Dave Hartl: News

Allan Slutsky and I have been rehearsing a project for over 2 years, and we finally think it's ready for the public. please go to <www.nightcafetrio.com> for all the information plus video and audio downloads. Reaction to this has been great, and we're looking forward to playing this music and presenting it in the very near future.

Played Thursday night with the Dave Stahl Big Band in Myerstown, PA. What a great group! They had been snowed out through the winter on this gig so everyone came loaded for bear and delivered the goods. I find it a great shame that there's not more venues for something this powerful out there.
Current time sinks:
1.) Drexel masters degree. I'm 6 weeks away from finishing and looking forward to having this onus out of my life. Now what to do with it?
2.) UArts teaching. 2 weeks left in this semester.
3.) The Night Café. This is my accordion/ mandolin/ bass group with Allan Slutsky. We played at Andrea Clearfield's salon in February to great response and have been working hard to get the promo materials together. As soon as we have a photo shoot and finalize the last pieces, Vince Colella will be building a web site for us. Be on the watch for its debut in early June!
4.) The next original CD, tentatively called "Main Squeeze". Basic tracks are in the can, I'm tweaking them over a long period of time, and looking to record some duo tracks with Vic Stevens to finish it off. I work slow, so stay tuned.
One last note: a week ago, my old friend Mike Rubin lost his battle with renal cancer and moved on to his new address (unknown). Mike was my rock and roll guitar teacher in the '70's and was, by far, the most outrageous and talented slide guitarist I have ever known. He was a real musical force, but never left rural Chester County and remained a local legend. I'll always have great memories of the time I shared with him, and feel that our world is a little smaller now. Thanks, Mike!

Go to the "links" button, and you'll find a new connection at the top of the list. This is a website I'm building for a class at Drexel University. It presents my e-portfolio and a bunch of other information not related to my original music projects.

Just in case you were wondering...

On the gig scene, I'll be subbing in Wilmington on "Legally Blonde" the first week of December, and in Philadelphia on "Wicked" in January. Glad for the gigs, and especially glad to be away from Drexel and studying to do it!

On the creative side, Al Slutsky, Kevin McConnell and I will be recording and filming material for our promo DVD and website for Dolce, our mandolin/accordion/bass trio. We've been rehearsing almost 2 years, so it's pretty together! Stay tuned...

Just a few words to update what's going on:
The July recording with Vic Stevens, Chico Huff, Brian Groder, and Chris Farr went fantastic, these guys really play!
I've got a lot of new material that I'll be doing my Frankenstein routine on with reconstruction and overdubs. Keep posted to this site for examples in the coming months.
Also, my pursuit of a masters degree at Drexel Online continues to interfere with everything in my life, although I'm learning a lot and enjoying it on some level. Here's a great site I discovered in one of my classes, go to this link if you want to see the books that have influenced me over the years, there's lots of recommended reading here, sort of a facebook for library geeks:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/davehartl Enjoy the summer!

Summertime and the living is greasy. Got some good upcoming things, subbing on "Grease" at the Academy of Music in Philly in July, and ramping up the next project.
Brian Groder, Chris Farr, Chico Huff and I are going into Vic Stevens' studio next month and do a loose fusion jam that will serve as a soundsource for the next CD, as always at this stage entitled "A Rumor In Their Own Time". This is completely opposite of my normal working method, and I'm looking to explore a much freer territory than normal by doing this. I'm thrilled to get the chance to do this with such great players, too, and am really looking forward to this date.
Speaking of great players, there's been a lot of practicing and (I'm forced to confess) Kordeen playing in my life these days as I rehearse with Al Slutsky for our light classic group, Dolce. The music is really rich and complex, and difficult to control with an accordion, but covers everything from Fritz Kreisler to Debussy and Piazzolla.
A lot of my attention is taken up with pursuing a masters degree in information and library science at Drexel University, or their online equivalent. One quarter down, four to go!
Drop me a line, let me know how everybody else is!

A week ago Sunday we held a benefit for our friend Ted Greenberg at Gregory's in Somers Point, NJ. It was a great time, reconnecting with friends from many years ago who I don't get to see much of. Had a really enjoyable jam session with Mike Pedecin, Tim Lekan, Vic Stevens, and Al Slutsky, and then had the premiere performance of our yet-unnamed mandolin and accordion project.
Yes, that's right, I'm spending a lot of time these days back on an accordion of sorts, actually a Roland FR-7 virtual accordion, which is a very different and inspiring beast. But still...an accordion.
Old friends of mine love to torment me by reminding me of my misspent youth in which I became Pennsylvania Accordion Virtuoso Champion when I was 16, after which I prompty gave up the instrument and rarely touched it until recently. And then along comes Alan Slutsky ("Dr. Licks") who wants to become a mandolin virtuoso with accordion backing. And a new project is born.
Before you write this off, let us finish our CD and soon, a free posting will be found here. Stay tuned.

