown the way for years now; I can still run software from the 1990’s for goodness’ sake.

Dosey Doe in the Woodlands, TX

Today I just want to give props to one of the very best places to play in these United States! When you travel with a band like the Rippingtons, you have what’s called a “rider”, a list of things you need/want ready at the venue. It usually contains stuff like batteries, food and drinks, catering during sound check, all kinds of amenities. Whether all of them are provided is certainly not a given, and the size of the place is not necessarily indicative of compliance. Some spots will even charge us half or full price just to have a beer or two, some stock the dressing room with a nice selection of beverages and food.

And then there is The Big Barn – Dosey Doe in The Woodlands, TX. Not only is it a wonderful venue acoustically and aesthetically (they took a 165 year old tobacco barn from Kentucky and rebuilt it outside of Houston!!) but it might just be the place that takes the best care of us. I mean, from the moment we get there every single person working is not only courteous and  happy to be there, but also goes way beyond what we need or deserve. The boss wants to order three dinners, two to go? No problem. Beer, top shelf whiskey, vodka, desserts….anything we want. They place is filled with genuinely great people, on a level that is beyond rare here in the city of Angels. And guess what: it results in a band that wants to do a great show! Dosey Doe started as a coffee roaster years ago and they still do it. At the end of the night they send us on our way with a pound of beans of our choice, each! Here’s a place that deserves to thrive and I’m glad to see they’re doing well.

So thank you Paul, Kevin, Barry and everyone at Dosey Doe for creating such an amazing place to keep live music alive and kicking! Hope to see you again soon!

Keiko Matsui

Something quite fascinating is how people have the tendency to categorize. In order to organize this mess of a world, to be able to deal with the chaos and unpredictability humans assign things to boxes: good and evil, healthy and unhealthy, Country music, Metal. Once something has been assigned a category, it rarely gets reclassified. Sometimes it’s quite beneficial, but it can be detrimental too, for instance when people start conforming to the box they’re in, whether they chose to be in there or were put in there by others.

And then there are people like Keiko Matsui. This woman, classical piano wunderkind, became a worldwide star in the world of New Age and later Smooth Jazz, touring the world for 30 years now. This woman made 26 albums before “Journey to the Heart” last year. She now sells 1500 tickets a night in Russia for two weeks straight, a beloved artist at Smooth Jazz nights from the Hollywood Bowl to Java Jazz in Jakarta, Indonesia. But guess what: she keeps growing and innovating, keeps pushing, instead of resting on her laurels and riding this wave into the sunset.

After years of others, mostly men of course, running her life, managers, record labels etc., she has taken control! That album she did last year? Her best one yet, and the most free of all. Produced by none other than Carlitos Del Puerto, son of Cuban bass legend Carlos Del Puerto of Irakere, it’s her first all acoustic project and it’s truly wonderful. She never really was a Smooth Jazz artist to begin with, very few 2 chord R&B jams in her repertoire, but here we have a proper Jazz album, awesome compositions, fantastic playing by a group of great musicians. I’m serious, this is music that would fit in at any real Jazz club in the world and she proved it last week in Napa.

Back in 2000 I did one summer with Keiko and her manager ran the show back then, she would hardly talk to the band. When I joined again in 2013 the situation was much different already. I replaced Eric Baines who was the musical director, so it really was the first time she took on that role, and slowly but surely she realized that she could easily do it! I mean, after almost 30 years of doing your music, you know what you want! Communication across languages can be hard, and explaining feeling in music even harder, but between a group of excellent musicians (JP Mourao, Jackiem Joyner, Dave Karasony) who truly repected her and my above average language skills, we got there. She still had a “Pop”/Classical concept of her show, with strict arrangements and solos that were almost verbatim every night. Doing “Journey to the Heart”, and then touring on it with the Carlitos and Jimmy Branly forced her to adopt more of a true Jazz flow: those guys are UNSTOPPABLE, they cannot be put in a box. They will never play the same thing twice. I heard some of the live recordings and they went for it every time, actually a little too much for Keiko’s fans I’m afraid. Of course Carlitos is the hottest bass player in the world right now, so when Chick Corea called, and Barbra Streisand and Bob James, he moved on and combined with the preference of promoters and fans for the electric band, we got the call again.

