Putting on a clinic

Serious students of music would've been wise to attend the Washington Jazz Society's Sunday Jazz Buffet a couple of days ago.

I was limited by time constraints to the first couple of sets of performers: Dan Baker (guitar) with Josh Dunlevy (saxophone), followed by Dan playing with fellow guitarist Tony Janflone Sr.


All three are teachers, and they could have put on a clinic with their performances on Sunday. I certainly was enthusiastic about capturing them on video, particularly the guitarists. I want to take a closer look at their finger work for a tip or two to possibly help my own playing ... although I'll never have that kind of agility!

As for the video footage, I'll put in my usual two cents about how it could have been better. The concert was in the ballroom of The George Washington, a grand old hotel in Washington, PA, and a great venue for this type of event. The performers played in front of a large window, and it was sunny that day, meaning a lot of light in the background and the camera often capturing shadows of the musicians. Fortunately, I was stationed on a balcony overlooking the proceedings, and the angle allowed a sufficient amount of light for the recording, particularly during zoomed-in close-ups.

For the audio, I used one microphone on the balcony and the other one down on the floor, figuring that might make for good separation in the recording. It did, but the mikes also picked up all the chatting that was going on during the performances. The resulting product had kind of a "jazz club" vibe to it, but I wish I would have had the microphones closer to the guitar amplifiers. (Josh's horn playing generally came through loud and clear.)

Here are videos of songs performed by Josh and Dan:

"Red's Blues"

"Ornithology"

And here are Tony and Dan performing a couple of Tony's compositions:

"I Heard Wes Do It"

"The Tent"

What's Up With That?

For more than a decade, the Observer-Reporter ran a regular Monday profile of an individual (or occasionally, individuals) in the Washington/Greene County area who had an interesting story to tell.

Eventually, all standing features run their course, so we came up with a new concept for each Monday: What's Up With That? The title is self-explanatory. Numerous occurrences prompt that question, and we're trying to come up with some answers.


Tying in with the newspaper feature is a short video production related in some manner to the topic at hand. We've started with a three-minute film called "Amanda Ponders the Hereafter," accompanying Amanda Gillooly's story about a venture called casketfurniture.com, which, indeed, makes caskets that can be used as furniture until they're needed for the other purpose.

We're attempting to bring some levity to the subject matter, and in test screenings we had viewers chuckling.

Here, you can judge for yourself: "Amanda Ponders the Hereafter"

Talk about cute

My kids all are teenagers and older, which has its ups and downs, of course. They're pretty much self-sufficient these days, and they don't cause a whole lot of trouble. But they haven't been what I'd consider to be cute in many years.

And so I experienced a tinge of nostalgia last week when I was invited to film the Pint-size Prom, an event for youngsters and their families at the Wilfred R. Cameron Wellness Center in South Strabane Township, PA.

The concept was to dress the youngsters in their best clothes, have their pictures taken and dance to the music, just like at a real prom. And one word described the proceedings: Cute!

OK, that sounds a bit hackneyed, even as I'm typing it. But what the heck.

From a videographer's standpoint, I at first tried to talk with some of the youngsters, to have them tell me about dressing up, etc. But they were understandably shy (big guy with a big video camera), so I spent the evening taking shots of them, their parents and grandparents having a good time. Then, after an intro by coordinator Elizabeth Flynn, who was there with her own daughter, I set the whole thing to an upbeat piece of music I put together quickly with GarageBand.

And so you have it: The Pint-size Prom

It's all good

Sometimes I think I'm getting too old for weekend-length music festivals.

Then I take a look at some of the folks who are playing at those types of festivals.

For example, one of the headlining acts for the All Good Music Festival and Camp Out, scheduled July 11-13, is Phil Lesh & Friends. By then, Phil will be 68 years old.

So I guess I can't complain.

