Nigel Sifantus » Jazz

The Vault has been opened!

Nigel — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 22:05:11 +0000

During my days in NYC from when I arrived in1998 until around 2005, I used to constantly travel with my mini disc player and audio-technica stereo microphone to capture every bit of my musical life. I recorded everything from amazing class rehearsals at the New School University with some of the most amazing and diverse musicians I had the fortune to collaborate with, live performances with all my bands of the time (Spaceship, Sevenseventeen, Grandfather Ridiculous, L Maestro Presents), and other random concerts and jam sessions. I kept piling up a collection of these discs, some neatly labeled, some not at all, and usually used them to listen to once and analyze what I had just done for musical education purposes. Even though I generally cast them aside in a box, I knew that at some point I would have to revisit this material.

Well at this point the Mini-Disk player is a technology of the past, my disks had been collecting dust for years, and my last working player long been busted from carrying it in my stick bag where ever I went. Recently I opened this box and knew I had to dive in but first I had to get a hold of a player. Enter the wonders of eBay and the next thing I knew I had a great component player for around $40 and I was off and running.

This post is an initial collection of my findings. I’ve got some great vintage Grandfather Ridiculous performances, jazz sessions with some amazing students I was going to school with at the time including Marcus Strickland, John Lee, Richard Cruz, Reid Taylor, Joe Ashlar and others, and some live performances I have re-mixed that I had totally forgotten about.

Enjoy and check back later for more choice additions.

Nigel Sifantus – “The Vault” Recordings from 1999-2005 by Progtronica

Sitting in with Robert Mullins in HB

Nigel — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:21:13 +0000

A few days ago I was itching to see some jazz and found listed on lajazz.com that a group called the Robert Mullins trio would be playing in Huntington Beach (my current place of residence) at a place called the “Sandbox.” I had no idea what to expect but figured it was worth a chance. Upon entering the venue, I stumbled into a scene was a truly sureal O.C. experience. A very decent jazz group was playing for a semi large and appreciative audience at a sports bar. It was a lot like seing some cats swinging at a TGI Fridays, and the piano player and band leader, Robert Mullins, could really play. I love these kind of experiences, finding a place where good jazz should not exist but there it is, and people are digging it. On set break I hung out with Mr. Mullins and raped about music, life and the Southern California Jazz scene. After hearing that I was from New York and had gone to the New School, he invited me to sit in on the next set. I’ve been looking to get into some straight ahead swinging so I was enthousiastically down. He called the tune “Tennor Maddness” and I captured the whole thing on my iPhone recorder. Check it…

Listen:

Sitting in with Robert Mullins

sitting_in_with_mullins.mp3

Drum solo at the Blue Note

Nigel — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 03:58:32 +0000

Here is a video of a drum solo of mine during a Cell Theory performance at the famed Blue Note jazz club in downtown NYC in March of ’05. I was using a setup at the time running Ableton live on my mac, triggering short and long samples on which I soloed over the top using the acoustic kit. I was using the house kit which actually got a great kick drum sound.