Fast forward to last week, when we did 4 nights, two shows a night, at the brand new Blue Note in Napa, CA. I’m not exaggerating when I say all 8 shows where in my top 25 favorite gigs of my life. Keiko was simply outstanding and we played like a real band; I get tears in my eyes again thinking about it, as happened literally every night at some point. The stage is small there, and with the incredible CF6 that Yamaha brought especially for Keiko, we were set up super tight, which is ideal actually for playing Jazz. Keiko played some truly amazing solos, really blew my mind how free and creative, how beautiful, playful and exciting. She improvised stuff on songs I had never heard even a slight variation on. And we were right with her, at all times; it’s incredible what happens when a band trusts itself, when a soloist feels so comfortable. JP went from beautiful whisper quiet Brazilian flavors to screaming rock, rhythmical explorations to surf…. our dynamics as band were incredible, we played so softly a few times, without losing any intensity it shocked me.

Honestly, Keiko became a true Jazz pianist this week. She’s been trying to book shows in Western Europe, but her association with Smooth Jazz has held her back, even though she was always more of a New Age/Pop/Classical pianist. Now, in my opinion, she could and should get booked at any real Jazz club in the world, even with the electric band. It’s beyond inspiring to see a woman of her stature make such a bold and dramatic move, to refuse to stay in a box and boldly go…….. feeling beyond blessed to be able to witness it……

Second Keyboard

What an incredibly fun gig last night! Thanks to Oscar Cartaya who got me on board as the second keyboard player for “Singer’s Night” hosted by Delious Kennedy of All 4 One at the Federal Bar. They do this once a month or so, picking a different theme every time. Last night’s was “Michael versus Janet”, as in Jackson of course, and the selection of tunes was awesome. It’s not often that one gets to play “Can You Feel It” or the otherHeartbreak Hotel” …..

The band was top notch by the way, with Andy Abad (Backstreet Boys, Marc Anthony) on guitar, Paul Alexander Gonzalez (Gloria Estefan, All 4 One) on drums, Kenneth Towns (The Jacksons) on first keyboard and Oscar (Spyro Gyra, Jennifer Lopez, Herb Alpert) of course on (synth)bass; all these guys are just excellent, and it’s just beyond cool to recreate those epic productions with a big band. There were a few ringers thrown in, but all the singers were at least competent too, with some being truly world-class. The place was packed and fun was had by all….this is why we live in L.A.!

Unbundle

As none other than Neil Young, who I just watched on Colbert this morning, sits tables behind me at Starbucks, I want to talk about some good news of the day, a show of progress if you will: HBO has announced it will start an online streaming service of some kind that does NOT require a cable subscription of any kind! Hallelujah! It certainly took long enough, but this is just excellent and I will be one of the first to put his money where his mouth is! It’ll probably be more than the $15 add-on it is now, but hopefully not much; I’m saving $25 by not patronizing Time Warner anymore, and would gladly pay that for perhaps Showtime and HBO on my computers. Now let’s hope that other talented content providers get on-board and we can shake this thing up a little….

BTW, Neil Young was promoting some music player device that gives you “100%” where an MP3 player gives you “5%”. He is of course strictly speaking correct, simply because the bitrate of the latter is normally a tenth of hat a CD has, and the former probably uses 96Khz, 24Bit audio. Of course our brains are so easily fooled, and I bet you 99% of all people would not be able to distinguish between the two formats, especially with the sonically limited material we listen to today.

Well, I decided to look it up: the device is called the PonoPlayer and costs $400. The corresponding Ponomusic service promises to always provide the highest resolution file-formats available for any particular content, with 44 Khz 16-bit as the lowest. The player does many formats up to 192Khz 24-bit….there you have it!

The Choir: Military Wives (Updated!)

It’s summer so in Holland it’s time for “Zomergasten”, an iconic yearly TV show, which is perhaps my favorite thing on this medium anywhere. Presented by a different host every year, it has only one guest who, for the three hours the program lasts, has total freedom to discuss any topic, tell any story or share any observation, while showing video clips from any movie/TV show/documentary he wants. Mind you, there are no commercial interruptions! This years presenter is Wilfried de Jong, a very smart and truly interested person, and the first guest was none other than Freek de Jonge, a living legend in the Netherlands. A true artist, de Jonge discusses many many interesting topics and makes it clear that he’s as free as a human can be in this day and age: his one-man theater shows are completely and utterly uncompromised,  not by commerce, nor the desire to be liked by everyone which plagues so many these days.

In this 180 minute journey, we see a young Charlie Chaplin, discovering his talents in a time when close-up shots had not even been considered yet! We witness the most unbelievable put by Tiger Woods: the movement of the ball includes what looks like about a 90 degree turn, and then a teetering on the edge of the hole for literally seconds before it seems like the growing roar of the crowd provides the last little push it needs to go in. There are many more very interesting parts, but where it really got me was when Freek showed us a few minutes of a British program called The Choir: Military Wives.

