I’ll be up in about four hours to head off to Denver for a slew of investor meetings. No rest for the wicked.

Actually, I had originally intended to make tonight an early evening, but instead ended up heading off to an audition of sorts for a fairly recently formed jam band. The group sounded remarkably good playing through a handful of Rolling Stones and Zeppelin tunes, as well as a few originals, and though my chops were certainly not at their best, I still had a remarkably good time letting loose and blowing through some rock solos – something, having recently focused in on classical and small combo jazz playing, I hadn’t done for much too long.

Oh, and continuing the theme of happy serendipities: the group’s sax player was one of the talented two from the tragically poor jazz rehearsal I’d been hired in to play two weeks back.

None the less, as Denver trips are always rich blog fodder, I’m sure I’ll have plenty to post about over the next few days. Stay tuned.

Yet another reason why the Treo 600 is the greatest thing since sliced bread: with a simple piece of software, I can use it as a wirless modem for my laptop, allowing me to access the internet on my PC anywhere I get a cell signal.

Direct off the train back from Boston last night, I headed to the single worst rehearsal of my entire life. I had been hired into a small jazz combo (trumpet, two saxes, singer and rhythm section), meant to play for several local ballroom dance schools’ upcoming dances and competitions. The group was led by a ballroom dancer-turned-guitarist, and by the end of the first tune, I was mainly thinking, “this guy should have just stuck to dancing.”

Beyond starting the song several times in completely wrong keys, the guitarist continued to misplay chords, fall out of time, and lose his place in the simple twelve-bar form. As he was the only instrument laying down the chord changes, his poor playing dragged us all down, making playing the melody coherently (much less soloing in any approximation of jazz style) virtually impossible. Things went from bad to worse when, after butchering our way through a couple of standards copied out of a fake book, he whipped out a set of arrangements he wanted us to work on. Unfortunately, the arrangements weren’t for jazz combo, but for string quartet.

Still, the situation wasn’t completely unredeemable. At one point, the guitarist stepped out to find another power plug for his failing amplifier, giving the rest of us a chance to talk amongst ourselves.

“Look,” one of the saxes pointed out, “if we can convince him to bring in a piano player and a bassist, we can definitely make this work.”

“That might work,” responded the singer, “as long as we also turn the volume on his amp all the way down.”

So, when the guitarist returned, we all chimed in (as respectfully as possible), pointing out that perhaps a pianist and bass might help us achieve a more dance-appropriate traditional big-band sound, as well as free up the guitar to play soloistically rather than simply strum out chords for us to follow. Apparently, we were rather convincing, as we left at the end of the rehearsal deputized to call pianists and bass players we knew who might be able to help us redeem the situation.

Still, there was at least one upside to the evening (two, if you count that I got paid): as poor as our playing was as a group with the deadweight of the guitarist dragging behind, it was still remarkably clear that the rest of the players were really, really good. I got home and started woodshedding, practicing hard the jazz skills I’d let slack off slightly over a stretch of months predominated by orchestral and classical chamber playing. With a solution to the guitar problem in sight, I certainly didn’t want my bandmates leaving next week’s rehearsal thinking, “sure, that was better, but now how are we going to cover up that trumpet player as well?”

Earlier this evening, after breaking my Yom Kippur fast, I headed off to a brass quintet rehearsal near Lincoln Center. The rehearsal room we normally use was locked, however, and after about fifteen minutes of us all milling around outside, the trombonist suggested we head down to a rehearsal space he knew in Hell’s Kitchen. We managed to find an empty studio there, and played through a good rehearsal. At the end, as the rest of the quintet packed up their instruments, I started screwing around with a salsa riff, trying to remember a piece I had once played.

Midway through one version, a Latino guy popped his head in the door. He and another singer were recording a demo down the hall, he said, and he wanted to know if I’d be willing to sit in with their horn section. Flattered, I agreed, and followed him down to a small recording studio stuffed with twelve or thirteen musicians – a piano, a bass, an alto flute, a trombone, a guitar, two singers, and five or six percussionists – all of them Latino. Sure, I got some skeptical looks as I came in the door. But I held my own while reading down the first chart, and soon I was blending in.

Towards the end of the second chart, however, we hit an extended trumpet solo. And I tried. I really did. Still, at the end of the song, the bandleader looked up at me and said something like: “Oye ese, nex time choo take a solo, try not to play so fucking white, eh?”