We're over the hump, there's fewer cold months ahead than behind, days are growing longer, and Bush is gone!! Sure you're cold and grumpy, but it's getting better.
To celebrate, please go over to the "Music" page here and have a free download on me. This is my version of a tune by trumpeter Brian Groder called "Oculus", part of a project he's heading whereby a bunch of musicians all cover the same tune and compare the results. I really enjoyed doing this and want to share it.
By the way, just click on the names of the tunes while you're there for all the twiddly little details about these puppies. Thanks!

Wow, what a week! Just got a hot new car (new for me, anyway), the Phillies won the World Series and had Philly invaded by 2.5 million people according to reports today, the election is 3 days away, and next week I try my hand at performing again for the first time since coming out of a long dark tunnel of rotator cuff surgery recovery. I'll be backing up a bunch of different groups at the Vocal Group Hall of Fame Induction in Youngstown, Ohio with a band of friends, so I'm really looking forward to great music and great times.
My thanks to everybody who has been talking to me about the latest CD, and a reassurance that I'm hard at work writing and arranging the next project. All I know at this point is that it will be very different from all that has gone before it; be warned. That, and it will feature several very talented friends of mine such as Brian Groder and Al Slutsky . So stop back and check the postings for rough mixes and sketches as we go at it!

It's July and right now, looking forward to a short vacation and several good concerts (Police, Elvis Costello, and King Crimson). Then I go under the knife to repair a torn rotator cuff, which will put me out of commission on playing music for two months.
In the meantime, I'm working with Al "Dr. Licks" Slutsky on a mandolin & accordion project, some transcription work for trumpeter Brian Groder, a cover of Brian's "Oculus" is under way, and I'm writing the materials for the next Lab Work kind of CD. Downtime is spent studying Mosaic box sets and watching old "Mission:Impossible" episodes. September will bring a return to UArts and new challenges, so work goes slow but steady. I'll be back in full force, recovered from surgery in October, so stay tuned!

(an imaginary interview a la Glenn Gould)

Q: What kind of CD is this? A: Most people will say it’s a jazz album. Except for the jazz purists. They’re going to say it’s an abominable mutant.
Q: If it’s not jazz, what is it? A: It’s instrumental music with an emphasis on improvisation and new sonic textures. Unfortunately, people these days think “jazz” is Kenny G.’s happy-sax-background-wallpaper-for-lawyers’-mating-rituals music. This CD is more like “Kenny Jihad” music. So I expect it to bother the casual listener/ jazz layman as well as the dedicated jazz aficionado.
Q: So why is this called “Lab Work”? A: This is a disc crammed with sonic experiments and explorations. In this new millennium, private musicians have been given great versatile tools that level the playing field. We have incredible sonic possibilities, but no one seems to be exploring those options. In my computer are virtual recreations of vintage analog gear that would normally cost hundreds of thousands of dollars; digital sequencers that enable manipulation of recordings in ways analog tape engineers could only dream of ten years ago; and sample libraries that run the gamut of every type of musical sound ever produced. Only problem is, I don’t hear anybody really using them in the jazz field, which is becoming increasingly conservative in reaction to its declining fortunes. So I hunkered down in my MIDI lab for about 16 months, used the internet to get tracks from musicians around the world, and played 90% of the tracks myself on various instruments in a fever of experimentation. I played about 25 different hard- and software synths, piano, Chapman Stick, Steinberger MIDI guitar, theremin, accordion, and chromatic harmonica, and had a great time doing it.
Q: Are you going to take it out of the lab and play it in public? A: Quite honestly, I don’t see the point anymore. Jazz gigs outside of NYC are pretty much bop-influenced museum piece presentations. The gigs also pay around $50 if they pay at all, and that’s just not enough to justify the programming and rehearsal time this music would require to present live, not to mention the hauling and setting up of equipment. Bottom line, I’ve been performing in public for 49 years, and don’t feel the burning need to play this kind of music to an indifferent crowd anymore. I’d rather spend the time creating the next CD. But that’s not to say I wouldn’t wind up doing it if the right venue would come along, but look around the scene in Philadelphia, my home town, and you’ll see all the jazz clubs closing down, and if they aren’t closing they’re not presenting anything too challenging. Times are tough and everyone’s just playing it safe.
Q: So you see this as just a CD project? A: Actually, I don’t even see it as that. Along with the new tools the music creators have been given, the music consumers have been given new options that have decimated the old record industry. Everyone’s downloading single cuts. So I don’t see any problem with mixing a huge array of styles onto one disc. Growing up, my favorite LPs were by people like Frank Zappa and Todd Rundgren, guys who would wildly mix styles and influences and cross the barriers that are up now. These are A&R people’s nightmares! How do you sell the product if you can’t neatly pigeonhole it into a category? Well, if people are buying the product one piece at a time, you don’t have to make the whole project conform to one style. You can use more of a scattershot approach.
That’s not to say that nothing’s related to anything else on the CD. I went to very great lengths to make sure that anyone sitting through the entire disc is led along smoothly through key changes, meter changes, tempos, etc., so that the entire project is like a long story with many chapters. You can digest one chapter at a time and enjoy it, or you can let the whole thing go by and enjoy it, hopefully.
Q: So you really expect to succeed by making a CD that’s not promoted in the normal way and filled with challenging music? A: Yes. Todd Rundgren financed his career making esoteric music by producing records for people like Grand Funk and Meatloaf. Duke Ellington paid his big band players long after all the other big bands failed financially by bankrolling it with his traditional hits. You can succeed these days by hitting a nerve with one download. Production costs are down and if you use a different marketing model, you don’t have to have a huge hit in order to keep other people’s greed satisfied. No big studio fees and charter jets for celebrity producers, no caterers at Electric Ladyland, no going in debt to the record company forever to earn back your advances. The challenge is to find those people out there with whom your music will resonate. But I know they’re out there.