At any rate, I've seen many of the scheduled artists perform, or I'm at least familiar with their music. Of particular interest in Gov't Mule, featuring Warren Haynes, possibly the best rock guitarist out there plying his trade today. He's played substantially with Phil in the past (as well as being a regular member with the Allman Brothers), and can lay claim to being the hardest-working man in show business, now that James Brown no longer is with us.

Speaking of the Allmans, another current member of that great American band, Derek Trucks, will be performing with his wife, Susan Tedeschi, in their Soul Stew Revival. He plays a mean guitar, and she belts out the blues (and plays a mean guitar, too), so that should be a heck of a show.

And Widespread Panic, which has been around for about 25 years now, certainly is worth the price of admission.

Anyway, the festival is in Masontown, W.Va. Whether I really am too old to attend remains to be seen ...

PSB2

Amwell Township resident Patti Spadaro played her second show with a four-piece band the weekend before last at Scooby's in South Fayette Township. I wanted to come up with some better audio quality than at the Patti Spadaro Band's debut in January, when a patch from the soundboard didn't quite do the trick. So this time, I used a pair of ambient microphones, an approach that I'm finding to work fairly well as I record more musicians.


The audio, indeed, turned out much better. Unfortunately, I did nothing with the camera to compensate for the lack of bright lighting at the Scooby's gig, so I brightened the footage during the editing process. As a result, the finished product is kind of grainy.

Oh, well. You still can see clearly how well Patti plays guitar, and that's what counts.

Here is Patti's original composition "Give a Little Back," the opening track of her CD "Short Stay."

And check out the band on another of her originals, "Let's Roll".

Small world

If you can read this without that horrible Disney song getting stuck in your head: It's a small world, after all.

I'd met a young guitarist named Kyle Ingram a few years ago, when he and a drummer performed a morning set during the Rock Off at Peters Township Community Day. Kyle wowed the crowd that had gathered thus far by ripping up a bunch of "oldies," many of them by way of Led Zeppelin.

Kyle turned out to be the nephew of a friend of a friend, and I met up with him again at a party on a farm in Avella a few months later. And his guitar playing stole the show again.

Then, not so long ago, I ran into Kyle when he was finished with practice at the Guitar Gallery in North Strabane. I told to keep me informed about his band, and he's done so.


Meanwhile, my friend Ray from Chartiers Township was talking about his son, Joe, playing drums in a band that had a couple of really good guitar players. One of them, or course, turned out to be Kyle.

Small world.

The band, Lock N Load, has had just a handful of practices and needs to find a vocalists. But the four musicians have enough talent to perform a series of instrumentals to an enthusiastic audience, as they did last week at Bunnie's in Cecil Township.

Joe Margiotta's drum solo during "Moby Dick" received a particularly warm response, and here's the video.

While we're on Zeppelin covers, here's Kyle's "Heartbreaker" guitar solo.

And here's the whole band doing a couple of Hendrix tunes.

Telling the story

Shooting decent video takes practice. You need a good eye for what you're shooting, much like a photographer. You have to think constantly about what you'll need to enhance the video during the editing process. And you have to make sure what you capture is going to make sense in the long run.

Last month, I visited Little Creek Performance Horses in Amwell Township, PA, with our staff writer Erin Faulk, who was writing a profile piece on owner Suzie Mocniak. Suzie and her husband, Michael, turned out to be very friendly, interesting people who had a lot to do and say for the camera.


As a result, I captured almost an hour's worth of footage, which was good. Then I let it sit on my computer for several weeks, which wasn't so good. It's best to finish such projects when they're fresh in your mind.

By the time I returned to Suzie's video, any ideas I'd had about the finished product had long since been forgotten. So I pretty much went from scratch, going through all the footage, highlighting the best commentary and images, then trying to tie them into a package that not only flowed well but told a coherent story.

Did I pull it off? You can be the judge by taking a look at
'American Dream, Phase 2'

Good connections

A rather lengthy obituary ran in the Observer-Reporter just before the end of the year for Edward S. Martin of Washington, who died Dec. 20 at age 93.

