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Tonight, we’ll be playing with Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, PA. Showtime is 8pm. If you’re nearby, come on out to see one of the very best big bands NYC has to offer.

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It’s a busy one, this evening!! Plenty of Big Band music for NYCers to come on out and enjoy.

First, I’ll be with the Birdland Big Band, at Birdland, from 5-7pm.

Second, I’ll be with Laura Andrea and the Afro-Peruvian Big Band at the Zinc Bar. 2 sets between 8pm & 11pm.

Finally, I’ll be with Steven Feifke and his big band for the late show at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, up at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Advertised at 11:15pm, we typically get underway a little later than that, which is handy given that I have to run uptown to get there!

Hope to see you out and about!

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Looking forward to playing with Steven Feifke and his Big band, tonight, at The Django, in the basement of the Roxy Hotel, in NYC. We’ll be on the late shift – playing from 10:30pm – 1:30am! Hope to see some friendly faces out hanging after their gigs!

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Looking forward to playing with the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, directed by David DeJesus, this evening at Birdland in NYC. 2 shows – 9pm & 11pm. It might be cold outside, but you know it’s going to be hot on the bandstand! Hope to see some friendly faces out and about!

Announcing “Combination Drills, Volume 1” by Bryan Davis

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A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog post entitled “Combination Drills” in which I postulated collating a series of exercises to work on multiple areas of technique at once, in order to get better value from our practice time. Today, the book is out!

Both the Trumpet (i.e. treble clef) & Trombone (i.e. bass clef)  eBooks of “Combination Drills, Vol. 1” are now available from the new Airflow Music Online Store.

“Combination Drills” is a collection of Developed Scale Exercises I originally wrote to familiarize myself with Odd/Asymmetric Meters I was struggling to sightread. Volume 1 has the patterns in 5/8 and 7/8, exploring the various rhythmic divisions in those meters; e.g. 5/8 is often felt in an asymmetric 2, with ‘big’ beats of different lengths.

In addition, if practiced according to the enclosed instructions, they will work out a Combination of technical and musical skills, including:

  • Scales (fully notated Major, “Jazz” Minor, Harmonic Minor, Whole Tone and Diminished versions in all 12 keys)
  • Finger/Slide technique.
  • Slurring.
  • Tonguing – particularly developing a gentle single-tongue approach which rides the airstream throughout long phrases and across different registers.
  • Unifying the airflow approach between slurring and tonguing.
  • Connecting low and high registers.
  • Stabilizing the embouchure throughout register changes.
  • Developing breath support throughout long phrases and register changes.
  • Use of Breath Accents, both while slurring and tonguing.

They’ve been so beneficial for me and many of my students, I wanted to make them more widely available. It’s been a trip setting up a publishing company and preparing an entire book. I hope you’ll think it was a worthwhile endeavour!

Visit AirflowMusic.com to get your immediate PDF download today!

(For those who prefer printed books, those will be available via Amazon in the next week or so. Announcement post to follow!)