Hot days of Summer July 2017

Mid Summer

July 26, 2017

In the deep summer heat, here in the north San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, I’m grateful for family, friends, and opportunities to make music in the studio and elsewhere.

My family had lots of events from June until last week: a grand kid was Bat Mitzvah, which is a ‘coming of age’ event involving about 3 years of study for Jewish kids, then the next week, an uncle turned 95 in New Jersey, and we flew back for a marvelous weekend connecting with the family there. That part of our family has some quite formidable musicians: the legendary old time musician Dan Gellert, his brilliant daughter, a writer, fiddler and emerging star, Rayna Gellert, my cousin Chris Rogers-superb jazz musician, arranger, performer, son of the great horn player Barry Rogers, descended from one of the finest cymbalum players in America—and other too- film makers, inventors, dedicated education specialists, and …us.

Then a week in Mexico at the family seat there—which involved a lot of tamales, swimming, exploring, and playing with dogs.

Back at work now, some interesting things ahead: recording choirs all summer for the HB Barnum/Mietek Szczesniak / Life Choir project, planning the final stages of the WW cd, scheduled for March 16, 2018, with some more tracks coming in advance. We have a few clients who are also recording here, so never a dull moment.

Also working on consolidating an agreement with the superb author and film music historian Jon Burlingame to finish and release the book my father, Fred Steiner, wrote on the life of Alfred Newman, one of the great film composers of all time. My dad wrote a definitive and carefully researched book, but he passed before he was able to do the final edits and publish it.
Now, and hopefully with the help of the Newman family (including, David, Tom, Randy, and Maria) I believe we will be able to see this fine work finished and released. I expect it’s not only a history of this great composer, but also a window into a time we won’t see again.

Studio is rocking-enjoying the new sound library from VSL, and some other new additions—a mic or two, and of course, guitars….

Yeah the garden is in fine shape this summer, albeit in need of weeding! We’re digging a pond, at last. I have always wanted a pond, and always wanted frogs to live near me, ever since I was a resident of Topanga Canyon many years ago. My native gardens are now enormous, and I decided it’s time to put in a pond—no koi—mama doesn’t want to work that hard—but goldfish, mosquito fish, and tadpoles… downside: raccoons and hawks might be interested, and frogs may find their way to the pool, but I think we can forestall disasters with careful planning, optimist that I am.

The yellow orioles are still hanging around my hummingbird feeders, so fall isn’t even close!

Back to the studio....

Enjoy these slow and hot days of summer.

WW
Northridge, California

mid summer flowers from the garden

May 29, 2017

It's a beautiful, clear day here in Southern California, on this national holiday, Memorial day. There is so much pain and destabilization in the world today, and so many people wiser (or not) than I who have comments about it that I will choose to talk about music and gardens right now.

How incredibly lovely to watch the endless coming and going of the birds who live in the trees on my tiny patch of ground in the city, and to witness the antics of the squirrels, who long ago won their war on the bird feeders and thus now have feeders of their own. Also, the great pain-in-ass (as my Polish colleagues would say) raccoons who come around and wreak havoc here, yet somehow belong as well. Then there's the hawk family in the tall pine tree. These guys have been here for years and the yearly ritual of nest building, then the birth of the tiny cheeping babies, the parents raising them together--and the funniest part of all, when the babies learn to fly in a neighboring tree and I hear them howling all day long as their parents insist that they fly. This time of year is special also because the orioles come to the hummingbird feeder and I recognize their chatter. The first time one showed up, a male, bright yellow and black, I was delighted and surprised. Now it's a spring ritual as well, lasting into the summer, and then mysteriously, they go away.

My three old cats are content to lie around, be fed, pile on top of me at night, and talk to me constantly. They feel safe here, as do all the other critters hanging around. The only time everyone gets on edge is when there's a big windstorm, a peregrine falcon in the yard, or firecrackers.

My quest to do my part in monarch butterfly restoration is coming along well. There's a ton of milkweed in the garden, and monarchs are flitting around everywhere, hopefully laying eggs. I saw a couple of fat babies about a week ago, perhaps they're butterflies now.

I transformed my entire yard, front and back, into a native habitat three years ago-well, it took a couple of years. It's amazing: when you plant local, indigenous plants, the insects and birds that depend on those and only those plants show up in your garden! It was a huge amount of work lasting, as I said, for several years, but I don't regret it for a second.

Meanwhile, back in the studio, which admittedly is hard sometimes when you are sitting there and you look out the window at the sunny garden with its busy population--so much happening in here.

The gigs in Alaska were a total blast. It was, with some intense and accelerated rehearsal, a cold plunge back into performing for me. Now, encouraged, and also seeing the end of the recording process on my own cd, I've begun to schedule some solo concerts starting in November.  I expect that the cd will be available around that time, though my advisor, Mr. Nubar and I are discussing release options.

School is over next week, with just finals to come, and that should be NO PICNIC! However, my woodwind quintet came out pretty well, and I'm so excited to have the opportunity to do more composition for orchestral instruments, with the chance to hear them played by humans! I'll be back in school come the fall, continuing music studies and composition.

