Ask 10 people what jazz is and you may get 10 different answers. Ask Tellus 360 what jazz is and you may get a description that conjures images of artwork by Shag (Josh Agle), spy movies, mid-century mod culture, Vespas, and the well-dressed, ultra-cool sipping cocktails while listening to bossa nova grooves.
These images are reflected in Tellus 360's newest jazz offering, called Jazz On King. The series is produced in partnership with Todd Fulginiti Music, with the vision being to create the vibe described above, and to give visitors a chance to inhabit another era for a few hours.
Jazz On King happens at Tellus 360 on the 2nd & 4th Thursdays of every month from 7-9pm and there is no cover. The room location fluctuates depending on what's happening at Tellus each night, but the club is blessed with many great gathering spots so space is never a problem.
Todd Fulginiti Trio, which provides the live jazz each night, has moved away from the often overplayed jazz standards heard regularly at local jazz clubs, and is focused more on music that fits the vibe that Jazz On King is trying to develop. You'll hear bossa novas, Henry Mancini spy themes, R&B influenced mod culture hits, vintage TV theme songs from mid-last-century, and a healthy serving of groove-based "post-bop" jazz. You can listen to it, dance to it, drink to it, or just soak in the vibe. Extra points for the well-dressed, especially mod-style.
See you on the 2nd & 4th Thursdays at Jazz On King!
If you took a look at my gig calendar, you'd see something similar to the EKG of a dead person- until April. This month, the gigs have come in like an avalanche!
But why? How did we go from near zero to near crazy in just one flip of the calendar page?
The answer has to do with a group called the Music Performance Trust Fund, and the special grants they've made available to musicians in order to get them working again, (and safely) during the pandemic.
The Trust Fund was created in 1948, to help settle a labor dispute between professional musicians and the recording industry. The issue at stake was royalty payments to musicians. The musicians union (American Federation of Musicians) went on strike, effectively shutting down all recorded music (including for TV shows, movies, etc. ) until a resolution was reached.
Part of that resolution included the creation of a Music Performance Trust Fund. The result is that every time a person purchases or streams music, the recording industry is required to contribute a small amount to the trust fund.
At this point, nearly 75 years later, the trust fund is very healthy financially and can fulfill its mission of providing free, live musical performances to the public while supplying fair wages and employment for professional musicians. The Music Performance Trust Fund is managed by the American Federation of Musicians and performances are funded through a variety of programs that make use of the money in the trust fund. Thousands of community and school performances are produced across the country each year, many of which are done for audiences that would otherwise go without.
In response to the pandemic, the MPTF has temporarily expanded its grant programs, making it very easy for musicians to book performances. All that's needed is a co-sponsor, a venue, and a few pieces of paperwork. Typically, the co-sponsor has to foot part of the bill for the musicians, but under this temporary grant expansion, the MPTF pays 100% of the costs.
Yep- that's free music for audiences and the venues/business that host the performances. Audiences get live music, musicians get paying gigs, and a third party pays the whole bill. It's a win for everybody!
The window for this expanded grant program is slim and ends soon- so I booked as many gigs in April as I could before funding goes back to normal and we're forced to get gigs "the old-fashioned way".
But I'm certainly grateful for the opportunities the MPTF has given me to return to doing what I love- playing music for audiences.
I have a painter friend named John David Wissler. He paints the sky. Beautiful skies that change and flow just like the real thing. Rather than imagining the skies he paints, he goes out into the world with his canvas, easel and brushes, and paints what he sees as he's looking at it, and as it changes from minute to minute.
This type of painting is called "plein-air", which means to paint outdoors. And if an artist is attempting to capture the natural world through their work, this seems to me like the way to go. Just get out there and take direction from the subject itself.
As a nature-loving tree-hugger, I've always been interested in the idea of plein-air art and wondered how I might be able to apply that idea to music. I admire people like Paul Winter, who incorporates the actual sounds of nature in his writing. Also native American flautists like R. Carlos Nakai, who take to the outdoors unaccompanied and play what they experience, immersed in nature.
