Welcome to Jon's Music page on Buzzy
John Coltrane, the great music of John Coltrane is still ahead of his time. Over the lifetime of this Great Jazz artists, many genres of Jazz has been created by Coltrane. Many say his playing sounds like scrambled eggs, but as Wayne Shorter puts it: "It's how he scrambled it is the thing..."
Ornette Coleman, another jazz artist that took Jazz into new directions. This man started the Avante Garde movement in Jazz.
Johnny Costa who lived in Pittsburgh, and passed away recently. He played the piano in Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Has a famous album called Flying Fingers. His style of playing is remarkably like running water in a stream, many many notes but flows like water.
Carcass is a Death Metal band from the U.K. Their albums include: Reek of Putrefaction, Symphonies of Sickness, Necroticism - Descanting the Insalubrious, Heartwork.
Miles Davis along with Coltrane and Coleman, is an innovator. After playing with Charlie Parker, he pushed Jazz music through several eras. Hot jazz, then the cool, then, fusion. The list of recordings Miles made in his lifetime is remarkable.
Death this is a Florida Death Metal Band, one of the first bands to be considered Death Metal.
Antonin Dvorak this composer had many peices with operetta, of which I own many.
Deicide, Florida DM.
DVC, Canadian DeathMetal,
D.R.I., that is: Dirty Rotten Imbeciles.
Entombed
Duke Ellignton was one of the best arrangers and had one of the best Big Bands.
Brian Eno although synthesized music is not my prefered choice, Brian Eno makes up for it.
Robert Fripp, League of Crafty Guitarists, and King Crimson of course you've figured that out by my other two pages.
Godflesh is an Industrial band consisting of two people, a singer/bass and a guitar player. There is a drum machine also.
Gorefest is a european Death Metal band.
Benny Goodman is the "King of Swing". Benny Goodman plays the clarinet and can swing so hard that it sounds like he's (or his band) going to hurt himself. I really like the sound of a clarinet and I like the way Benny Goodman plays, more of his quintet/sextet stuff and not as much of his BigBand.
George Gershwin Summertime, An American in Paris, Rhapsody in Blue, etc...
Herbie Hancock, jazz pianist. Although he played fusion/R&B during the 70's, Headhunters.
George Frideric Handel, Water Music, Royal Fireworks...
Michael Hedges, a guitarist who utilizes his hands in a unique way.
Jon Hendrix, although I prefer music without words, this man's talent is peircingly acute.
Jimi Hendrix, The Experience is my favorites from Hendrix, not so much afterwards.
John Lee Hooker, Blues Mississippi style,
Milt Jackson and the Modern Jazz Quartet, Milt is the most proficient vibes player ever. I saw him recently (Feb 97) play at the Balcony in Shadyside (PGH).
Killing Addiction, from my home town of Ocala,
Kronos Quartet, although they don't write their own music, they play a lot of interesting music.
Laibach a band from Yugoslavia. They redid the Beatles Let it be album and it is very disturbing.
Gyorgy Ligeti is a contemporary classical music composer. He did some of the music to 2001 A Space
Oddessy.
Led Zepplin was good in their day,
Witold Lutoslawski, another one of the great contemporary composers.pNode
Felix Mendelssohn, and his Choir,
Charles Mingus's weird Nightmare is probably the best album ever made.
Morbid Angel,
Pat Metheny, a semi-jaz guitarist. I think he has a lot of Cheesy stuff.
John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Mahavishnu John McLaughlin was a self taugh guitarist. Played jazz originally in UK and moved to the states to play in Tony William's Lifetime and then with Miles Davis on Bitches Brew. Just the beginning of a still continuing career.
Thelonius Sphere Monk is a jazz pianist, and the most unique of them all.
Mozart even though his music is sometimes fluffy and trite sounding, he is the greatest composer that ever lived.
Ministry, their industrial days,
Metallica, everything before Black,
Megadeth, everything before Countdown to Extinction, especially Rust in Peace,
Napalm Death, Bill Steer from Carcass used to play with these guys, Europe,
Nocturnus is a Death Metal band from Florida. Their music consists of grueling fast and intricate rhythms and solos.
Carl Orff, Requiem, Carmina Burana,
Obituary another Death Metal band from Florida.
Nicolo Paganini, I really like his music. People say that Paganini composes music that is intentionally made very hard and grueling to play, but I don't necessarily agree. His 24 Caprices, although requiring a virtuoso to play, is some of the most beautiful violin/guitar music.
Joe Pass the best Jazz guitarist ever.