Edd was the only son of Gen. Edward Martin, who preferred to be known by his military rank even though he went on to be governor of Pennsylvania and Republican Senator from the Keystone State.

The younger Martin inherited his father's collection of, well, you name it. I've never seen anything quite like it, as it was on display Thursday at the Three Rivers Auction Co. in Washington, ready for a weekend of bidding.


Gen. Martin (1879-1967) knew just about anyone of any importance during the first half of the 20th century, as evidenced by his personal mementos, including items autographed by everyone from Winston Churchill to John F. Kennedy when he was a freshman Senator from Massachusetts. The general also collected art, books, glass, firearms, vintage liquor and furniture made from timber in the original White House, just to name a few sundry items.

His son inherited the bulk of the collection, and Edd had no children. He had discussed the eventual disposition of the materials with my friend Tripp Kline, owner of Three Rivers. And this weekend, the Gen. Edward Martin collection will be available to the highest-bidding American history aficionados throughout the world.

I culled a 3 1/2-minute video from nearly an hour of Tripp chronicling the various items and the interesting stories to be told about them. This, despite keeping a Valentine's Day dinner date with Mrs. Funk, and Lane and Lisa McFarland. (If you want someone to build you a quality home, talk to them ...)

Anyway, click here to see the Martin video

And click here for more information about the auction

Photo: Tripp's niece Jessica updates information about Gen. Martin for the auction company's Web site.

Flashes of creativity?

Two of my favorite musicians, Tom Breiding and Patti Spadaro, both Washington Countians, have been joining forces onstage every once in a while.

On Saturday night, they combined acts at a venue called Scooby's in South Fayette Township. Tom opened with an acoustic set, followed by the Patti Spadaro Band playing its second-ever show.

Patti and Tom played one song together, at the end of Tom's set, performing "The Balladeer's Son" from his album "Happy Hour in the Round Hotel." They previously had done the tune as a duo when Tom played last month at the Inspiration Cafe in Washington.


Scooby's has an area set aside specifically for enjoying music, complete with a sofa and a few comfy chairs. It's a nice atmosphere, with one minor drawback for the videographer: not-so-strong lighting. That's fine for the musicians and audience, and I thought it would be OK for my camera; it looked OK as I filmed it. But I ended up toning the finished product to up the brightness, and the end result looks a bit grainy.

During a good portion of "The Balladeer's Son," I was wondering around taking photos on an aging Nikon CoolPix. As a result, the video captures a series of flashes during the performance. What to do ...

It was a no-brainer to drop the resulting stills into the video at the appropriate spots. But to make the effect distinctive, I superimposed the stills over an old-fashioned, 35mm-film-type image. (Technically, I guess I should've rendered the stills as negatives in that case, but that would've looked truly bizarre.)

Anyway, if nothing else, the music speaks for itself in this video version of "The Balladeer's Son"

A brief look...

...at some of the videos we recently featured.

Scoot Beveridge wrote a blog entry about the Nintendo Wii. There's an accompanying slideshow which can also be viewed on his blog. The game in question is Wii Boxing if you were curious.

Last Sunday, Christie Campbell's profile of Diane Snoke ran. Diane is a talented stained glass artist and we filmed her making a night light from start to finish.

Mike Bradwell's "Go Inside the Business" features are always popular. Monday's article on Miller Plastics is sure to follow that trend; our video companion piece features interviews and footage of machinery designed to create all sorts of interesting and useful products out of plastic.

Our newest video is a feature on Off the Wall Theater, a local theater which will be running a variety of shows in the near future. Opening this weekend is An Adult Evening of One Acts by Shel Silverstein. The video features interviews, scheduling information, and a few sneak peeks at the performers rehearsing.

flipside

For many years, the Observer-Reporter has conducted a learning program for students who are interested in getting a head start in writing for a newspaper.