After kicking several ideas around for a few years I finally got started this winter, filming my own outdoor footage and then improvising a soundtrack to it in the studio. Ideally of course I'd like to record and film outdoors at the same time, but I literally have my hands full just playing the instruments, and as rookie at this, I don't exactly have a Hollywood budget to hire a crew to film the scene while I play to it.
So, I took my iPhone down the street from my house, into Lititz Springs Park, and captured the scene on a snowy day. After editing the footage, I chose the instruments that, in my mind, characterized the scene best. In this case, it was Native American flute and alto recorder.
I recorded the music by watching the footage and improvising to it; hoping to interpret the scene through sound. There were no re-takes or do overs. I tried to keep it as "live" as it would be if I had gone out into the park and played.
As my first attempt at this type of thing, of course there were mistakes, and I learned that I'm a very loud breather. So loud, that I tried to edit out all the breath sounds in the music- they were just too distracting. As a consequence of that and my own performance and tech limitations, this first film was a great learning experience. I hope to improve with each future project.
But having said that, the essence of what I'm trying to accomplish is there, albeit a bit unpolished.
Sometimes videos like this are called "quiet TV". They're meant to help people relax, and to take a moment to realize what else is in the world, besides what's on their schedule.
If you're interested in this type of thing, please give this movie a play, and let me know what you think.
I've done a few other videos like this, but this is the first using original music and the plein-air approach. For Lancaster, Pa area residents, those videos air from time to time on LCTV66.
For obvious reasons, this was without a doubt, the strangest year of my career. But despite my calendar being a scribbled mess of cancelled gigs (I really should've used a pencil), there were some exciting and fun things that happened in 2020. And as I sit here looking at my nearly empty 2021 schedule, I'm feeling a bit nostalgic about the pre-Covid gig days and (believe it or not) the few good things that 2020 did bring.
Here are 3 of my favorite moments from a totally unusual year.
Todd Fulginiti Quartet presents Chet Baker Sings:
This was the first of what was planned to be a monthly classic jazz series in the An Sibin room of Tellus 360. It was memorable for me because I was so excited to play the music from one of my all-time favorite albums. I was also pretty nervous about the singing. It's a style I don't do much of, plus Chet's voice is so unique, and it was a concert situation with people paying to be there and listen. Had we been playing background music in a bar, I would have been more comfortable. It was a stressful yet satisfying experience to have stepped out of my comfort zone to try something new.
Adding to the stress, was my morning misadventure that day with cleaning out my horn. It's not usually a good idea to do that before a gig unless you clean your horns often, which I don't. The thinking is that if you remove too much dirt and scum out of your dirty horn, it will play slightly to somewhat differently than you're accustomed to. I've found this to be true, yet decided to proceed anyway. My horn is old, and the valve markings are worn off. More worn off than I thought. After the cleaning, I couldn't get my valves back into the horn in the right sequence, meaning that no air would go through it. (Yep- embarrassing. I should't even be admitting this.). Anyway I had to use a different horn and ended up playing flugelhorn for much of the gig. This may not sound like a big deal, and it isn't really, but when you have a certain sound in mind for yourself, it just adds to the discomfort level when you have to alter your thinking at the last minute.
Anyway- all things considered it was a good day and a chance for this middle-aged dog to try some new tricks.
Todd Fulginiti Quartet performing the Chet Baker sings album in February.
Rise Up Awaken
Continuing on the path of trying new things, and while all my gigs were cancelled, I wrote and recorded an original song called Rise Up Awaken. I write stuff all the time, but it's almost always instrumental, so I thought writing a "real song" would be fun. It was! Again, I was out of my comfort zone a bit with the vocal style, but was happy overall with the way the track turned out. Tom Herr pitched in on bass and guitar, and I even got my wife Tammy to play flute on it after a 20 year lay-off. Steve Puffer at Parallel Productions was very patient with me as I stumbled my way through half-baked ideas until we landed on something workable. To finish it up, I went around Rehoboth Beach, DE and Lancaster, PA shooting footage which I used to create a video for the song. Check it out:
Wexford Carol/My People On The Streets
For the third year in a row, the Fulginiti Family Band (my daughters Bailey and Ally, Bailey's boyfriend Tom, and myself) recorded a Christmas song to use as a fundraiser for a local cause. We chose Wexford Carol, and donated the money to our friend Dave Costarella's homeless project called "My People On The Streets". I'm proud of the way the music turned out, and I'm very grateful for everybody who donated to our cause. We were able to give Dave a check for $1500, by far our most successful project so far!
