I did another practice, for about 50 minutes, on the tune Joy Spring by Clifford Brown. I’m mainly trying to work on the technique of my right hand. This melody has a lot of notes and runs in different keys, and is almost like some kind of classical “study” piece.
I have also noticed that several keys on my electric piano are starting to stick. This makes it a lot trickier to play and I am concerned that I may be learning some bad habits trying to compensate for the stickiness of certain keys (in particular, the C above middle C). Time to get a new keyboard soon and sell my old ones!

Click here to listen to my practice on the tune Joy Spring in Midi format.

I practiced for about 25 minutes on the jazz standard I Got Rhythm by George Gershwin. I haven’t worked on this tune much before, and it’s a commonly played tune at jam sessions so I thought I’d learn it a bit more.

Click here to listen to my practice of I Got Rhythm.

I did about an hour of practicing on the tunes Afternoon in Paris by John Lewis and Solar by Miles Davis. In my improvising I did specific exercises to strengthen my fourth and fifth finger on my right hand because this is currently my weakness. It’s amazing how many possible motions there are with the hand!

Click here to listen to the midi recording of my practice of Afternoon in Paris and Solar.

I did a short practice today on the jazz tunes “Afternoon in Paris” and the “Days of Wine and Roses”. Click here to listen in midi format.

My friend, singer songwriter Gio Escueta, dropped by my place today and we recorded a performance of the jazz standard Moonlight in Vermont. It’s a really beautiful and romantic jazz ballad. Hope you enjoy it!

Watch: On Youtube, on Blip.tv
Listen: Mp3
or use the video player below.

Check out Gio’s youtube channel for more music.

I had a nice Saturday without very many activities planned so I had time to practice quite a bit of piano. I first practiced about 20 minutes in the morning before breakfast, then I practiced in the afternoon for about 40 minutes, and about another hour late at night before going to bed.

I worked on learning more of the tune Joy Spring by Clifford Brown, as well as doing scales and exercises to strengthen my technique.

Click here to listen to my jazz piano practice in Midi format.

I practiced the piano for about an hour today, in two different sessions. The first session was about 20 minutes. I am working on getting my technique flowing again and learning the jazz standard Joy Spring by Clifford Brown. I also did a bit of improvised accompaniment to myself singing Autumn Leaves.

Click here to listen to my piano practice in Midi format.

Here is a nice recording of Arturo Sandoval performing Joy Spring from his album I Remember Clifford:

Joy Spring – Arturo Sandoval

Here is a recording of Joy Spring by the late great jazz pianist Oscar Peterson and his trio:

Joy Spring – The Oscar Peterson Trio

Last weekend I played a couple of gigs with my band, the Geoff Peters Trio, and we recorded one of them using my Minidisk player and my camcorder. The band is myself on piano, Mark White on bass, and Greg Murray on drums, and we were performing at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel Vancouver.

You can listen to all of the recordings from this concert (and some other live recordings) on my Youtube channel playlist by clicking here.

Below I’ve included a video player for our performance of Kenny Barron’s awesome tune, Voyage. Other songs in the playlist include All Blues, Blue Bossa, Tune Up, and Footprints.

You can get the MP3’s of this concert for free by clicking here.

I stumbled upon a wonderfully jazzy and funny Looney Tunes cartoon video, thanks to my Facebook friend and jazz singer Jennifer Scott! From the Wikipedia article on this cartoon (click here to view):

Three Little Bops is a 1957 Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Friz Freleng, with voices by Stan Freberg and music by jazz composer/trumpeter Shorty Rogers. It is a takeoff on The Three Little Pigs, told as a hip, jazzy musical.

View the Three Little Bops on Youtube by clicking here or use the player below.

A couple more practice recordings to share:

Tune Up by Miles Davis, practice no. 4

First time reading through the tune Triste by Antonio Carlos Jobim (about a 10 minute practice, before I had listened to the original recording)

Here is one of the original recordings of Triste (click here to view on Imeem) or use the player below:

Triste – Antonio Carlos Jobim