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Many, many special thanks to Larry O. Gay, George Omura, Joachim Pantel, Jared Ragland, & Dennis Tyler for sharing their talents and hard work by letting me use so many of their sights & sounds for this website.
Dear Diary:
February 25, 2024 - Huge thanks to Clefworks for hosting String Theory's first show at the Capri Theatre in Montgomery. Super fun afternoon!
October 6, 2022 - The Birmingham Seven at Moody Music Hall in Tuscaloosa! Watch HERE.
July 15, 2022 - Today, Summit Records released The Birmingham Seven's 4th project, Just Passing Through, and it's available at the links below! In the summer of 2021, the seven of us got together at Bates Brothers to record 11 new charts. We hope you give it a listen and find something you like!
Summit Records:
https://www.summitrecords.com/release/just-passing-through-the-birmingham-seven/
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3HFwxLRP5UxS6dQR00oCgm
Apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/the-birmingham-seven/581924778
Amazon Music:
https://www.amazon.com/music/player/artists/B00TJKVW8G/the-birmingham-seven
April 9, 2022 - If you were at the UAB Percussion Symposium today (and also if you weren't), here is a PDF and a video to help you practice the stuff I demonstrated.
PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hwLf3VKQJJYyAEkqi3H_dVvHRJv2ZUKC/view?usp=sharing
February 14, 2020 - Noel Johnson of The White Oaks remastered our first two releases, and they're out today on Spotify and Apple Music! More unreleased stuff to come!
October 13, 2019 - Rob Alley wrote and recorded An Alabama Songbook with the help of a grant award from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, and it's now available! Besides Rob, the album features Jil Chambless, Jason Bailey, Gary Wheat, Matthew DeVine, Aaron Goldberg, & me.
February 2, 2019 - Five of my drummers from Homewood School of Music just showed everyone how it's done at our annual recital today! Thanks to the gentlemen below for all their work and enthusiasm for the material, and thanks to their families for all their support!
January 29, 2019 - Just returned from an incredible weekend in North Carolina, playing with the jazz ensemble from Davidson College (my alma mater) and catching up with my college friends and my electro-LUXE bandmates (see the discography page). Big thanks to Dr. Bill Lawing for the invitation to play with the ensemble- what a fun night!
photo by Eric Keith
May 6, 2018
UAB Jazz Faculty Quartet
photo by Eric Gray www.ericgrayphotography.com
205.601.5811 facebook.com/EricGrayPhotography instagram.com/EricGrayPhoto
March 25, 2018
December 29, 2017
October 27, 2017 - Enjoyed rockin' it with Taylor Hicks last night to benefit the brilliant organization Musicians On Call!
https://twitter.com/magic965/status/923705634532368384
October 12, 2017 - I have two recent shows with the Jason Bailey Band and Mingusphere available to download or stream for free, thanks to Dennis Tyler. Links are below; you can listen at the site or download the VBR MP3. I'm my own worst critic (I think! Jeez I hope so), and the performances are all well above average because of these guys:
Rob Alley, Jason Bailey, Todd Brasher, Ryan Cavanaugh, Matthew DeVine, & Chad Fisher.
https://archive.org/details/JasonBaileyBand2017-10-07-MoonlightOnTheMountain-BirminghamAl
https://archive.org/details/Mingusphere2017-09-07-Rojo-BirminghamAl
July 29, 2017 - What a super fun class today at Homewood School Of Music! Thanks to all who came (and their parents), and a big thanks to Allen Barlow & Rob Gannon for the opportunity and for running such a fantastic place to teach.
June 1, 2017 - Here's a free download of the Chad Fisher show at WorkPlay last week. Giant thanks as usual to Dennis Tyler for showing up early and recording! The first set is jazz & swing, second set is new original stuff.
February 16, 2017 - Awesome recording session with Tom Williams at Bates Brothers Recording in Hueytown! We laid down all the bass, drums, & electric guitar for Tom's song "Next Choice". This was about as easy & fun as a session can get.
Carlos Pino (guitar), Brandon Peeples (bass), Tom Williams, Eric Bates (engineer & studio owner), me
January 25, 2017 - The new album by The Birmingham Seven is available on CDBaby & iTunes! It's our THIRD set of all-original material! Get it, y'all!
January 11, 2017 - Two new live recordings available to stream or download FREE thanks to Dennis Tyler!