Even though Christmas is over, it's still ok to listen to the track if you want. Here it is:
Music-wise, 2020 was rough, but it wasn't all bad, and it gave me the time to stretch out and experiment. I don't think any of us really know if things are going to better musically this year or not. We're certainly hopeful. In the meantime, there are 6 NFL playoff games this weekend and I plan to watch every one.
Fulginiti Family Band is proud to share our 3rd annual holiday single with you, Wexford Carol. It's a beautiful Irish melody, sung by Bailey & Ally, against a backdrop of handbells, flugelhorns and bass, played by Tom Herr and I. Of the 3 holiday singles we've done, this one is easily my favorite.
We're giving the track away for free, to everybody who wants to listen. But as always, we're also hoping to do some good in the community with it by asking for donations. The money will go to a special, grass-roots operation in Lancaster called "My People On The Streets", administered by Dave Costarella.
Dave is the real-life angel who collects and distributes food, clothing and other essentials to those living on the streets of Lancaster. Dave goes out several nights per week from fall through winter, and has a huge impact on the well-being of those in our community that have fallen on hard times. Dave has also created an outstanding booklet aimed at helping communities and municipalities to better understand the needs of the homeless.
Dave's living room is filled with clothing to distribute and his kitchen is where he prepares the meals he hands out. It's a beautiful act of love, but it comes with expenses. Donations will go to helping Dave get what he needs to continue the work of caring for those on the streets.
To download Wexford Carol and/or make a donation, go to www.toddfulginiti.com. The Wexford link is right there on the home page, or you can download it directly from this blog.
We tend to think that homelessness is a far away problem that could never happen to us, but that's not really true. It's closer to many of us than we might admit. It may only take one or two big setbacks to put us in that position ourselves.
Please share Wexford with your friends and encourage them to donate as well.
Thanks, Merry Christmas, and Best Wishes for a Happy New Year!
As has been mentioned a zillion times by everybody since the pandemic hit, the slower lifestyle/cancelled gig calendar caused by Covid has made it easier to find time to do some this things we always talked abut doing but never did. For me, one of those things was to write and record an original song that wasn't an instrumental. A few weeks ago, I released the results of that effort, Rise Up, Awaken.
To go along with that, today I'm posting a video for the song. It was a fun project to work on! I have no training and minimal equipment, but was interested to see how things would turn out if I gave it a shot anyway. I recently got a new phone with a better camera, and I knew I wanted to get some footage at Rehoboth Beach, DE, so it was a good excuse for me to go to the beach and play with my new toy.
I got lucky hiking my favorite beach trail and got some good footage of a buck and a crab- made me feel like I was working for National Geographic for a minute!
I finished up the footage by walking around my hometown of Lancaster, PA, added a few of clips from a website called Pexel.com, and then assembled everything using iMovie. Low budget- low tech- pretty fun though!
Now I'm hoping people will listen to the song, watch the video, and get some joy or even inspiration out of it. If not, at least both projects were a good way to amuse myself and to learn a few things.
Rise Up, Awaken is available for download/donation at our store page, and on most streaming sites. Proceeds will benefit The Siera Club, The ACLU and Public Health Initiative.
Let’s be honest- 2020 sucks and it's mostly our own fault. The reasons why are obvious. The good news is that we can fix it if we wake up to our situation and get to work- together. That’s the idea behind Rise Up, Awaken.
