Was it the Druids?

I used to live up in Ithaca where there were many more crunchy hippies than any New Yorker could cast a superior glance at. I remember once being out in the woods around Ithaca at a friend’s house for a party. I’m thinking this was in Spencer, New York. There was a fascinating calendar on the wall in that it listed five distinct seasons! The fifth season lasted from the winter solstice until New Year’s day. I just spent about a half hour surfing this internet of ours to try to find more information about this. Was it the Druids? This Wiccans? The Ancient Greeks?

I still remember this because it seems to match my experience of how time works. This feels particularly true to me this year. All the musicians that I normally play with are leaving to be with their families. There is really no work to speak of and I find myself not wanting to leave the house at all! The fifth season, the inner season, is when one reflects on the year that has passed and begins to fathom what could possibly lay ahead. A season outside of time where one can reflect on our timelines and what transpires.

I feel as though I am still in the reflective mode about 2008 and I wanted to share my year in review with you. Overall I couldn’t be happier. Last night Clifton, Stefan, Rob and I finished a private party here in the neighborhood. It was one of our better gigs – the sweet fruits of an active year. The whole room was dancing, and smiling and each song had so much communication and telepathy, groove, passion, drive and appeal. Afterwards, we all repaired to my apartment to drink the holiday wine, listen to music and celebrate a great year together. Soon it will be time to plan again, but right now is the hour to collect and relish our achievements, gather from our regrets, and share in the warmth of our successes together.

From the most holistic and big-picture perspective I can take, I can report that the source of my happiness comes from living in alignment with a simple philosophy; do what you love. I feel that if you can do what you love and by some miracle of the universe you can make a living at such endeavors than you have won the biggest game that there is to play. For the realization of this truth I am moved to joy, tears, gratitude, levitation, superlatives, giggles, drinking wine, and making more and more music!

Tin Pan the band has exceeded almost every goal we have set for ourselves. If you are interested in the details of this than please read on. Early this year I made a very focussed and detailed business-plan type document just to wrap my brain around my dreams. I have learned that merely the act of creating well formulated goals is a huge step in moving towards what is possible.

WARNING: The following is very detailed and expresses a very left-brained focus that I sometimes surprise myself with. Ultimately I find that it is fun to measure success!!

Let’s start with the bottom line. Compared to the income I wanted the band to earn we overshot our goal by 15%. The average amount that we earned each time we played out in the street would up being a full 20% higher than we had intended. It was even higher than I imagined we would be three years from now! In terms of number of engagements we were slightly less busy than I had figured but because the street income was so much better it did not effect our bottom line.

PRESS: We had hoped for two mentions in major press and we just blew that away: our association with MUNY has been huge in this regard. The New York Times, The New York Post, The Daily News, and New York Newsday all ran photos and content about our successful auditions. We also appeared with a performance clip and an interview on NY1.

CD SALES: were through the roof more than I expected. We sold more than 5500 CD’s this year which puts us in a very select percentile of groups that actually ever need to reorder a CD from a manufacturer no less three times in a six month period! One of my manufactures says that we have ordered more CD’s from him than any other band that he has worked with.

FESTIVAL PERFORMANCES: We hadn’t thought that we would be able to any this year but we did manage to perform in two local festivals: The MUNY Jazz Festival and the HOWL Festival

PRIVATE PARTIES: The one area where we fell a little short was private parties. We had hoped to do a few more. We were 5% shy of the goal I had set but our hourly rate was 13% higher than I expected so it all worked out.

RECORDING: We had hoped to release one CD this year but we actually wound up releasing two. Hound’s Tooth just made it under the wire. Hopefully this will prove to be a seasonally smart thing to do: that is, work up a repertoire over many, many performances in the street and when we truly have a unique way to perform the music we can record it at the end of the fall.

OVERALL: We had 186 different paid engagements in 2008 and really gelled together as a band with a unique, raw sound and a seasoned delivery. (Individually I wound up performing professionally on 370 different occasions thanks to many and various side projects! There were many days in which we all played a show in the park with Tin Pan and then went to a different gig at night! What a year! Wow!!)

THE UNQUANTIFIABLE: Over the time we have also had many soul searching discussions about our individual roles and the role our music has in the culture at large. I’d say that, in general, we are much more interested in “just doing what we do” but there are moments of deep thinking and reflection where we make sure that we’re all in this for reasons that are meaningful and important to us.

Stefan and I have really been able to produce some amazing sectional sounds. We know each other’s bags, tastes, and skill sets so well that we can finish each other’s musical thoughts. For example: we were at Moto last week playing “Putting on the Ritz” Every second we are making choices wether to play the song the way we always play it or take divergences into only imagined territory with varying degree of risk and continuity. Moment after moment passed and we decided the same way on an amazing list of referenda! If there were a running commentary it would sound like this: “Let’s play that note really rough and the next part of the phrase very soft. This next two bars we’ll play in quarter note triplets even though we’ve never done that before. When we get to the second half of the bridge, flip the second part of it so that the line keeps ascending instead of falling back down.” Of course, we are making these decisions spontaneously and in tandem. I have my eyes closed a lot of the time. It just seems that we are that close in taste, humor, and weirdness to come to the same conclusions in the same way. When we got to the last part of the bridge like I described above – we almost couldn’t finish because we had started to laugh and our smiles were effecting our embouchure. It’s a very joyful thing to feel that connected! This is also happening between Clifton and Rob in their own rhythm section way, perhaps even more intimately as they need to connect on every single beat and accent. This is the intangible result of that many performances together – that kind of bond. THIS IS A HUGE ACCOMPLISHMENT!

MUSICAL IMPROVEMENT: Another great achievement is the musical growth that has occurred in the space of just one season! Perhaps Clifton and Rob are already more established in what they do so it less noticeable. For Stefan and I, it is very noticeable. We basically learned new instruments this year. Stefan learned how to play the clarinet – before this year he was just a dabbler with a primary focus on the saxophone. For me, I learned how to sing. I have been playing the trumpet since I was a boy and professionally and consistently for at least a decade but the singing thing happened just this year. The improvement between “Alice” and “Hound’s Tooth” from both of us is astonishing.

From the most holistic and big-picture perspective I can take, I can report that the source of my happiness comes from living in alignment with a simple philosophy; do what you love. I feel that if you can do what you love and by some miracle of the universe you can make a living at such endeavors than you have won the biggest game that there is to play. For the realization of this truth I am moved to joy, tears, gratitude, levitation, superlatives, giggles, drinking wine, and making more and more music!

And now . . . on to envision the future. . .