Mingusphere at The Syndicate Lounge 12/20/16:
https://archive.org/details/Mingusphere2016-12-20-SyndicateLounge-BirminghamAl
String Theory at Moonlight On the Mountain 12/29/16:
https://archive.org/details/StringTheory2016-12-29-MoonlightOnTheMountain-BluffParkAl
October 4, 2016 - Tonight is the premiere of a new adaptation of Hamlet, produced and directed by UA Theatre and Dance professor Seth Panitch. I got to play on the jazz soundtrack, written and producedby my friend Nicholas Boyd. Read more about it here!
August 26, 2016 - Just finished the premiere of Alan Goldspiel's Klezmer Shabbat Service! A great night with the band Magic Shtetl and a 17-piece choir at Temple Emanu-El! I'm very proud to have been in on this and learned so much from the experience.
July 1, 2016 - Super fun night with The Voodoo Saints at Government Plaza in Tuscaloosa! We got lucky enough for a photo op with Gent, mascot for WVUA 23-TV.
June 29, 2016 - Just finished two days of tracking at Bates Brothers Recording in Hueytown for the new Birmingham Seven record.
L to R: Chris Kozak, Jon Noffsinger, Rob Alley, Gary Wheat, Tom Wolfe.
Daniel Western is just out of the shot.
April 28, 2016 - played with Chad Fisher at Tipitina's in NOLA, opening for St. Paul & The Broken Bones during week two of Jazz Fest! Now that's a braggy sentence!
March 18, 2016 - String Theory plays Radiohead & Queen at The Nick! Incredible night. I have since appointed myself president of the local Queen fan club.
January 29, 2016 - Got to play on night TWO of the giant David Bowie tribute at Saturn! Big thanks to all the hard-working folks at Saturn; untold thanks to Mr. Bowie. Great pics HERE thanks to Jaysen Michael.
December 8, 2015 - The first Chad Fisher video from Spectra Sonic Sound Sessions is up! W00T! Huge thanks to Lee Shook and crew- enjoy it! Three more to come later this month!
November 2015 - Kitty, who is six and a great drum student, did this illustration and story for a school journal project!
October 15, 2015 - The UAB Jazz Faculty Quintet visited three area high schools today to play for the students and teach some classes. Between the three schools we did four sets today! Thanks to Hoover High School, Vestavia High School, and the Alabama School Of Fine Arts.
July 2015 - Get your DVD / CD of the Jason Bailey Band Live At Dugger Mountain Music Hall! Both formats in one package - listen & buy HERE!
May 2015 - Recorded Rob Alley's Alabama Songbook (selections from Byron Arnold's Folk Songs of Alabama, arranged by Rob) in one long session in Tuscaloosa. It was incredible to work with engineer Jamie Tagg - he had us all in one room: vocals, mandolin, trumpet, sax, keys, upright bass, drums, and we got a sweet sound tracking live together, without headphones, even! Very excited about what went down- look for the CD later in the year.
March 2015 - Great show at a great venue: Chad Fisher's new afrobeat / country / rock project at Huntsville's Tangled String Studios! The room has a super sound and the crowd is there to listen - we appreciated their hospitality & look forward to playing there again!
February 2015 - The new album by The Birmingham Seven is out NOW! Get a copy for everyone you know at CD Baby or iTunes! We loved making it and you will love listening to it! UAB Jazz Summit 2015 was incredible! UAB Jazz faculty get to lead area high-schoolers in big bands or small groups, and it's always great to see what the students and teachers can accomplish after just two rehearsal-filled days (less than 24 hours this year!). My sextet did tunes by Horace Silver, Chick Corea, and Ornette Coleman. Branford Marsalis did a Q&A session that was inspiring and made us all want to practice, and of course his quartet concert later that night had the same effect.
January 2015 - Happy New Year!!! My Dugger Mountain Music Hall session drumming for Jason Bailey airs this month on Alabama Public Television (Tues, January 13 at 10 PM) and the Heartland network!
Had a great time Jan 9-10 with the Grissom High School Jazz Band in Huntsville, helping them prepare for Swing Central 2015 & the Savannah Music Festival! Congratulations to director Theo Vernon and the band for being invited to participate in this year's festival!
November 22, 2014 - Just returned from 10 days in Colombia with folks from the UAB Jazz faculty. We did concerts, master classes, and jam sessions; about 15 performances in all!
September 7, 2014 - Thanks to writer Brett Levine, photographer Jerry Siegel, and B-Metro Magazine for featuring me in this month's Studio column, right HERE!
August 2, 2014 - Check out my Downright / UAB Jazz Europe 2014 photos HERE! Thanks to Downright for the opportunity to play an international festival in Lucerne, Switzerland (video highlights from the Downright show right HERE), and thanks to UAB Jazz for taking our American jazz sounds to Germany for several amazing days!