Ironically, the pandemic we're trying to beat is, in part, what gave me the time to try something new- songwriting. Earlier this year, when the pandemic wiped all of our calendars clean, many people used that time to work on projects; improving on something they already were into, or maybe attempting to learn or experience something new. The quarantine also gave us time to think and reflect, instead of just running through our daily routine of tasks.
For me, having no gigs to play was a good thing in many ways. I was fortunate to have been pretty busy up to that point, but needed a break. When the shutdown came, I didn't pick up my trumpet for several months. Instead, I shifted my focus to a few of the things I had been wanting to do, that never seemed to get any of my attention. I started a new blog (www.fiveoclockshadow.life), completed a sustainability presentation I had stalled on, and continued wondering how I could use music for the common good, rather than just for playing whatever gig I was hired for.
I really enjoy arranging and writing, but as a trumpet player, nearly everything I've done is instrumental. I wanted to try writing a "real" song this time, one with a social message. Ironically, even though I'm writer/blogger, I've never been good with lyrics or poetry. And, I'm a trumpet player who does some singing, not the other way around. So, I knew there were hurdles.
I grabbed my ukulele and headed down to our basement to experiment. Eventually, my original, Irish folk-sounding idea evolved into a reggae style sketch of Rise Up, Awaken. It's hard to write a song with a social message without being influenced by Bob Marley. At least, it is for me. I took the sketch to Steve Puffer at Parallel Productions just to experience the recording process from a new angle, and we started working on the track. It was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together when you're sure some of the pieces belong to another puzzle! It was fun though, especially because the whole thing was an experiment- no deadlines, and no consequences if the track ended up unusable. My only real goal was to see the process through to the end, whether that resulted in a completed song or not.
Tom Herr, my daughter's boyfriend, recorded the bass and guitar tracks from his apartment in Bethlehem PA, and sent them to Steve. I played everything else except the vibraslap and the flute. If you ever need a good vibraslap sound, Steve is the guy- I didn't realized what a skill there is to that! My wife Tammy surprisingly agreed to play the flute parts. She was a really good player back in high school and kept playing at church and community groups until our kids were born. She hadn't played in about 25 years. Even though she said she was nervous enough to puke right into the mic, she got the parts down!
When we were all done and I'd finally stopped obsessing over which vocal effects to use or not use, I realized I needed some sort of cover art. My friend Kirsten Lefever is an outstanding artist and she gave me a few of her pieces when I retired from teaching a few years ago. They hang on the wall. Up close, one of them looks to me like a bunch of people holding hands, joining themselves together with each other and connecting to something beyond as well. That's what the song is about.
Most of the time, when I make music, the goal is to bring joy or satisfaction to listeners. But with this track, I'm hoping to combine my music and blogging/writing interests, and to reach listeners in a more meaningful way.
The track is available here at www.toddfulginiti.com on the store page and at many streaming sites. It's pay-what-you-want, with all proceeds going to The Sierra Club, ALCU, and Public Health Institute.
The first bad sign was that the wedding was on Halloween. But on other hand, I thought something like that could turn out to be pretty cool. I love Halloween!
It started with an unknown guy texting me, looking for music for his daughters wedding. He said he found my website and noticed that I'm located near the wedding venue, which was a house about 5 miles from mine. He gave the house address and the hours involved in the wedding.
Naturally, I asked him what kind of music he was looking for and also asked for more specific information about which parts of the wedding he wanted us to play (ceremony, cocktails hour, dinner, dancing, everything). He didn't answer those questions but just reiterated the times involved.
I got the sense that maybe this guy was not a native English-speaker. Some of his phrasing, while not wrong, was just a little unusual. No big deal though. It was more odd that he seemed to be avoiding any talk about the musical product we were expected to deliver.
A night or two later, I was driving near the address where the wedding was to take place, so I decided to swing by and take a look. The place was very impressive and huge. A mansion of a house, with large grounds, a tennis court, and a pool. And a "For Sale" sign on the front lawn right by the curb.
