THE American Smooth Jazz Awards - 2010

Yes - a reminder with apologies for those that have gone to VOTE
 
The American Smooth Jazz Awards are open to PUBLIC VOTE and you are encouraged to go and VOTE YOUR FAVORITES!! It doesn't have to be a Greg Vail VOTE! Go vote for the categories you know, don't worry about the rest. Just take advantage of someone asking for your opinion! We all have one. This one will count in very cool ways!!

It takes 90 seconds to vote! And you can vote for Greg Vail in Gospel Jazz if you want to!!

Online Voting ends JULY 15 - 2010!

Thanks for checking in and Spring blessings!!!

What a week this ended up being! I had the worst scheduled week in a decade on the books, and God was good - again!

I ended up with a nice variety of recording sessions and ended up making some good money for the week! I first recorded the walk off music for a new fireworks show for Bush Gardens - fun alto sax solo, high energy vibe! Was fun and real orchestra made it real special!!

I then had a session with Rivers Cuomo from the rock band Weezer out in Santa Monica CA. It was nice to get to hang a bit with Rivers and talk to him about the business and the web for musicians. I was surprised that he does all that stuff online like I do! He was on the web the whole time I saw him, listening but also reading and responding. It was nice to see I am not the only one buried in web activity and trying to stay connected!

We tracked Flute lines, fills and a little pad choir of Flutes on 1 new song! The producer had some really cool ideas and I hope the stuff makes it up on the track! The last time I did a Rivers call it was the end of 09 and a cool but strange hang....

Here is the Video I did with Rivers and J D '09

JD did his thing and taped the day too - the unofficial

The next session was replacing orchestra parts for a musical, recorded live for DVD. I was brought in to replace the Clarinet and Flute parts and it was challenging for me since I have not been practicing enough classical legit style music to feel really on for this type of session. I hope Tony got what he needed. I was tired….

The next day I was off the Laguna Beach to track some jazz standards for a local artist. I don’t remember if it was 4 or 5 tunes but we did have 1 section track to hit – all Tenor Saxes! I think it turned out pretty cool too!!

AS always – I am most excited about variety and I got a ton of it this week. From Pop Orchestra to Rock Band, from Musicals to Jazz Standards. I love a week of variety and challenge and I got a good one this week!!

On the schedule upcoming – South Dakota Church gig and workshops – Summer band gigs have me reworking the song books again – Spring web site updates have been ongoing – New EWI dotcom – Gospel Jazz CDs dotcom – Church Saxophone dotcom – Sax Love Songs dotcom – and fixing bad links thru a few other sites - GOOGLE AdSense and GOOGLE Analytics are working together nicely and being worked thru these sites as I go thru everything….

Good stuff – long overdue work – all setting up for a great summer 2010!!!!

Hey! Greg Vail - AKA SAXBOY here.

Have been buried with life stuff this week.

I know many of us are pretty under the gun on finance these days – not really making it at all! I also know from real life experience that, often the fall out of  things working out bad can be felt after the fact by a good amount of time. Credit Cards you might have used to pull thru a tight month or two; a friend you owe a couple of hundred bucks to; taxes you let slide; repairs on the house or car maintenance can wait but for how long? Then it all piles up in your face and you have a reality check that is bouncing….

Awe the joys of this life……

I have so many friends that are in real trouble now. They made it through for a while but now it is all catching up. Some of my friends went down right when the economy took a hit. Some had savings or decent job sustain until now – but now seems to be a big problem for us all.

This last 2 weeks has been a time of reassessing and change. I have been forced to put everything on the table and let the cards fall as they may. For instance, I spent 2 hours on the phone today with phone companies reviewing plans and cutting some services. I let 1 health club go and saved a total of $76.00 a month cutting 3 bills down.

I have started being very active with an accident settlement I have let slide as I healed up too. I have begun my consistent barrage of nice yet thorough communications with Farmers Insurance and I started seeing results once the adjustor realized something had changed. I really needed to just feel better to be up for the fight and will say I feel better now – let’s get this done!

