News Archive
May 3, 2007
Trainwreck (the band) played at the Sherwood Forest Country Club last night. This is a nice place and I highly recommend it. There is always a good local crowd and they have a plenty to do. The bar is non-smoking so the atmosphere is not choked with smoke. We look forward to playing there again and I will post the dates when we know the plans. I will have a picture of the band from this gig on the site shortly (gotta get Joe to send it to me!) Here is a link to a map to get to the Sherwood Country Club.January 1, 2007
Anyone interested in getting an email 'push' of a music newsletter? Send me your email or jot it down at the gig. This will be a monthly newsletter and I will provide gig dates as well as other informaton. I don't like a lot of email myself but I find it handy to get 'reminders' on a reqular basis. FYI, I will protect the mailing list as confidential, you may signup or 'unsubscribe' by emailing me at John@JohnPfeiffer.com.December 29, 2006
By request, we have revised our Duo Band equipment setup to reduce our footprint to about six foot square. We did this by building a music lecturn or 'front' that houses all our equipment. The arrangement makes for a very clean stage and the setup/teardown time has been reduced as well. I hope to get a picture on the site soon to show the revised stage appearance.November 1, 2006
Check out Pandora, web music broadcasting based on your personal music tastes. The Music Genome project seeks to quantify music in many ways using a small panel of professional 'listeners'. What a great Job!!!January 27, 2006
Another year gone by! I turned 500 gigs this past July, since I started playing out again back in '93. My goal for the year was to start singing regularly and I now am singing at least a dozen songs an evening on my own, as well as singing harmony on the "good times" music we kick it up with in our variety sets. I think the highlight of the year is the repeat business Tom and I have managed to get - from the Seasons and a number of other annual events.Another notable event - Tom Kopez retired, and the gang had a great time playing at his retirement party, many band and KC friends joined us to wish Tom the best.
A downside of the year was in not having as many larger band bookings. It is a good thing we have started backing Jason Kipp as a vocalist. We have a six-piece backing band with trumpet, trombone (of course), and piano, with the rhythm section held up by father and son team Ray and Joe Maas. I hope to see more of these bookings in the future.
November 28, 2004
FYI, the Seasons was rated for best resturant in the Fox Cities, for the second year in a row! We had another nice weekend playing there. Friday night Tom had an unexpected conflict so Roger Teske played his fretted Taylor bass with me. He said he got this bass used, it once belonged to the bass player for Dave Mason. Dave Mason had a hit in the early 70's called "We Just Disagree" which was incidentally written by a composer in Sheboygan. That song makes it to my list of 70's hits, intersting story as well. The bass sounded great and was an interesting acoustic sounding mix with jazz guitar and classical guitar. Roger could make a washboard sound good though.Saturday night Tom was back. Two students joined us from UW Fox Valley - they were taking a jazz appreciation course and their assignment was to hear some live jazz and critique two songs. We hooked Domonic and his friend for three sets, that was nice. Good conversation as well, their teacher is Dave Jordahl. I had the pleasure to play with Dave years ago with the GJG and he is a true jazz artist. There was also a former drummer from Stan Kenton's band there, he requested "Polkadots and Moonbeams" but we forgot to play it! Wes Montgomery did a beautiful version of that song on his debut album "Incredible Guitar". I will learn that and if our drummer comes back I'll be ready. Our backing tracks went much easier due to preparation and more planning, we mixed this in with unaccompanied guitar and bass. Tom got to show off his new horn, it seems like it added more range and a fuller tone. This replaces his prior horn of 25 years. He even sported a 'trombone' tie as well.
Last set was a mix of some new tunes from the 60's and 70's - we picked some Beatles ballads, Moody Blues, Jimmy Buffet, a little blues, and a few requests as well. The bar crowd stayed around for a little past eleven - Domonic, Judy and her friends, and another table I didn't recognize.