Another semester has zipped by at University of the Arts. As usual, the weeks of a semester are an all-consuming kind of thing and one never gets much else done. But summer's here and I'm hitting the ground running. April brought the Etherwave Festival in Asheville, NC, presented by Moog Music, which was a real blast and a fun long weekend. I've been inspired to rebuild my studio and provide a lot more interconnectivity between my Moogerfooger pedals, so be ready to hear some really interesting textures on the next project.

The next CD is coming along. Right now, it looks to be a mixture of styles and ideas (surprise!) and will include a collaboration with trumpeter Brian Groder (check out his latest CD, "Torque", if you haven't already), a set of twisted tangos for quartet, and a set of Labwork-type of electronic compositions.

Live presentations of this stuff is on hold, I just don't see the point. Venues in Philly are closing down (bye bye Ludwig's, Zanzibar) and this music ain't exactly what Uncle Morty wants to hear at his party, so those "venues" are out. The other clubs are there, but hauling the amount of equipment this trip requires to play a $50 jazz date doesn't make sense, so I keep working on some way to make this happen. Compounding the problem is the very real fact that I've been playing in public since I was five years old and there's a feeling of "been there, done that". All you folks had a chance over the last 5 decades to see me play live...so maybe this music is destined to remain Lab Work after all. If you have any thoughts on this, please email me!

On the job scene, I'll be playing "The Color Purple" and "Mamma Mia" in Philadelphia through this summer as well as some gigs with the Dave Stahl Big Band. Just finished a recording session with Croatian singer Tommi (along with Al "Dr. Licks" Slutsky, Steve Beskrone, and Marlon Simon) and am working out on accordion more than is considered polite to play light classics with Slutsky on mandolin. You never know what influences the music, but I'm trying to stay open.

We're in the dregs of the post-holiday season, hunkering down. The upside is that there's a lot of work getting done on the next CD project.
I'll be playing a show called "Whistle Down the Wind" at the Merriam Theater in Philly from February 5-10 and organizing the CD tunes for live performance. Our semester starts next Tuesday (1/22) and I'm looking for more activity in public along with it.
This website is still growing and will be changing radically over the next months, so check back often!

That's right, fans, after 21 months of work and a wait of 11 years (had to take time out to make a living and raise a son), I'm back making music CDs again, this time in an age that doesn't buy CDs. So let's call this a physical artifact containing 16 downloads in a neat, spiffy package with bizarre artwork and the basic information about what went on.
You'll find most of the detailed info here on the website (just click on the individual titles in "music"). And for all those wondering, the EPA hasn't caught up with me yet, I've already started the next project...