It’s the fourth season of a show in which conductor Gareth Malone rounds up groups of people to form a singing group. This is no populist BS though, he works them, but more importantly, literally makes them better people. I’ve said many times the we westerners don’t sing together enough! I haven’t seen the whole show, but in the 5 minutes we got to witness on Zomergasten, at first we see a few dozen women whose husbands are away at war; these are ladies who know each other, but in England there’s not much socializing between folks of different ranks so they don’t know each other well. Also, most are not singers and visibly uncomfortable with the whole situation. In addition, military wives are probably in a similarly rigid system as their husbands, not used to the ‘cutting loose and letting go’ that music begs for.

By the time that they perform in front of prince Charles at Royal Albert Hall (!!!!) their faces have completely changed; I get tears in my eyes writing this, I can see the unity, the peace, the togetherness, the confidence. It’s like they were girls and now they are women. Freek makes some very fascinating observations: “when their husbands come back from the war, they’re going to have a problem!” The women have now far surpassed their partners in this journey of discovery we call life, as the latter have probably regressed in their understanding of balance and happiness. Wives who acted like they had never been listened to have now learned to wield the power of their voices, in the best, most selfless way possible.

One final interesting thing: even though most Dutch public TV shows are watchable online these days, for free by the way, most of the time Zomergasten is not, but this episode was. You know why? Because the restrictions always come due to ‘geographic’ license issues in this over-commercialized world; but true art is not run by money managers! There were no Disney clips, no major network Amercian TV…….. and the result was another perfect example of the potential of this Medium.

UPDATE: found out that the entire three part series can be watched on Youtube in perfectly fine quality! I watched it last night and was so moved……. Choir Director Gareth Malone is quite an interesting character, and at points all his judgements of these women (“they literally have no voice!”) seem quite pretentious and almost vulgar, but then the faces don’t lie and the incredible joy and thankfulness they experience moved me to tears. Wow!

Streaming

The river of nonsense based on misinformation thickens every day! From idiotic videos ‘proving’ that no airplane hit the second tower on 9/11 (2.5 million views ladies and gentlemen!) to diet advice stemming from horribly wrong conclusions drawn from questionable scientific research, we are in danger! You see, humans put a value on information based in large part on how many others they hear state it. We are herd animals after all, and so we follow. Before the information age, in order for you to hear thousands of people say something, a very large percentage of folks directly around you would have to do so. These days, even if only 1% of a population believes something, but they are loud and active, it can seem like everybody believes it.

Here’s something I do know a something about: performance royalties for music. If one were to believe the internet, Spotify is taking advantage of composers and publishers, paying them horribly low amounts. Nothing is further from the truth actually. Two months ago I did an experiment: I signed up for a paid membership for one month, at $10, and then proceeded to put XR7 on loop. In the last few days I’ve been getting my regular payments for that period and they’re actually good: 1.24 cents per play! That means every time ONE person listens to ONE song ONE time, I get paid more than a penny. Contrary to popular belief that is WAY better than any terrestrial radio ever paid! Not all the songs have come through for this period, including The Robot Song, which I played on repeat separately, but already my little experiment has brought in $25, or actually MORE than I paid for my membership. How that is unfair is beyond me……

Now, I don’t know what the pay scale is at Pandora and it probably is worse, but still, whenever these musicians around here bitch about the new model, I want to slap them. They post stuff on FB, about how someone had a million plays but only made $400. Well guess what, if your song plays on a broadcast radio station and is heard by a million people, how much do you think you get paid? This is part of the problem caused by the idiotic price of 99 cents that iTunes has instilled on us. It’s outrageous……..

Variety = spice

Boy, it’s been a week of much variety! Last Friday we had a great night of Jazz and R&B with the Jeff Robinson band at Pip’s on LaBrea. From Miles Davis to Johnny Guitar Watson, P-Funk to Jeff’s awesome original tunes, his gigs are the best kind of workout, the kind I moved to the US for. Saturday, Santa Monica was the place for a session with Ukrainian producer Sasha. He needed some bass on a couple of tracks and put me to work. The music was real raw and punky, Sergio Gonzalez on drums, and he wanted lots of fret noise and really sloppy but groovy stuff. Not exactly easy for someone who’s spent his whole life trying to improve his technique and sound! But, it’s a state of mind and with the right abandon on my behalf, we found it.

