gonna go and catch jazz pianist Monty Alexander tonight....he's on a double-bill tonight at the Vancouver Jazz Festival with vocalist Andy Bey....should be interesting...I remember hearing Monty being mentioned as "the next Oscar Peterson" or something link that but I find his playing very different from Oscar's.....of course, one of his best trios was with drummer Jeff Hamilton and bassist John Clayton...they've recorded several trio records together, so make sure you check out one of those..."Reunion in Europe", or "Montreux Alexander"...here's a video of them playing in Montreux...I believe the audio from this video is what was used for the Montreux Alexander album.

Cedar Walton is smokin' in this video..the song is Thelonius Monk's Blue Monk....I had a lesson with Cedar at Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London England about 5 years ago....he's one of the nicest guys you'll meet....I went and heard him playing with a quartet there at Ronnie's and sat 2 feet from him....awesome!...I learned some interesting stuff at the lesson...Cedar actually has a really light touch on the piano..I always thought he'd have a heavier touch but he said it's a lot easier to get around if you lighten up--hmmm--MAKES SENSE SOMEHOW! :)
....you can see him gettin' around pretty well in this video!

Hi everyone, just letting you know I'll be joining vocalist Melody Diachun down at the foot of Granville Street overlooking False Creek this coming Sunday, June 22nd. It's a restaurant called Nu and is a great place to have brunch with a view! Come on down!

You may have noticed on the right-hand middle part of this blog I've added an internet radio widget...the widget is made by a company in Israel called LabPixies..it's loaded up with 5 different stations...KPLU Seattle, KJAZZ San Francisco, CNN Business, CNN News, and CBC Radio 1 Vancouver...just switch channels by clicking on the dials!...I particularly like KJAZZ because they play one of my favorite jazz radio DJ's Bob Parlocha...he ALWAYS plays great stuff, and makes a point of mentioning exactly who was playing on a particular song and which recording it comes from!

Just came across this cool new tool called Sproutbuilder which lets you easily build web apps and incorporate them into your pages...allowing easy additions of video, images, RSS..you name it!..Check it out!

I'm proud to have had the chance to perform with Ernestine...she's definitely one of the best EVER...and I don't think she ever really has gotten the full credit she deserves...check her out in this video with Monty Alexander on piano and Ray Brown at the bass...not sure of the drummer.

This is the first official post here on my brand-spanking new blog on tonyfostermusic.com
thought I'd start things off with a cool video---Stan Getz with John Coltrane jamming on Monk's Hackensack...with Oscar Peterson on piano!--quite the combination...:)