Inspired by Tony's video on the subject, I'm working on left hand guide tone technique for solo playing. So what do you think: on a flat five chord, does playing the 3 and the b5 or playing the b5 and 7 make the most sense to your ears? To me the b5 has to be in there somewhere for the color, but both options sound odd (or maybe weak) to my ear.

I gave up the idea of doing the vocal, as I can't seem to get it right. I might as well listen to Tony Perkins's version (on YouTube) and be content with playing it. Here, I used two mallets, and plenty of motor. It sounds old-fashioned, but that's OK by me.

Man we had a great time this week. Nico was a great host, hanging with us, playing organ (he's a great organ player) with us, and talking instruments with us. Tarik said it was his best vacation ever. That's pretty cool.

We're chilling after a hard morning.

I thought we'd quickly post some of what we're working on. We went through this sheet of voicings. David gave a great talk on them and everyone had to learn them and play part of this. The jpg's are attached. We shot them with his camera.

This is from our 2011 vanderPlas Baileo workshop.

Phillipe Mace gave a great workshop on Improvising over bach. That is learning Bach and analyzing the harmony and then improvising on the chords in that style. It was great and really informative.

He had students come up and play a bit of the piece and then improvise on it. It was great to try and improvise with a different language and there is a ton to learn from this and to then take to jazz.

We were working on singing solos and all of a sudden this came out!

This is a great group this year at vanderPlas Baileo.