On Sunday, I played piano for the first time at the afternoon service at St. Paul The Apostle’s in Westwood. Chris Haller had asked me to sub for him on bass a number of times last year, but the regular pianist moved to Arizona so they needed someone and gave me the gig 3 times a month. Of course there can hardly be more contrast with the shredding from the night before! The church has an old but nice Steinway and there’s not even a drummer in the band. Musically it’s quite enjoyable though: Peter Torsiello, the musical director, is an excellent musician, Chris a fine bassist, and the singing is always inspired and on point.

Next up, on Tuesday, it was time for some EDM believe it or not. Sergio had told Sasha that I’m a ‘mad professor’ with synths and such, so he came over to check out the studio. He liked what he heard and came back on Wednesday for a 6 hour session. The result is pretty cool actually! Next week we should be able to finish the track, after which the vocals will be recorded back in the Ukraine. I’m talking Swedish House Mafia type of stuff, tight beat, super funky electro basslines, “huge” lead synths. But Wednesday wasn’t done yet! Next up: Mouse’s studio for a session with Natasha Wood. We recorded a floor tom for her song “Part Of Me” and then a violinist named Miguel showed up to play some really beautiful stuff! Actually he played the Viola and he brought it! Otherwise this particular track consists of piano, bass, guitar, percussion and 3 glockenspiel tracks. Nice stuff….

Afterwards, I called Johnny G and we went for a night cap at the Federal in North Hollywood, where bass phenom Hadrien Feraud was hosting a jam night. Add in the one and only Chris Coleman on drums, and you can have a band of plumbers playing the chicken dance and it would still groove. Boy, what a blessing it is to be able to live in this neck of the woods……

X-Ray Christmas

Got a check from X-Ray Dog today: this is a music library company I did some music for with my friend Jono Brown years ago. I have 50% writer credit on  2 tunes called “Into The Abyss” and “Pinche Rey”, and 33% on a third, “Jono Cubano” which we did with Chris Smith. The amazing thing is, on this statement alone, there use reported from: France, Germany, Russia, the UK, Ukraine, South Africa, and Mexico! Maybe even more amazing: my total share of the royalties for all of 2012 plus half of 2013 comes to $40. Mind you, these are not single uses per country, we’re talking a 4 page legal size statement. I’m not complaining, it’s free money, but it still seems a little silly, doesn’t it?

On a conceptual level, it’s very interesting, wild to think that evidence of my existence is found all over the world. When I put out my first solo CD, I got orders from as far as Thailand and Japan, and there are now copies in Turkey, Brazil, all over Europe, Mexico. Between my two solos CDs I’ve probably just about made back my investment, but I’ve created something that will outlast me and that’s exciting! I’ve always been more interested in the art of music, than the commerce, so to me this is great success. I still believe in the compositions, they are not burdened by stylistic restrictions which limit their lifespan, at least I hope they’re not.

The beautiful thing is that the systems for residual payments will only get more and more automated so with proper labeling, royalties should continue to come in. With the continuing homogenization of music increasing, the call for truly original content is getting louder, and not just around here, the most unoriginal big city in the world. I think we will witness a resurgence of art of great proportions soon….

Paid rehearsal

I’ll never forget the first time I got paid for a rehearsal! Many moons ago, within a year of moving to L.A., and having met quite a few pro musicians at a late night Jam every Friday and Saturday night at a place called “56 West” on Melrose, I was asked to sub for another bassist who got sick. Marc Hugenberger invited me to come down to 3rd Encore for a practice with this artist, and I was already ecstatic about the fact that they had a bass amp for me there and all I had to bring was my bass. The band was KILLER, the studio just as amazing and when the rehearsal was over, they asked me what I needed to make! I was flabbergasted! So much fun AND you’re gonna give me money?

This is the problem with making music your profession: it’s just too much fun, so it doesn’t seem like work. Of course, your landlord doesn’t care about that, and demands cold hard cash! There are only so many hours in a day and if you’re not careful, all you do is rehearse every day of the week, never making a penny, other than the measly $50 or $100 on weekend gigs. When you get higher up on the ladder of session guys in L.A., there’s more money to go around. Even people who are financing their own shows, should pay you for rehearsals. When folks get married, they don’t expect a hotel to give them the ballroom for free to practice the ceremony, do they? Whenever you make a deal to do a showcase, make sure you specify how much the gig pays, and separately what you need to make per rehearsal. Especially if you’re good, and are prepared so you can nail the tunes in one, extra ones are for the artist’s sake, so it should cost him or her. The pleasant side effect is, that you will start moving in far more professional and thus efficient circles. When guys are getting paid, they are expected to BE ON TIME, be prepared. Everybody wins…..