I did something I have not done in years yesterday. I waxed my SUV with a friend. I was reminded why 100 bucks is not that much for a wax and detail job by sunset! I have felt the pain all day today. My SUV is big and tall and I think I’m getting too old to hang off a back seat reaching for the middle of the roof to wipe off wax! A step stool would have been amazing!!

I am getting my 04 Denali ready to sell. I am not very happy about that and it is possible it will still be my Denali a year from now; but I did make that decision and my truck looks great!! When I get it listed I will post! I still need to finish the steam cleaning inside and get pictures to post it, but it will go online this weekend! I am thinking around $18,000 for the top of the line, fully loaded with every factory toy available. They run over 60k new!!

I will also be re-listing my beloved 1962 Impala next week. 11K is the asking price and lots of pics are here….

Am I doing terrible?? NO! But, like most of my world I am very busy, busier than ever and making almost half of the money I was 3 years ago! …and it is starting to catch up.

I was just blessed with a bunch of new session calls this week. I recorded a track for a Bush Gardens fireworks show yesterday, and have 2 sessions tomorrow. I will be playing some Flute again for Weezer in the morning, and then heading over to Tony Guerrero's house to record Flute and Clarinet parts for his Christmas Musical DVD release. I then have a pop Tenor section session Saturday morning with another old friend for one of her recording clients!! 4 sessions in 1 week is great!! Used to be the norm, but in 2010?? GREAT!! BUT - also used to pay a lot more.... God is good and I am grateful!!

I have a long list of friends I am following and praying for these days. I hope we all see a positive change in our lives so we can work and make an honest wage again soon. Not looking for handouts! Just wish I could work hard AND cover the bills. I am very blessed with my awesome family too!

Blessings to the many that are 'here now'; and prayers for the many that wish they had these problems because they are small in comparison! Keep looking up!!

Kinda weird topic but I have had bird stories lately.

A month ago I was walking next to the Sanctuary at Saddleback Church and a little Humming Bird fell out of the sky right in front of me! I looked up and realized he had probably hit the glass and was knocked silly!

I wasn’t sure what to do but decided to have someone watch him for a minute and grabbed 2 church bulletins. I had heard you shouldn’t touch them so I used one bulletin to push him over on the other to get him out of the walkway.

Slowly I walked him over to a planter area and just as I started to bend down to place him on the ground, he got his other wing out from underneath him and slowly started flapping his wings until he flew off the bulletins and flew to the wall. He just hung there for a few minutes and then flew off! It was a pretty odd and kinda cool touch with nature.

I reflected on my new bird video I had just released on YouTube and thought – that was cool!!

Well, is happened again Thursday night at Simply Fondue – my Thursday gig. I was playing near a few windows and all of a sudden I heard a bash on the window that really startled me. It sounded like someone had thrown a hard ball at the window! It took me a minute to realize a bird had flown into the window and was lying on the ground outside.

I went out and we was not really moving but his beak and eyes where moving some. I went inside and got the manager and a couple came out to see. As I looked at him I saw the life leave his little body. It was strange. I kind of thought he would just get up and fly away like the Humming Bird did.

I have no idea if he was older but knew he was a lot bigger and he hit really hard. I realized he was probably the same bird I saw eating off the ground a few minutes earlier when I was playing. I saw a bird just outside the window and thought – cool!

It kinda made me sad the rest the night. It was weird.

I then got an email later that night with a series of pictures of a bird hit by a car and another bird – assumed its mate – trying to help. It was a sad story of loss and the other bird seemed to cry out over the loss. The pictures were moving, in and of themselves, but a little weird after seeing that poor bird die earlier that same day.

So Sunday I was at Saddleback on an outdoor bench behind the Sanctuary and I noticed a shadow on the wall in front of me. I looked up and directly above my head, about 4 feet up was a humming bird hovering over me. It was almost a full minute before he took off. It was totally beautiful to see a Humming Bird for that long and so close!

With all the bird stuff going on I have to wonder if that was the Humming Bird I saved earlier. I’m sure it sounds weird but I feel like the bird encounters have been very strange and pretty frequent! It seems like they are everywhere these days……

The Bible says God knows when even 1 sparrow falls, and if He cares for the flowers in the field and the birds of the air, How much more does He care about you! Totally has me thinking about that.......