Halloween wedding, no musical discussion, venue is a house that's for sale. Nothing felt right or normal, yet I didn't want to jump to any conclusions yet. So, I googled the so-called father of the bride. Nothing. Facebooked him. Nope. Googled again. Still nothing. Again I thought this was unusual but not unheard of. I was still naive enough to think that some people have no web presence whatsoever. My daughter proved that wrong a few days later during a discussion of this potential wedding gig and it's accompanying weirdness.
My next text from the bride's dad said that my fee for the music was acceptable, and that he hopes I can accept a credit card as payment. I told him I could, provided I could work out a technical snag that had recently popped up. I also asked him again about music. His response was that he would like to pay in full, up front, but had a favor he needed to ask of me. Still nothing about the actual music he was paying for.
The favor started with an explanation that the wedding planner could not accept credit cards for payment, and that was a problem. His solution was that I bill him for not only my musical services, but also for the entire wedding planner's fee, which was north of $3,000. Additionally, I was to add a few hundred dollars for myself for handling this favor for him. I wondered why a wedding planner used to charging fees in that range wouldn't be set-up to accept credit cards himself, and why wouldn't he be the one taking care of the music, rather than Dad.
At this point I should have known for sure that I was being scammed, but I thought about it for day or two. It felt wrong, but on the other hand, I've been involved in some pretty innocent situations that have almost gone way wrong due to language/translation issues. So I was skeptical, but open to the possibility that things were ok, just weird.
I must have "sucker" written all over me because everybody else who heard my story said to end it immediately. So I did some more research, and it turns out that this guy's phone number is untraceable, not connected to any known identify. It also turns out that his approach is a variation on what is apparently a pretty common scam. In simplified form, the father of the bride would convince me to overcharge him for a service, then send the money to a third party (wedding planner). If the timing works out correctly, I would have paid the wedding planner before the credit card purchase was approved. I was surprised to learn that, even in today's light-speed world, that transactions can take up to two weeks to totally complete. In the meantime, I pay the wedding planner, who is presumably a partner in crime to the father of the bride. Dad's credit is rejected by the banks, but mine goes through, essentially meaning that I would receive a large sum of nothing from Dad, while giving a lesser large sum of cash to the crime buddy.
We hadn't gotten to the point of drawing up contracts or anything, this was all done through texting. I knew several things about this scene were not right, yet I'm a little embarrassed that I cautiously toyed with the idea for a few minutes before hearing everybody else call to shut it down.
Anyway, I reported the guy to the FTC, took screen shots of our correspondence, deleted the text strain, and worked on booking another gig- hopefully a real one this time.
Can you still call yourself a musician if you don’t have any gigs? My vocalist daughter wondered this out loud during a recent conversation, in which I informed her that yet another one our gigs together had been cancelled due to the virus. In answering, I tried to be Confucius-esque, asking if a hammer remains a hammer as it waits on the tool shelf. Ah, so I'm no great master of wisdom sayings, but my daughter's question is legit.
How much does what we do inform our identity? If we stop doing it, do we lose our identity?
For many, identity is tied up in a person's work and musicians are not exempt from that. Musicians may choose music as a career because it occupies a large portion of their day anyway. Many of us hear music in our head all day long, and sounds (musical or not) have an effect on us. Our brains may be working to both simultaneously enjoy and analyze what we hear during every waking moment, and even sometimes as we sleep. We wonder about musical ideas and kick them around in our brains even if it's just an abstract mental exercise. We may or may not enjoy the grueling, tediousness of practicing, but we love the results enough to continue doing it.
Those things still happen to musicians whether, as professionals, we have gigs or not. For the musician, music is not just a job or a way to generate income. It is a deeply ingrained, lifelong passion that cannot be extinguished. That sounds sappy and cliché, and I hate saying it, but in this case it’s true.
It stinks that there are almost no opportunities to perform right now because of the pandemic. But when it passes, musicians will return to the stage. If it does not pass, we will keep creating music anyway, and we'll figure out how best to share it with people. No matter what state the world is in, people will always need some form of art and entertainment. Even if they didn't, musicians and artists would still do what they do because they can't help it, it's part of who they are.
