Jason Lyon Music

Category: e) Rants & Ramblings

  • Cueing at the Alphabet Soup Kitchen

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    Jason
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    Yup, that’s spelled correctly. Cueing. I’m not talking about the delightful British pastime of standing in line for something and drawing a perverse comfort from covertly bitching about how ugly and stupid the people ahead of you are. Nope. Cueing musical parts. It’s more an issue in extended classical pieces than in jazz, but some…

  • Hans Groiner – Jazz Legend

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    Jason
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    Learn from the fingerings of a genius. Here is a Meisterklasse from der Meisterspieler himself. Groiner, a piano and accordion virtuoso from Austria, takes all the wrong stuff that he doesn’t like out of jazz. He is known around the world for his improvements of Monk tunes and has performed to packed houses at New York’s celebrated Smalls Club. (Larry…

  • Don’t Screw with the Crew

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    I rather doubt that it’s made international headlines, but there’s a furore over a fracas going on here in the U of K over a certain TV presenter being suspended for alleged abusive behaviour towards an assistant producer while out on shoot. Jeremy Clarkson is a celebrity star and the show he presents, Top Gear, is a…

  • Re Person I Knew

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    Jason
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    Except I didn’t know him. This is the title of a Bill Evans piece dedicated to jazz producer Orrin Keepnews, who died last week just shy of his 92nd birthday. It’s an anagram of his name*, and seems an appropriate heading for an obituary. Keepnews was a contemporary with Jack Kerouac at Columbia, later a journalist,…

  • Just Give Me What’s Going Out Front…

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    Jason
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    These are the seven words a live sound engineer really doesn’t want to hear. I used to be guilty of saying it myself… So why doesn’t Darth Fader want to hear you say this? Because what you’re asking is practically impossible. I’m all for bands in small and medium venues playing “mostly backline” or “as…

  • Taxman

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    It’s that time of year. Up all night with a shoebox full of receipts, bank statements and a bottle of gin… Finally, you’re through it all and you promise yourself to be better organised and not leave it to the last minute next year… So anyway. A 92-year-old man gets called in for a tax…

  • How Not to Sit In

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    Jason
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    Don’t like to be personal round here, so I’ve kept the following story as anonymous as possible (so as to protect the guilty). But it’s absolutely true and it illustrates almost perfect technique in how to piss any band off… Anyway, on a gig a while ago, a guy approached me during a break and…

  • I’m Sorry…

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    Jason
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    There are many institutions of British humour that have achieved international recognition – Monty Python, for instance, and for a slightly older generation, The Goons. This post is about a radio classic that has been running longer than both and is every bit as wonderful but perhaps not quite so widely acclaimed abroad. It’s called…

  • Vi Hart & Twelve Tones

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    Jason
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    For some reason I can’t even remember, I was recently spurred to refresh some of the funkier stuff in my maths education. In my online quest after some of the long forgotten detailed bits behind the sublime Euler’s Identity (yeah, I know, I’m weird) the linky stuff led me to this gal right here, who…

  • Lies, Damn Lies & Marketing Part IV: Is That So?

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    Jason
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    File this one under personal attitude, because we’re not going to be diving knee-deep into tritone-infested waters here. More of a generalised New Year type reflection, really. We’re all prey from time to time to concerns about how we’re perceived by others – band members, other musicians, management, audience, the press, the world, the dog… It’s…