This school year, flipside advisers Bess Dunlevy and Greg Tarr encouraged the students to become involved in multimedia, which is integral to the future of journalism.

The first result is the video "flipside staff presents: INDIVIDUALITY," a topic that coincides with the theme of this month's in-print flipside. Half a dozen high school and middle school students provide insight about why they believe it's important to be themselves.

The students were not hesitant to share their views, which we hope you'll find interesting.

Check out INDIVIDUALITY

Thanks, A.J. and Amy

Today, I took a tour of Creative Visions Multimedia Services, just around the corner from our newspaper office in Washington, PA.

The owners, A.J. Brach and Amy Taylor, have a serious setup, with both the physical equipment to produce quality videos and the necessary computer hardware and software.

A.J. spent a good bit of time showing me Avid, a program that edits video for top-flight professional appearance and sound quality. He walked me through some steps and showed me a few tricks of the trade, so to speak, that should help my own finished products (especially when we get a software upgrade).

It helps to consult with the pros to help you eventually know what you're doing!

'Feels Like Yesterday'

Here's a tricky editing idea ... take a song called "Feels Like Yesterday" and lose the color. B&W. Get it?

Jordan Umbach, the performer, probably has never seen a black-and-white TV, but he's monochromatic on this particular video, recorded when he opened for Brad Yoder on Saturday. The vocals are way over into the left channel, but otherwise the audio sounds fine.

I've seen Jordan play here and there for a few years now, and he's come along very well for a young singer-songwriter-guitarist. Keep an eye out for him as he continues to hone his craft.

In the meantime, here's "Feels Like Yesterday"

Song for a gray day

Last month, I caught a performance by a guitarist who really caught my attention: Reza "Ron" Ziai, who plays a variety of instruments and gets some interesting sounds out of them.

Today, I received a note that he's posted a new song on his MySpace page, and it really fits the mood of a day when the cloud cover is here to stay and the rain looks to keep on falling.

Visit Ron's page to hear "Become"

Brad Yoder

Writing songs is not easy, by any means. If it were, we'd all be stars. Or it would be a situation in which, as Brad Yoder says in one of his song titles, "Everybody's Got a Record."


Brad is one of the select few who not only writes songs, but writes them extremely well. He labels himself a folk singer, which is true, in some records. He often documents life as he sees it, and his audiences can identify with the words he sings, a combination that usually makes for an entertaining show.

Some of his tunes merit heartfelt laughter (Check out "Local Band"); others might bring the sensitive listener to the verge of tears. But whatever he chooses to sing, prepare to be impressed by what he accomplishes as a singer and guitarist. And a songwriter, of course.

On Saturday, Brad played at the Inspiration Cafe in Washington, a small coffee house that has some pretty good acoustics. I recorded him through the soundboard on one channel, and on the other I used a microphone placed about four feet from the speaker onstage. The result is a mix that highlights his guitar in one channel and the vocals in the other, perhaps a bit too prominent of a separation in some places, but the sound is very clean.

Unfortunately, I must have inadvertently did something with the white balance as far as the video, as Brad shows up in sort of a magenta hue, and the image isn't as sharp as it should be. Oh, well. I'll double-check next time.

You can see what I mean on this video: 'One Excuse'

Opening for Brad was Jordan Umbach, a Washington student who shows a lot of promise with his own songwriting and is developing an assured manner of performing in front of audiences. I'll post something of his shortly.

'Suck da head'

OK, that title should've gotten your attention. It's a New Orleans-type expression that applies to eating crawfish. You know, with Mardi Gras coming up soon and all ...

Speaking of crawfish, if you're a fan of the small, freshwater crustaceans (we used to catch 'em in the creek and call 'em "crayfish"), and you don't make it down to N'Awlins very often, there's a festival that's just for you. Although you still have to make the drive to Jersey ...