October 30, 2004
The Seasons restaurant put a link to my web page right on their front page!!! This is great idea and will generate more business. Ed, who shares the office next to me at KC, saw this link while looking for places to go for dinner. He sent me an email. Cool stuff! This practice (linking web pages) is generating a draw and getting the work out where we are playing. Ed liked the web site as well!October 23, 2004
Tom and I played our first gig (four sets) using backing tracks for about one third of the songs we played. This definitely worked well in a live situation, the mix of guitar/bass live and guitar/guitar live with guitar/trombone and accompaniment was appropriate. We do have an opportumity with the non-jazz repertoire to bring the energy level up using backing tracks. Logistically, songs are easier to handle if they are in a playable order on the CD and having the player in front of us makes it easier to cue up the songs. An alternative is use and MP3 player. We could also bring a synthesizer (or PC with a synth output)and play MIDI files instead of .WAV files. The MIDI file playback approach has always seemed to be more hassle: It's more gear to carry and we don't have a need to modify the arrangements. One advantage though would be the ability to embed light show control code.September, 2004
Tom and I wrapped up recording of about 20 backing tracks in preparation for duo gigs planned in the future. We will eventually expand this list. We spent most of our time on the arrangements and in working up intros and endings. I used BIAB for all backups for now. The plan is to get our duo act launched with these tracks, then go back and systematically substitute sampled or live recorded individual instruments into these established arrangements. The use of backing tracks allows Tom and I to play trombone and guitar, with backup of bass, drums, and a variety of other accompaniment: organ, strings, rhodes, vibes, etc. Without backing tracks, one of us would need to play bass on most tunes. Our opportunity is to expand this concept to our Pop/Country/Rock list for a full-band sound, maybe even adding recorded vocal harmonies so we can do three and four-part harmonies with a duo! More news to come.September 20, 2004
Ron and Suzie have sent two postcards; one from the Black Hills in South Dakota and the other from Route 66. They called to say they have moved their stuff in and are starting to get out to see the local Phoenix music scene.September 15, 2004
We managed to get two recording sessions in before Ron left. I hope to get through the sessions and see what we got. I think we were more intent on having a good time playing our last session than in getting pristine recordings completed - we just turned on the recorder and played! I know we got some of Ron's originals and between that and a few other recordings we have made I hope to be able to put a small collection together.July 29, 2004
Dining - The Seasons resturant now has their website up and running. It certainly is a treat to play at such a fine restuarant and to be part of the atmosphere that makes the Seasons one of the finest resturants in the fox valley. I enjoy the warm welcome we get from Bob, Jessica, Kelli, and the rest of the team (among them Butch, Becky, Christy, Rebecca, Heather, and others I have neglected to add) when entertaining there. The Seasons is my first choice for my family's special events, I recommend you do the same. You will not be disappointed! I promised Bob I would include a link on my website (see links page) but also wanted to include a note about how important it is to link to others on the web in order to establish a web presence. Search engines like google prioritize their search results based on web links to a site.July 29, 2004
Island Jazz will be performing at the Deja Vu on August 21st. This may be one of the last performances for the existing band line-up. As many of you already know, Ron Hull has decided to pickup and move to Phoenix, Arizona to be closer to his family. The band is hoping that we can get some recording completed before Ron and Suzy move on. We all hate to see them go and of course will miss both of them, but now we are hoping the move will go quickly and and easily for them. Please stop out and hear us, I hope to get Danny Johnston to join us for a guest appearance as well.April 5, 2004
My wife Regan is promoted to Vice President at USBank, Appleton office. She will be managing the private client portfolio, along with managing the branch.April 1, 2004
My daughter Emily e-mails me at work, " just so you know, Steve and I are to be married in 2.5 hours". No April fool's prank here, they sent me the pictures that night! Now to plan the reception...September 28, 2003
I run my first marathon at age 50 in under 4 hours. My time - 3:58:32 (238:32) at the Fox Cities Marathon, Sept 28, 2003. I spend the next six months recovering! (kidding..) Just for the record, I don't think I ran 26 miles in the thirty plus years prior to obtaining this inspiratation.May 11, 2003
I loose 50 pounds (topped out in Nov, 2002) by taking up running 100 miles a month and eating vegetables for lunch. I bought a cowboy shirt to celebrate.May 7, 2003
Island Jazz will be performing at the Deja Vu on May 25th. If you can make it out to hear us, we would greatly appreciate it. We had a great time playing there in April. The band was Tom on trombone, Ron on piano, Joe on drums, and myself on guitar. We had a guest singer and hope to have another guest singer at the coming performance. Our singer also works at 'Glamour Shots', so we got some good pictures of the band that night as well. I will be posting them shortly to the site.February 20, 2003
Island Jazz performs at the Fusion Club. The Fusion is located in downtown Fond du Lac (take 41S to Johnson St., turn left toward town, then right on Main. Fusion is at 33 N. Main). This is a truly 'classy' place with a beautiful bar and separate dining area. The décor is modern 'George Jetson,' I love it! We played a Thursday evening 9-1am, the Fusion offers live music three nights a week. Here are some of the pictures we took at the gig.I have a solo or duo performance coming up for a 'theme' art show. I just love these jobs. More to come.
Plans are to finish a CD for the 'Island Jazz Players' in the next month. Also, we will be putting the finishing touches on the CD artwork for the 'North Coast Jazz Project.' Both CD's will be ready for release in 1st Quarter.
It is with great sadness that I bring word of the passing of Saxy Sawyer from Clintonville. Those of you who had the privilege to hear Saxy play understand how much we will all miss him. He was a truly great artist and an inspiration to many of us, especially me.