E. Doctor Smith's Blog

San Francisco has seen some fabulous jazz vocalists roll through town in recent weeks, Karyn Allison, Rhondi Charleston and Ann Dyer to name but a few. I'm happy to add Lisa Engelken's name to that esteemed list with her latest effort, "Little Warrior". Engelken builds on the success of her previous and critically acclaimed album "Caravan", with a musical journey that takes the listener to far away places like Brazil,  conjures melodies of Wayne Shorter or pays homage to works of Joni Mitchell and her works with Jaco Pastorius. However Engelken never imitates, and adds her own unique and fresh arrangements, making "Little Warrior" a another gem in her sparkling catalogue. "Little Warrior" begins with the "Foggy Bottom", (perhaps a nod to the One Step Down, an old jazz club in Washington, DC which Engelken's former stomping grounds and once home to the late, great Shirley Horn who regularly performed there), is a beautiful tu...

Resonance Jazz Ensemble, a one-of-a-kind jazz octet, performs their “Summer Time” concert, featuring a selection of arrangements and original jazz works for chamber jazz ensemble by composers from the 20th and 21st centuries. The performance will include tunes from Resonance’s newly released CD entitled Introductions with original music by bandleader Stephen McQuarry, as well as McQuarry’s creative arrangements of jazz standards, pop tunes, and classical favorites. The only jazz ensemble in Northern California with this unusual instrumentation, Resonance jazz octet is comprised of saxophone, flute, violin, viola, ‘cello, double bass, keyboard, and drums, resulting in a rich fusion of orchestral and big band sounds. Resonance melds together a mastery of both classical and jazz artists of richly diverse musical backgrounds who have performed with many legendary artists, including Dizzy Gillespie, Louie Bellson, Clare Fischer, Dave Anderson Quartet, Terrence Brewer, Joe Lovano, Jethro Tul...

George Duke, one of the greatest keyboardists I've have ever seen, passed away this week at the age of 67. Duke's career saw him play with everyone from Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderly, and Frank Zappa, to Billy Cobham, Stanley Clarke, Diane Reeves and a who's who of the greatest musicians of his generation. Duke will be missed; his battle with leukemia took many who didn't know by surprise. I first saw Duke in 1977 with Frank Zappa and his incendiary Mothers of Invention, featuring the incredible Ruth Underwood on mallets, Napoleon Murphy Bock, Chester Thompson and Tom Fowler, at Washington, D.C.'s now defunct Capital Centre. Duke was an amazing keyboardist who could hold his own with anyone, however he was a fantastic vocalist; Zappa's brilliant and complex "comedy music" was made even more enjoyable by Duke's soulful and gorgeous singing. A true musical genius, Duke will be greatly missed. That Zappa concert left a great impression on me and my ...

According to Mickey Hart, "A superorganism is a complex organism composed of many smaller organisms. A band is a superorganism, so is the universe." In the past two years, Mickey Hart (Grateful Dead/Mickey Hart Band) has sonified the Universe, the Golden Gate Bridge, the America's Cup, and now, he is going even deeper. On his new record "Superorganism", due out August 13, 2013, Hart is breaking new ground by combining music with science and the human body.  "For the last few years I have been creating music from the source sounds of the cosmos and now the body." The album cover features an MRI scan of Hart’s brain as well as his brain activity, as captured through an EEG cap. Hart will be performing live with the same EEG cap on his upcoming 70th birthday tour. "These sounds are noise—harsh, strange—and it is only after dancing with their essence face to face that music can be created. This time we journey into the micro, the hidden worl...

My previous blog looked at my journey from my original percussion controller, the "Drummstick", to the newest Zendrum, the "EXP". When the Zendrum EXP finally arrived, I was ecstatic, especially after having seen early photos of it posted on my facebook page. I'd already set up all of my studio gear in advance and when I was in Europe, I downloaded a copy of the updated ZenEdit, and even mapped out the EXP's trigger placements. I quickly learned that I actually needed to be more flexible, because those early set-ups didn't last very long! Everything worked great; even my wireless MIDIJet Pro performed perfectly. I'd used the settings from my Zendrum ZX as a starting point, and they translated to the EXP quite easily. One of the first things I noticed was the wonderful placement of the strap locks for me by David Haney. Haney knows my penchant for playing vertically, and on the model he made for co-designer John Emrich, the lock seemed to be placed l...

I was in Europe when "Man of Steel", the latest update to the Superman was released. I'm a long time comic book fan of both the DC and  Marvel superheroes, and after recovering from jet lag, I finally managed to catch it. As regular readers of my columns know, I have a thing about remakes, especially when it comes to comic book heroes. The biggest challenge these film makers have is to make those classic stories relevant, to find a new way to retell those iconic tales with each new generation; and without sacrificing the things about them that made them great. With the exception of the gratuitous, CGI destruction of Metropolis during the last 30 minutes, this is perhaps, one of the best of the Superman films or TV series made to date. Now I've seen every single film and TV series ever made about the Man of Steel, so I will share my thoughts about each of them, and why I think this latest version ranks among the best. I'm afraid I'll have to leave the animated ...

Every year, the Outsound New Music Summit showcases some of the most innovative and pioneering new music that is happening in California and beyond. Many of the artists scheduled to perform on the 2013 12th Annual Outsound New Music Summit (left to right Opera Wolf, Kevin Robinsons from KREation, Jordan Glenn's Wiener Kids, #Max, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano, Joe Lasqo, Ritwik Banerjir, Ilya Rostovtsev, The CCRMA Ensemble, Matt Davignon, Fuzzybunny, Hasan Abdur-Razzaq, David Molina's Transient, LA Jenkins, Rent Romus' Lords of Outland, India Cooke, Karl Evangelista, Lewis Jordan, Kyle Bruckman's Wrack). Now in its twelfth year, the New Music Summit will feature during cutting-edge experimental and ambient music, twitter-fed performances, improvising software musicbots, electro-acoustic performances, found-object and tape-player interactions, as well as traditional instrument ensembles bending the acoustic paradigm in new and startling ways. Featured during the seven-night fes...