One thing that I have loved doing is making cover bands, or cover projects.  I think this comes from having played in bar bands, especially in Iowa back when I was a pup.  It has always been fun and fascinating to me to really deeply check out a piece of music, or a particular artist, or a particular style.  The deep dive is really inspiring, and the outcome is often a powerful desire to make music.  My cover projects, though, are not about note-for-note covers, but about using the music that was already made as the starting place.

In 2014, I called up my friends Peter Kenagy (trumpet), Jamie Stewardson (guitar) and Austin McMahon and asked them to join me in playing the music of Art Farmer’s great record Live at the Half Note.  I worked up a few sketchy transcriptions, and we were off.  We shared a double bill with Jeremy Udden (fantastic saxophone player on my Study of Light record), and this video is the tune he sat in on.  I was pleasantly surprised to see a NEC student of mine (Otchy Ochida) bootlegging a video of this, and so the results look…bootleggy.  But you can still get a sense for the curiosity and excitement that we played with.