New Recording: Sybaritic String Band (MP3 available) This evening I did a recording session with the Sybaritic String Band (click to view band web site).

The instrumentation is:
Brian Hayden - fiddle
Rich Sobel - fiddle
Barry Cole - mandolin
Geoff Peters - piano

We recorded a medley of lively jigs (Banks of the Allan, Rich's E Jig, and Blue Jay). Rich's E Jig was composed by Rich Sobel. I started the set with a rubato piano solo intro. Please click below to listen, and let me know what you think!

> Banks of the Allan, Rich's E Jig, and Blue Jay - MP3 time 6:49 (Sybaritic String Band)

We made this recording using a MOTU 8-Pre (click to view web site), an high quality 8 channel Firewire interface for home studio and portable recording. Mixed by Geoff Peters.  ¶ 12:02 AM

Douglas College Jazz Intensive (Concert video available) The past week I took part in a jazz camp, the Douglas College Jazz Intensive in New Westminister, BC, Canada, which was organized by director Bob Rebagliati.

It was a great way to spend a week, being surrounded by talented musicians (both young and young-at-heart) and being instructed by excellent music educators such as Alan Matheson, Sharon Minemoto, Bernie Arai, and others.

I recorded our group's final concert (3 songs) and have created Youtube videos of the performance. Here are links to the videos:

1. B.L.P. (click for video)
2. Ladybird (click for video)
3. Modalee (click for video)

The concert recordings in MP3 are also available online (please click here).

B.L.P. and Modalee are original compositions by our instructor, Alan Matheson, who in addition to being an outstanding composer, director, and music educator, is also a talented trumpet player who performs regularly in the Vancouver area. Please click here to view Alan's web site.  ¶ 1:44 AM

New Composition: Soul Ice (for Hockey Night in Canada) Right now there's a songwriting competition going on in Canada, to find the next theme for Hockey Night In Canada. I gave this a whirl mostly as an exercise and came up with "Soul Ice". Please click below to listen, and enjoy! :) If I win, I'll get $100,000 and lots of fame. I'll be posting a link to where you can vote for me soon.

> Soul Ice (Proposed Hockey Night in Canada theme) MP3 time 1:49 - Composed, recorded and performed by Geoff Peters

Update, Aug 24th 2008:
My anthem was approved for the competition and you can register your vote and rate my anthem by clicking here.  ¶ 12:04 AM

The Jazz Session (Podcast) + some other stuff The Jazz Session (click here to view web site) is a podcast of interviews with some great but perhaps lesser known jazz musicians.

Also check out an interview (click here) with New York jazz pianist Misha Piatigorsky.

Another great radio program with musical interviews is the show Piano Jazz by Marian Mcpartland (click here), which currently is featuring an interview from 1987 with Herbie Hancock.  ¶ 7:00 PM

Voyage solo piano improv Last week I made a little Youtube video of me performing an improvised arrangement of the tune Voyage by Kenny Barron:

  ¶ 5:30 PM

New Composition: We Will Be Together Again I was inspired to write a romantic tune, which I call "We Will Be Together Again", not to be confused with the jazz standard of that name. Please click below to listen, and let me know what you think! Any vocalists out there who would like to sing it?

> We Will Be Together Again (Mp3 - time 1:20) (Geoff Peters composition, performed by Geoff Peters on solo piano)

Lyrics:

Refrain:
It was a day
Like any day
Then you appeared,
and time slowed down and then...
resumed
its pace...
but we will be together again.
For we will be together again.

Refrain.  ¶ 11:47 PM

Facebook Redesign Facebook has some of the best user-experience designers in the world at the moment. I had a good look at the new design and am really quite impressed. Great work Facebook team!!  ¶ 1:13 AM

New Jazz Jam Recording (free MP3's avail) I spent Sunday afternoon having a jam session on piano with my brother Byron (drums) and friend Jason (bass). This was the first time we had played together and it was a lot of fun. I made a recording of our jam and have made the Mp3's freely available to download (please click here).

Of course, being a jam session, these recordings are not studio quality and are not our "best", but they will give you an idea of the kind of energy and musical ideas that we had going during our session. The consensus among the band members was that it was really fun!!

> Click here to listen to our jam session (free MP3's)

Regarding the tracks we played, I think Voyage is the most "polished" sounding, as I know the tune quite well. The other tunes I sort-of knew but I managed to fake it most of the time. We need to work on our endings!! Blue Monk was really fun, I tried playing in a "rough" style maybe influenced a bit by Thelonious Monk. There is also a recording of a new original tune of mine, Warm Day, which I wrote while taking a composition class with New York Jazz pianist Misha Piatigorsky.

This recording was made using a consumer-model Sony Hi-MD Minidisc player/recorder and a Sony stereo condenser microphone. The total cost of the recording equipment is less than $500. Considering the low cost of the equipment, the sound quality is not bad! I have written an article that describes how I made this recording using Minidisc (please click here).  ¶ 11:36 AM