Mietek and HB Barnum were in the studio with me in April: we finished tracking all of the basic tracks for the Mietek/HB/Life Choir cd, which is an inspirational project, and a lot of fun. Looking to finish that over the summer and to have a pre-Christmas release. Mietek's other recents cds are brilliant, having sold extremely well in his native Poland. He is still one of the greatest singers I've ever worked with, and a dear friend.

Now many things are wrapping up: Rob Hoffman, our great mixer (and doctor of Chinese medicine) just took the Refugees tracks to his studio to mix them, as well as some tracks of mine.

I'm also quite proud to be doing some composition of songs and instrumentals for library use, to be distributed by First Com, which is a vast music library, and friends of mine. Abraham Parker and I have begun to collaborate on cues as well--it's the most fun I've had with a collaborator since my dear and foremost partner Kenny Edwards. Abe and I have a growing, innate musical understanding, even though we have slightly different harmonic sensibilities, thank the Gods. And we get each other, much like Kenny and I did, but our work is on a different level. Abe is also related to me so there's a genetic component, but man, this guy is a very exciting, deeply educated musician and it's a blast to work with him!

So, the Longhouse is thriving and the president/janitor does her daily rounds, feeding, watering, cleaning, composing, studying, 'dreaming stuff up' and trying to get a little more wisdom each day. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

More to come, and wishing all a fine day and a fine month of June.

WW

GIGS!!!!!

Actual gigs coming up!!! Three concerts in ... Alaska with Cidny Bullens. One of us hasn't been out playing in a while..hint, the one who lives on the west edge of the country... it will be fun, regardless!

March 31 - Latitude 62
Talkeetna, AK US

Apr 1 - Sydney Laurence Theatre
Anchorage, AK US

Apr 2 - Vagabond Blues
Palmer, AK US

Hello Friends - Welcome To The New Site!!!

Hello friends,

It’s a warm, windy afternoon here at the Longhouse in Northridge, California; we’ve had huge rains and I expect the spring to be quite marvelous here. My various native plant gardens, bird feeders, seedlings and flower gardens are showing signs of much beauty to come.  I want to welcome everyone to my newly designed website, created by my close friend, collaborator, and mentor, Mark Nubar, with deep thanks for many years of great work with Russ Paris as well.  As there are several new projects coming round the bend, it seemed like a good time to make a new website as well: besides: spring is almost here, I do believe, a good time for new beginnings.

Lots going on around here, new stuff coming up and coming out this year and I’ll just mention a few of them.

The new WW CD, which of course has taken forever, is close to being finished now. With apologies to a handful of my friends and fans, I’m happy I’ve been able to take my time with this one as it has presented a few challenges along the way. Not quite sure exactly when it will be out ‘officially,’ but it’s definitely this year. I have uploaded 3 tracks from it as I’ve gone along, and I expect to put one more up pretty soon, then to be followed by the whole thing.

Also, a cool project that’s been in the works for a couple of years is a collaborative work between Mietek Szczesniak, the legendary HB Barnum with Life Choir, and me. Mietek is just coming off two superb platinum projects in Poland—I got to work on them both along with Rob Hoffman-and now the next one up for him is this cool gospel-soul tinged project we’ve been writing with HB. 

The Refugees are also in the studio working on the new cd, with a little video coming soon. We don’t have touring plans yet, but perhaps next year. In any event, we love making records, and we’re hoping to start doing some interesting stuff online together as well. More on that later.

Speaking of HB Barnum, we are planning, quite soon, Dios willing, to film HB and Life Choir here at the Longhouse, performing some of the incredible arrangements and songs HB has created for the choir over the years. This is a vital and missing piece of the vast puzzle that is HB Barnum, and I’m lucky to be able to put together a project like this.

At my age, who needs sleep?

Still in school, studying traditional harmony and theory and getting my butt kicked on a weekly basis, but it is impacting my work and keeping me very very excited about composing, film, larger and different kinds of works—gotta get your chops up for that.

Studio is in good shape, a few different artists and engineers using it and enjoying it.  In the most wonderful news, after the passing of both Roz and Howard Larman, whose priceless radio Folkscene has been such a vital part of so many of our music lives, there’s a new generation of Folkscene Radio happening here at the Longhouse!!! Allen Larman, a righteous ethnomusicologist/folk and soul DJ has taken over the helm and we now have Folkscene the next generation! I hope Roz and Howard are looking down on their son and his comrades with great pride. Allen Larman, his wife, Kat Griffin (also a fine folk DJ, both of them on KCSN) Peter Cutler, long time engineer of Folkscene radio and his wife, musician/presenter Debbie Hand, are now hosting the show. We had Dave and Phil Alvin here along with Bobby Rush and co, right after he won his grammy a couple of weeks ago!

What else? Going to play some gigs (gulp, it’s been a while) with Cid Bullens up in Alaska end of this month. I see some heavy duty woodshedding in my immediate future, in between studying classical music theory and editing in the studio.

Most of my commentary won’t be this long—there’s a lot to do, better to do it than talk about it. But, I thank you for visiting the new website, and I will keep posting as we go.