Charlie Parker, The Master Be-Boppist. Also known as "Bird" or "YardBird". He got that knickname when traveling with some other musicians from Kansas, the driver of a car ran over a yardbird (or chicken) and Charlie Parker made him pull over and he picked up the dead bird. When they got to where they were going, an old woman's house who they were staying at, Parker asks the woman if she would please cook up the bird. This event was remembered and told over and over again, until the name Bird had permanantly stuck to him.
Phish, Trey Anastasio,
Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett, everything before the Wall is good,
Primus,Bud Powell pianist during the be-bop period. His playing was considered the be-bop standard for piano.
Pitch Shifter, Prong,
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel,
Sergei Rachmaninov, composed a lot for the piano, very structured music,
Steve Reich, a minimalistic 20th century composer.
Sonny Rollins Saxophone Colossus, Tenor Madness, the Bridge...
Maurice Ravel, Bolero, Tzigane.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers...
Pablo de Sarasate, Carmen,
Fernando Sor, a classical guitar composer.
John Scofield, a jazz guitarist,
Carlos Santana,
Sausage, Les Claypool of Primus with his original band.
Sepultura, Death Metal from Brazil!
Slayer,
Igor Stranvinsky, Firebird, Rite of Spring,
Skinny Puppy,
S.O.D. that is: Storm Troppers of Death, and also, Billy Milano's other band (without members from Anthrax) M.O.D. that is: Method of Destruction.
Pijotr Tchaikovsky,
Testament, thrash band, Alex Skolnick used to play with them.
Treponem Pal, German industrial band,
Antonio Vivaldi, the man for Strings.
VoiVod, Canadian band that plays metal-like music. Many awkward time changes and tempo changes.
Stevie Wonder, Impressions, the Talking Book,
John Zorn, Cobra, Naked City,
Frank Zappa, last but not least. Civilization, Thing Fish, Chunga's Revenge, Filmore East, (the list goes one forever).
I've played the guitar for over 10 years now. I started in Middle School with an Epiphone electric guitar. I used to play in a Death Metal band in Ocala called Xavroth, which was a name extracted froma Dr. Seuss book. It was a four peice band, 2 guitars, bass, drums and the bass player sang. We played a few shows with Killing Addiction. When I was in highschool, my music consisted of Death Metal. But by my Senior year, after I had stopped playing in Xavroth, I joined the highschool Jazz Big Band. I found my place in the rhythm section, learned to read music and charts, and we performed frequently. By the time I move to Pittsburgh, I was taken lessons from Eric Kloss, a blind saxophone prodigy who taught jazz classes at CMU.
I didn't have much time to play with people due to the extreme conditions of CMU's academia, but I did manage to play regularly with some people.
I played with a power trio called Antonioni's Floating Chamber Orchestra with Steve Shaw and Mark Hardy. Mark was a composition major that graduated and did data entry at a band. Steve was an art student that knew how to play the drums. We wrote some charts to play and covered many songs, Pictures of a City (King Crimson), Atom Heart Mother/Be Carful With that Axe Eugene/Astronomy Domine (Pink Floyd), Dragon Song/Devotion (John McLaughlin), I Me Mine (Beatles). There would be times when we played together 2 times in 3 months then play a show. I played mostly at parties and art galleries, never for money. Some of our songs got played on CMU's radio station.
I also played in a four peice with Ozge Koymen playing electric guitar called Vacum. Steve played bass and another art student Ezra Veitch played drums. We didn't cover any songs in this band. Vacum played at CMU's Carnival once. We played right before the Skablins. All of use was crazy wasted and we played 2 songs, one that lasted for 40 minutes, and the other that lasted a little over 2 minutes. Aside from not knowing what the hell was going on and the bright lights, we got a surprisingly warm reception to our music. Vacum had a motto that Steve Shaw once said: "More music than you can possibly listen to in one sitting". This was partially due to the fact that nobody knew what was going on. Steve and Ezra would make up the rhythm section, and me and Ozge just soloed the entire time, both of us, at the same time.
