Jon Birkholz dot com

trapped in the moment

admin — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 14:18:31 +0000

What is it we do? For myself and a lot of musicians I know, we do everything we can. I’m talking about musically. Classical, Jazz, Rock, Pop, whatever. Most of us have studied a lot of Jazz, which makes it easier for us to pick up other modern styles easily. However a lot of what we work on is soloing or improvising, often in the context of one tune. Are we too obsessed with soloing?
It seems to me that we are a small struggling culture of people who exist for that minute or two during a song where it’s our time to shine. I’m not saying exclusively of course, there are lots of things to enjoy about playing and practicing music. However I’ve noticed that students of Jazz seem to spend a lot more time on this than anything else (granted it’s harder than playing something pre-determined).
I’d like to believe that there is some meaning behind this. Often, a layperson can’t even tell the difference between a solo and something else. So are we just obsessed with ourselves and how we sound during our brief moment of glory? It’s really interesting that we spend all this time talking and thinking and planning what we could play or what we might play.
“You know what’s a cool thing to do on dominant seventh chords?” is an opening to a large number of conversations I’ve been a part of or overheard. It’s kind of crazy to spend hours and hours running patterns over one tune, just to be able to take a “good solo” which lasts maybe two minutes during a seven to nine minute song. We spend most of our time working on things we might play. So we kind of obsess over and wrap ourselves in the awareness of these couple of minutes. Seems pretty self-aggrandizing. But as a musician, you have to believe that what you’re doing is worth listening to. Lately I like to think that the solo is our chance to communicate in the way that we know best. In a solo, anything goes (sort of) so this is our chance to speak our minds in the language of music.
Anyway, just something I’ve been thinking about lately…

Strong Records first recording session

admin — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 15:03:13 +0000

Excited to have had Microkingdom here on Sunday to record the very first Strong Records record. Or whatever. Strong Records is 2 Jons: myself and Mr. Lipscomb. For now, we are doing hit & run recordings in my living room to amass a body of high quality sounds. More info soon. Check out our page on f-book:

If you think you could make a STRONG record, get in touch. We are currently booking the week of December 10-14

exciting things are in the works

admin — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:27:49 +0000

Really excited for a couple of shows coming up – more details soon. I got to see my good friend Zach Swanson yesterday when we made an audition video with drummer Mike Ross for a cruise gig in October. Changed the name of my solo project – check out Inca on facebook/incarocks. Also I’m making the Jazz Lunch record “Housewarming” available for free download on soundcloud

if for some crazy reason you felt like owning the physical cd (the design is really cool I swear!) you could purchase it from our cdbaby page

CD release show recording

admin — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:50:18 +0000

personnel: Ben Frock, trumpet; Jarrett Gilgore, alto; Dan Ryan, guitar; Jon Birkholz, piano; Zach Swanson, bass; Chad Hochberg, drums;

enjoy!

Jazz Lunch on CDbaby

admin — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:47:30 +0000

Coinciding with the release of the new Jazz Lunch CD “Housewarming,” the record has been made available for sale on cdbaby. I hope you choose to support our efforts to bring you the highest quality homemade music. Here is a brief history of the CD:

Housewarming was recorded over the first weekend in June here in my living room. Jon Lipscomb mixed the live performance to two tracks and the album is presented as is, with only one edit on the entire record. It was then mastered by the elite Paul Wickliffe of Skyline productions in New Jersey. At this point (late summer) the audio was 100% complete and published online.

Next a team of artists, designers, and photographers went to work on the art. The end result is a handmade outer sleeve, containing one of two randomly assorted insert sleeve designs. The disc itself is stamped with the title and the record label, Reoccurring Dreams Records, a local independent label.

Here is a list of people who have participated in making this record happen:

Musicians: Dan Ryan, Jon Birkholz, Zach Swanson, Chad Hochberg, Frank Russo, Eric Trudel, Ben Frock, Brent Madsen, Gary Thomas, Eric Trudel

Sound Engineers: Jon Lipscomb, Paul Wickliffe

Artists: Nick Brooks, Grace Macfarlane, Lauren Shusterich

Manufacturing: Morphius Records, Reoccurring Dreams Records, Jon Birkholz, Matt Frazao, Abbie Shoemaker, Joe Bussey

interview with Doc Manning on WEAA

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:54:38 +0000

Hey folks, I’ll be doing a phone interview with Doc Manning tonight on WEAA about the new Jazz Lunch record around 8:20 pm if you feel like tuning in.

A very windy jazz lunch

admin — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:00:13 +0000

Join Jazz Lunch today for melodica/alto saxophone duets featuring our new alto player Jarrett Gilgore. The new Jazz Lunch record will be available for sale. Exciting news coming soon- stay tuned.

even more uses for rice

admin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:30:21 +0000

Here’s a first for me: rice with eggs. Scrambled eggs. Scramble some eggs and put some rice in there. Ok now some cheese (I used jarlsberg) and now some mustard. Try it. Pretty weird huh? If you can get past the texture this might be edible even. Kind of reminds me of oatmeal omelettes.

also if you want to read something funnier than this was about cooking check out Cooking with Pizzazz

Jazz Lunch record is out

admin — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:36:18 +0000

here’s to new things

admin — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:32:47 +0000

1. new projects
2. new friends
3. new bands
4. new venues
5. new opportunities
6. new albums

good friend and bassist Adam Hopkins will be moving to Brooklyn NY this Thursday – I’d like to wish him and the others who are moving (Eric, Cam, Nathan, Chad etc) North all the best in their new adventures. As Adam says “this isn’t goodbye” although things are definitely going to change a lot for all of us. A lot of my friends have been talking about this day with some trepidation. In response to this, above is a list of things that we all have to look forward to as a result of this change, whether we are staying where we are or going somewhere new.

cheers guys, and best wishes to everyone