If you’re interested in hearing some live music, come check out the jazz quartet I play with, the New Groove Dictionary, at the 8th Street Taproom in Lawrence, KS on Sunday night, November 16th at 10:00 p.m. It should be a lot of fun and a good way to kick start your week!

Here’s my poster for the event:

www.mattwilsonjazz.com

I’m extremely excited to announce the launch of a new website that I’ve been working on for jazz drummer, Matt Wilson! Matt is an educator/drummer/composer & band leader and a winner of several Downbeat and Jazz Journalists Assn. awards.

Over the past month or so I’ve been working along side my good friend, fellow sax player and web programmer/designer Greg to design this site. I first saw Matt perform live with his group Arts and Crafts in 2007 at the IAJE conference in New York and was blown away, so when Greg approached me about working on his website, it was a total no brainer. Matt’s a great guy and an incredible musician, so if you ever have the chance to hear him perform, be sure and check it out.
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This Sunday, May 4th, there are a couple of great art events to keep your eyes open for. The first is the 47th Annual Art in the Park event put on by the Lawrence Art Guild. I’ll be playing for about an hour in a jazz trio starting at 11:00 a.m., so if you’re free and want to see some cool art, you should come on by South Park on Mass. Street!

Also on Sunday is KJHK’s Jazz in the Park event featuring the Chicago Afrobeat Project, The Yards, and RedLefty. I have a couple of good friends in The Yards and they’re an amazing band, so get out there and support some live music! The other bands are great too, so it’ll be a LOT of fun! It’ll be at Watson Park (the train park) staring at 1:00 p.m.

In 2005, my wife and I did a recital together where we each played a half-concert worth of music. In addition to some unaccompanied Piazzolla études, the big piece that I performed was a jazz improvisation with my father Vince Gnojek. I gathered together a series of 10 photographs which were a combination of my own photographs and some found images. All of them were abstract and had strong elements of texture and color. I projected them onto a large screen and we each stood on either side of it and, with the lights turned out, we performed an improvised piece of music that responded to the photography that we were looking at.
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Jazz has been a longtime passion of mine. Outside of design, I think playing jazz is one of the most satisfying things I do. I’ve played in a variety of jazz groups, but I’ve always really loved playing in big bands. When I was in college, I played in the KU Jazz Ensemble every semester I was there and some of my best musical moments were in that band. We played a lot of different modern jazz music composed by the likes of Maria Schneider, Vince Mendoza, Jim McNeely, Bob Brookmeyer, the director Dan Gailey and many others. This music has become some of my favorite of all time and I love any chance I get to perform it.

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This past summer, I was approached by my friend Greg about a project that was right down my alley. He works for the “We Always Swing” Jazz Series in Columbia, MO and they were looking for someone to help do some design work for their upcoming 2007-2008 season. I love to jump on any chance to mix my interests and this was a perfect opportunity. If you happen to be in Columbia or within driving distance, you should definitely look at this season’s schedule. If I only had one concert to choose, I’d definitely go see the Brad Mehldau Trio. Hands down.