Well, to be fair, he didn’t actually say that. But from his look, I was pretty sure that’s what he was thinking. And things continued to go downhill on the third song. Just before we laid it down, the pianist launched into a long instructional monologue about some changes he had apparently recently come up with but hadn’t yet had time to put in the parts. Knowing Italian, I could vaguely understand maybe half of what he was saying; the rest was completely lost. And, believe me, if you’re the only one to miss key instructions like “when we get to bar 374, even though it says to play fortissimo [wailingly loud], we’re all going to suddenly drop down to super quiet”, people will notice. And not necessarily in a good way.

Sure, things smoothed out over the next few songs. As I relaxed and fell back on the years of Latin music I’d played before, I even banged through a couple of pretty decent solos. Still, at the end of the evening, as I packed up my trumpet and shook hands with the rest of the group, it occurred to me that, no matter how much my salsa playing improves, I’m still basically just really, remarkably, painfully White.

If you go for a little over a year without cleaning a trumpet, you’ll probably be absolutely amazed by the sheer volume of gunk that comes out when you finally do.

As I’ve always been a fairly fast learner, over time I’ve come to perversely value those things I’m painfully slow to pick up.

Take, for example, playing the guitar. Having loved the sound of classical guitar since my early childhood (when my parents would play a record of Julian Bream lute suites to lull me to sleep), about six months back I decided I really wanted to learn to play classical guitar myself. So I picked up a copy of Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method at the local Sam Ash, quietly snuck my roommate’s guitar off of its stand, and set to work.

By all logic, I should have been off to a roaring start. After all, I’d not only played the trumpet for more than fifteen years, I’d even played another string instrument (the upright bass) for long enough to perform publicly without too much embarrassment. But neither of those instruments, I soon realized, were chordal – on both the trumpet and bass, no matter how many notes appeared on my music page, I could deal with them sequentially. The guitar, however, introduced the dangerous world of chords, and (worse) polyphonic melody – two different things going on at the same time – something for which my simple, one-note-at-a-time mind was wholly unequipped.

By now, half a year later, by slogging slowly along, I’ve made it to the second book in Alfred’s series. And, frankly, I still suck something royal. But I intend to keep plugging away, with the hopes of one day making it through complex flamenco concertos (or, at least, through the version of “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis” on page 7, my current nemesis) without anyone in the room cringing visibly. It might take years, but I’m sure I’ll get it. And when I finally do, I’ll be picking up a cheap electronic keyboard, a basic piano method, and opening up yet another whole world of musical pain.

Was brought in as a ringer to play first trumpet for the New York Lawyers’ Orchestra last night. The second half of the program consisted of Berlioz’s wonderful Symphony Fantastique, appropriately enough a piece about love unrequited, considering I spent most of the post-concert reception unsuccessfully trying to find my way over to a 24-year old blonde violinist while concurrently dodging the advances of a 42-year old brunette woodwind player. Who says classical music is dull?

Earlier this evening, had my first orchestral rehearsal since returning to New York, and I’m afraid it wasn’t pretty. Sibelius and Tchaikovsky were likely rolling in their graves at the travesty I committed upon their symphonies.

Allow me to explain: Playing most musical instruments is a bit like riding a bicycle – a few months off might leave you slighty rusty, but after a relatively short amount of practice you’d likely once again return to a reasonably high level of proficiency. Playing the trumpet, however, is a bit more like pole vaulting. Sure, there’s a skill component, but it’s also a rather physical undertaking. Tooting the horn requires strength and endurance in the small muscles of the lips, tongue and cheeks, muscles rarely called on for heavy lifting in everyday life. As a result, with too much time away, even the most technically skilled trumpeter is back to square one.

Which is, essentially, where I was upon my return from LA. Though I had brought a trumpet out with me, a number of mechanical problems with it (and, frankly, my severe lack of free time) kept me from playing nearly at all. As a result, I picked up the horn last Friday to find dodgy intonation, cracked notes, poor endurance, no upper register, and a deflated, ‘badly injured cow’ sort of tone quality. In short, I was your basic middle school trumpeter. After a week of heavy practice, I’m now somewhere near high school level, which, while representing strong progress, is still rather short of the professional proficiency my fellow musicians were expecting.

I spent most of rehearsal trying to convince myself that I was likely overdramatizing the problem; that I might not, in fact, be anywhere near as bad as I was imagining. But with my section-mates shooting me dirty looks, several violinists coming over during break to ask if I was feeling alright, and the director occasionally making comments to me such as “that’s okay, we can tune the passage up at the next rehearsal,” I wasn’t particularly reassured.

As a result, I’ll be redoubling my practice efforts between now and next week; with luck, I could even progress to sounding like a pro having a really bad day. Baby steps, baby steps.