A hammer is still a hammer with or without nails to pound. And musicians are still musicians even if they don’t have any gigs.
Musicians are experiencing a new kind of whiplash this spring as robust gig calendars have been completely annihilated by coronavirus social restrictions. Some, like Todd Fulginiti Music (TFM) artist Bailey Fulginiti & bassist Tom Herr, are using the time to reformat and reach new listeners. The couple, along with their dog Giselle, is sheltering in place in their Bethlehem, PA apartment where they've begun a new video series called Quarantine Covers. We spoke to them recently via FaceTime.
TFM: How has Covid-19 affected your music plans for the spring?
Bailey: Well, it was like having a whiteboard, with stuff written down all over it, and then....whoosh! It's all gone now!
TFM: What types of gigs did you lose?
Bailey: Well you should know since you booked most of them (laughs) but mostly outdoor private events and some restaurant jazz dates. Tom?
Tom: I had three musicals in a row scheduled, to play bass for. They're all cancelled. I was supposed to start rehearsals for the third one this week. Also a few jazz gigs.
TFM: So what are you doing musically now that there are no gigs?
Bailey: We've been trying to write more of our own stuff.
Tom: Yeah, we've been trying to make better demos of the originals using Logic. I have more time to work on that stuff now that I'm working my day job from home. I usually drive about 2 hours a day for work. We've also been listening to a lot more music.
TFM: So how did the Quarantine Cover video series come about? Were you planning something like that prior to the social restrictions?
Bailey: Sort of. We were trying to find more ways to do music together. Then, when everything shut down, we basically had two choices: A- sit on our ass and do nothing, not practice, and slowly get worse, or B- have something that we post, every week, that keeps us accountable and practicing.
Tom: Yeah and hopefully the cover songs will drive some engagement and get us some followers, so that by the time we are recording originals, we'll have some people listening.
TFM: How do you pick the tunes you're going to cover?
Bailey: We usually do one that we really like, that may not be super popular, then switch it up next time with something everybody knows. We're hoping people will like the songs they don't already know, and that it will push them to check out that artist's music too.
Tom: The other thing that drives our song selection is restriction of instrumentation. I'm mainly a bass player, but I'm mostly playing guitar on these songs out of necessity. I'm sort of limited on what I can actually play on the guitar, but there aren't a lot of songs that work for just bass and vocals- so yeah, guitar playing out of necessity.
TFM: So you're practicing more guitar than bass these days?
Tom: Yeah. It's good though. I can get away without practicing bass for a little while because I've done it so much, but guitar is too new. I'm getting a lot better but I lose it pretty quick if I don't keep on it.
TFM: You've done 5 Quarantine Covers so far, which is your favorite?
Tom: Mine was the Scott Mulvahill (Fighting For The Wrong Side) because I actually got to play bass and it's a pretty fun baseline to play.
Bailey: Same. All the other songs we've done have been trimmed down from their full instrumentation to just vocals and one other part. But Fighting For The Wrong Side was originally written for just bass and vocals so we could do it as it was written. Plus, the imagery and story of that song are strong.
TFM: What was the coolest thing that's happened so far as a result of the Quarantine Cover series?
Bailey: I didn't think some people would really care about what we're doing, but they do. I mean people from high school that I didn't really know that well and haven't kept up with. But they've been like, "Hey I really like these videos!" It's nice!
Tom: We've also had a few good retweets. Scott Mulvahill retweeted our cover of his song (Fighting For The Wrong Side), and P.C. King retweeted our last video. (P.C. King is a respected musician in the area). So we got shared by the original artist and a local music hero.
TFM: What's the toughest part about home recording?
Bailey: Keeping Gigi quiet! She's a perfect angel all day then when we start to record she's like (makes whining dog sounds).
Tom: At least half of our bad takes are because Giselle makes a sound, not because we messed up.
Bailey: Some of the videos we post have dog sounds on them because we get almost the whole way through, then she makes some noise, and we're like, "I am not going through all that again!"
Todd Fulginiti Quartet performing the Chet Baker sings album in February.
