The L Maestro Presents show in Cleveland on Sunday the 16th quietly ended an almost year long hiatus from performing for me, the longest I’ve gone without performing I believe since I was around 7 years old, performing contemporary classical music at the Rivers music school. Sure I had sit in at a couple of local Jazz clubs in the So Cal area a few times in the past couple of weeks, but this was the first time hitting the stage and putting myself out there.

To be honest it felt like it had been longer then the year that had transpired as I hadn’t felt the fire for quite some time, maybe years. There are many reasons I had come up with to rationalize why I wasn’t playing: The business had gotten me down, I was tired of playing for no money and thus feeling disrespected in my craft in a society that only recognizes success monetarily, I wasn’t feeling inspired by what I was hearing other people do anymore, I had kids, etc. etc. Really I have slowly come to realize that the fire had just gone out of me for a bit and I was just rationalizing my lack of enthusiasm for performing and music in general by all of the external factors and ignoring what was going on inwardly.

Life events, and a few much needed jolts to my system have seemed to re-boot me in the past month however and thus this L Maestro show couldn’t have come at a better time. I was, for the first time in years, totally engaged in the moment and even though the show itself wasn’t the smoothest or tightest performance, and my chops could use a little time in the shed, I feel like it marked an official return to Music.

Years of sedentary introspection have left me with a mind full of ideas of things I need to do/make and it is difficult to know where to even start. Currently I am putting most of my energy in solo music videos which is a totally new medium for me. I have posted a couple of videos on YouTube over the last couple of months mostly performing little solo’s on my digital drums. The new material is much more involved however. I’ve been sampling myself playing odd time breaks, re-cutting and arraigning them using Ableton Live, and making music around them to use as a soundtrack for some abstract videos. I’ve also been trying to hit as many Jazz jam sessions as I can find in the Southern California area as I am a jazz musician after all even if I forgot about that for a while.

It has been a weird few years and I guess sometimes you have to step back to see where to go next. Don’t get me wrong, I am still TOTALLY BITTER at the state of modern music, especially pop music. I know what you are thinking – oh Nigel that just means you are getting older. Everyone has that feeling when the music of their youth becomes “retro”. However I cry foul! The music of this past, yet to even be named decade (2000-2009) has been the worst in recorded music history as far as the songs the world has all experienced together. There will always be great underground talent, and that is certainly the case now as ever, but quality popular music is also important because it introduces the non-musically inclined listener (i.e. most of the listening population) to the possibilities that lie within music. The stuff that has been churned out to the general public for the past ten years has positively been un-inspiring at its best and downright offensive at its worst. It’s no wonder no-one wants to spend money on Music anymore. But more on that rant later.

For now I am BACK. Stay tuned….