In 2000, I attended Michael Arnone's Crawfish Festival in Sussex County, N.J. That's about midway between the Poconos and New Jack City, in a scenic mountainous area of Jersey that most folks don't know exists. I went with some friends primarily to see a New Orleans ensemble called the Radiators - "best band in the land," it's been said about them - and also sampled quite a bit of the Cajun-laced cuisine on hand. (The Rads, BTW, do a song called "Suck Da Head." They, of course, played it in '00.)

So this year's Crawfish Festival, the 19th annual, is the weekend after Memorial Day, May 30 through June 1. There's plenty of room for camping if you're a Western Pennsylvanian who wants to make the pilgrimage and rough it for a few days. Along with the Radiators, some of the close to two dozen acts scheduled to perform include the legendary Allen Toussaint (check out his album with Elvis Costello, "The River in Reverse"), the Funky Meters (big hit with "Cissy Strut"), Tab Benoit, Donna the Buffalo, Guitar Shorty, Mitch Woods and the Rocket '88s, and Rosie Ledet & the Zydeco Playboys.

If you're planning to stick around Western PA that weekend ... well, you're not going to find quality crawfish anywhere around here.

Your Music Genre Isn't Dead

Well, not necessarily. I suppose if you're into the baroque movement, there isn't a whole lot of innovation going on for that right now, but if you're a fan of something slightly more recent and some of the groups that appear on the previously-mentioned Wolfgang's Vault interest you, then I have the the website for you. Pandora.

Now, this site isn't just for lovers of oldies. You can learn about a lot of current-day mainstream hits and get a pretty thorough tour of the various underground scenes as well. Pandora aims to find music suited directly to your tastes and play that music for you in a streaming radio format.

Here's how it works: you register an account (it's free), then you create "stations." A station can be based on an artist, a specific song, or a genre. Pandora then accesses a vast database of carefully cataloged music and attempts to play other songs that will fit your musical taste defined by whatever song/artist/genre that station is formed from. So, you can start a Beatles station, for example, and expect to hear many other bands, new and old, that share some part of their style with the Beatles.

It's not perfect, but it's constantly being updated and it does have useful feedback devices. First of all, if you hear a song you like, you can give it a thumbs-up. Songs with a good rating tend to pop up in your play list again and again. If you hear a song you dislike, you can give it a thumbs down. It'll be gone for good at that point. You can also bookmark artists and songs so you can remember them later and proceed directly to sites where you can buy their albums. Finally, they've recently introduced a feature that allows you to link your Pandora account to your Facebook account so your friends can see what you're listening to. Pandora also has some minor networking features built in.

Give it a try. You can even create mix stations that combine two or more of your previously defined stations so that you get a wider range of music. I find that works best.

Wolfgang's Vault

The Wolfgang's Vault site has been up for a while, and it's a tremendous resource for hearing classic rock (and other styles of music) performances that you'd never encountered before.

"Wolfgang" was the real first name of the man known as Bill Graham (1931-91), the legendary promoter who, to a large degree, is responsible for the rock concert as we know it. He accumulated a large archive of performances, and they've been prepared for streaming through the Wolfgang's Vault site.

The Concert Vault is where to find everything from a 1965 show by Jefferson Airplane, before Grace Slick joined the band, to a handful of 21st century concerts (obviously the collection extended beyond Bill's death). If A Flock of Seagulls is your thing, that one-hit '80s wonder is on the list, too.

My personal favorite is a Pink Floyd show on April 29, 1970, at the Fillmore West in San Francisco. I've had a bootleg of the concert for a number of years, but the Wolfgang's vault version sounds a heck of a lot better. The performance is from the pre-"The Dark Side of the Moon" era, when Pink Floyd did quite a bit of improvisation compared with the closely choreographed shows of later years.

Some of the shows also are available for download, for not too much money. So if you want to hear Peter Frampton as he really sounded live - as opposed to the augmentation that resulted in "Frampton Comes Alive" - this is the place to look.