When I was a Junior at CMU, I took guitar lessons from Jim Ferla, the first lessons I've ever had, and he taught classical guitar. Although somedays we spent the entire lesson jamming to a Charlie Parker tune, I learned mostly Classical guitar. Ever since then, that's all I have been playing. I am no longer in a band, but I do play with people now and then. I bought a nice Alvarez-Yairi classical guitar and delved into the world of the classics. A semester later, I joined Carnegie Mellon's Classical Guitar Ensemble. Almost all the music we played was contemporary 19th-20th Century classical music. I countinue to play with them even though I am currently not enrolled, and occasionally we even play shows out of town. I played some of Bach's 3 part inventions. It was one of the best learning experiences I've ever had. As for solo classical music, this is a list of my repitoire and practice peices (not very big):
Even though I've only been playing classical guitar for two years and a half, I've traveled far from my electric guitar days. I don't use picks anymore. I also understand now why classical musicians can sometime seem pretentious, but IMHO they have every reason to be. The classical music is an art not so much just for listening, but the art is the way the player, or artist, is making the music, the art is not merely the written music. And from this perspective, Classical music seems elevated in a way.Lately, I have been trying to become proficient at solo chord/melody jazz guitar. I have been listening to Joe Pass the "Kingpin of chord/melody" and writing down some of the chord inversions that he likes to use. I've also been transcribing standards (esp. 30's swing with vocals) into chord melodies and practicing them as well as improvising around them.
I also know how to play the drums, bass, and piano, BUT, in no way would I consider myself a drummer, bassist, or pianist. Knowing how an instrument is played does not make up for the lack of experience it takes to learn an instrument. I have been making recordings on my Yamaha MTX4 4-track mixer/recorder. I am very happy with the MTX4. I recorded several classical peices and jazz songs. My roomate (Steve Shaw) has an analog Korg guitar synth and an assortment of percussion things. So I record a bass track and percussion tracks in my jazz peices that I've been recording since Steve moved in. When I am in Florida, I play with Paul and Damien sometimes, but it is never anything serious.
The first thing that I can do about listening to music is in my home. In my apartment in Pittsburgh, I have a nice stereo system, and it is on 24 hours a day. The music comes out of a pair of Paradigm 9seMk3's and a pair of their new Paradigm Reference Studio/100, powered by a 250watt Nakamichi RE-2 reciever. If you anything about High Definition sound, you can see why I am in heaven (well, it isn't top quality, it isn't a $10K reciever, and they aren't $15K Thiel's, the front of these speakers at this link are concrete). The Nak is fed be a Technics 5 dics changer/player, a Sony High Density Linear Converter CD player, and a JVC turntable. The Paradigms rest on spikes that pierce the carpet and padding and into the floor for stability. I use the 5 disc changer (which Steve owns) to play throughout the day. The Sony is used to "sampling". If there is something in particular I want to listen to, I use the Sony. Although the Nakamichi deserves something much better, the Sony and Technics is fine for now. But really, I should have at least $1,500 speakers connected to it, and use the Paradigms as a second pair (quadraphonics maybe?).The second thing that I can do about listening to music is in my car. Although I don't have the specs for my car stereo, I do use a Sony Discman to play CD's. But the car is not the optimal place to listen to music, way too noisy and bad acoustics.
Another thing I can do about listening to music is go somewhere. Places that I go often to listen to Jazz is:
I go to almost every performance of the CMU Symphony Orchestra. I am good friends with many of the musicians in the orchestra so always get free tickets. Whenever the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra have student deals, I go and see the PSO perform. I saw Carl Orff's Carmina Burana played there with a double choir conducted by Robert Page. It was better than the recording that I have of it. They perform in Heinz Hall in downtown Pittsburgh, which is a VERY nice concert hall. I've seen several Ballet's at Pittsburgh Bennedon. I saw My Fair Lady with Richard Chamberlain there.
Lately, the only things that I have heard that has maintained my interest is jazz and classical music, and only particular kinds at some times more than others. There are new areas in both jazz and classical music that I am beginning to hear as well as old ones that I didn't find that interesting before. Therefore, I tend not to be anywhere that doesn't have jazz or classical music in the air. However, there are things that I have never listened to or thought that much of, and if you are interested in knowing what they are:
I don't enjoy listening to Reggae, Rap, or Dance music. Aside from words in music, I don't like most Top 40 kinds of music. Pittsburgh has 2 public radio stations that play nothing but Classical and Jazz, and that's what I listen to when I don't have a tape or CD in my car. Even then, sometimes I can't deal with it. The New Age side of Jazz is not something that I enjoy. Dance music is annoying, but I think that people who listen to Dance music seek a completely different purpose in their music than I do. Dance music doesn't make me feel like moving around, I just don't get it, it is repetitive and it doesn't say anything to me. Reggae sounds ridiculous and silly. It grates at my nerves like a cheese grater on a rash. When I am around it, I have to constantly keep talking or talking to myself in order not to hear the sounds. Here is a short list of people that I don't like to listen to that don't necesarily fit in the other categories :
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