This coming week trumpeter Walt Szymanski will be playing at the Dirty Dog Jazz Café. Walt is exactly like what  a Walt Szymanski should be like. He is an affable, easy going guy from Detroit and is one heck of a horn player. He has a typical Detroit jazz artist’s bio. It is long and full of famous associates, impressive gigs and descriptions of the time he spent in NYC. Walt has gotten around and is now living in a suburb of Quito, Ecuador where he teaches at a university. 

Every year I get away from home for a few weeks. I have found a place or two where I can take some time to look around at my surroundings. This is different from traveling and is helpful in the creative process. All artists have a unique process that they are comfortable with. When they write their kid a letter or create their life defining masterpiece they begin by realizing that they have something to say. How they get to the finished letter or final version of their master

Gretchen Valade and Eddie Condon both loved music and music has loved them. They both were blessed to have a passion for a music that lifted them up, good time jazz.  Gretchen and Eddie were introduced to jazz at a time when it didn’t take itself so seriously and was played in a place that you went to to forget your troubles. Gretchen and Eddie each created a jazz club that was only four minutes away from where they lived. They both have brought a lot of us along for the ride

Life is generally pretty good. I spend most of my life enjoying lolling about and sometimes doing the things that allow me to happily loll about. A few times I have actually gotten to a place where I could perform with more focus. In the arts we call this place ‘the  zone”. THE ZONE A state in which one can or feels as though one can perform with exceptional focus, skill and energy. As a painter I have suffered through periods of abject failure. Canvases covered with bad star

Just over a week ago Willie Jones passed a note to a visiting pianist from New York, Emmet Cohen. Emmet then informed a sold out audience at the Dirty Dog that George “Sax” Benson had died. Emmet knows a lot about jazz and has always been drawn to Detroit’s jazz, yet when I asked him about George, he told me that he didn’t know either George or his music. He did know that the loss of any Detroit jazz artist is a major loss for jazz. This news had the same effect on me as list

Global warming has become a sexy subject There is a lot of talk about rising temperatures and the effect that this will have on our planet. I know global warming and our local weather are separate subjects. All I know is that in Michigan we would like a little more local warming and less weather. Spring is almost here. However, nobody has told the weatherman. It looks like Detroit will have temperatures in the twenties to the sixties this coming week, Your car and house windo

DETROIT JAZZ, THE BOOK One of Detroit’s greatest assets is her first class hard working musicians. Jazz drifted up the Mississippi River from New Orleans through St Louis and Chicago and spread to the bustling city of Detroit. The music found fertile ground and the city has played a key role in the development of the music from the early 30s until today. A tradition of discipline, good mentoring and living the stories has made Detroit the schoolhouse for jazz. Through good ti

WILLIES’ CORNER TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK “AMAZING WHAT YOU CAN ACHIEVE WITH THE RIGHT TEAM. I AM CONSTANTLY REMINDED OF THIS ON A DAILY BASIS AT THE DIRTY DOG JAZZ CAFÉ. SOMETIMES WHEN I RETURN FROM VACATION I AM REMINDED OF THE VALUE OF MY TEAM KEEPING THINGS CONSISTENT AND TOGETHER IN MY ABSENCE. WHAT A GREAT FEELING. IT’S THE SAME FEELING WE TRY TO ACHIEVE WITH OUR GUESTS ON A DAILY BASIS BY DELIVERING TO THEM GREAT SERVICE, GOOD COMFORT FOOD, A SUPER RELAXED AND INTI

PLAYING, COMPOSING, ARRANGING, EDUCATING AND JAZZING Judy Adam’s Dirty Dog Jazz Café blog about Scott Gwinnell’s new CD led off with: “Although he’s known as one of our town’s most talented pianists Mr. Gwinnell is also a composer, arranger, and educator who has been playing locally and internationally for more than 25 years.” “He’s put all of these musical abilities to work on his new tribute album to the late Jazz piano icon, Mulgrew Miller.” Both Scott and Mulgrew come off

EXPOSING A CITY’S SOUL & SPIRIT Every year I think that the new jazz year starts with the Tuesday following Labor Day. The previous jazz year wraps up as I walk out of Hart Plaza, turn around and regretfully say goodbye to the Detroit Jazz Festival. This year the threats of a serious thunder storm interrupted the festival on several occasions. This year’s festival will still be considered one of the most successful according to the unofficial international smile meter. It was

THIS WEEK THE DIRTY DOG JAZZ CAFÉ IS CLOSED AND MOVING TO BE PART OF DETROIT’S GREAT JAZZ FESTIVAL Why would the smart gang at the Dirty Dog think of moving the operation? The answer is: they are going to take the operation to  where the best jazz in town will be playing. The Dog is setting up its operation in downtown Detroit right in the middle of the Detroit Jazz Festival. Maybe, they are just pretty smart. THE GOOD NEWS IS THE DOG IS ONLY CLOSED FOR ONE WEEK, AUGUST 28 –

As we go through life we all have memories of both delicious and dreadful moments. We have fond thoughts when we hear the music that was playing when you first danced with that amazing but unapproachable girl. Then we are reminded of the kick that knocked a tooth out and the taste of eating Spam day after day during the war. I can’t get rid of the memory of the smell when the van engine gave out at the most remote place on our family vacation. We live our lives surrounded by

BEING GRITTY Grit has recently caused a stir in education and psychology ever since Angela Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania began to point out that grit can be developed and is as important as IQ and talent for predicting educational success. She has shown that those who are given a chance to work through setbacks and persevere will surpass the achievements of those who lack this opportunity..Her latest book is Grit: The Power of Passion and

RESILIENCE is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. Resilient is a word that is often used to describe Detroit. Maybe Detroit is more of a slow moving slogger than a city that can snap back quickly. Recovery in Detroit has usually come from  hard work and perseverance. Toughness we have. Detroit’s resilience can be seen in its music and those who play and support the music. Hard work and perseverance are in the city of Detroit and its music’s DNA. It i

THE FINAL STAGE OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS:  SHARING YOUR ART Once an artist has put his final touches on a piece of art he is faced with a choice, to add it to the pile in the basement or offer it up as an important piece of art. Marketing doesn’t always come naturally for a creative artist. It is easier to give it away and let someone else decide the fate of one’s art. Certainly there are those who can go deep into the creative process completely immersed in their art and emer

There must be a new way to look at this Taking the usual and making it interesting is the artist’s task, adding  a dab of paint or a note in an unexpected place. That something that grabs our attention and makes us take a look is what we call art. In the glorious month of June everything around us is getting into shape. This will be the form it will take for the summer. We get an explosion of color and eager growth. This is a good time to talk about the fourth stage of the cr

THE CREATIVE PROCESS Jazz musicians, painters, writers and all artists have their own approach to creating. Last week I described what my version of the creative process should look like. It starts with getting away from your comfort zone, getting up from the couch and entering the first stage of exploring. Then comes the important part of the process, taking careful note of the things around you, looking, listening and exploring. We have just returned from a road trip which

For a very long time I have been fascinated by the ability of jazz musicians to create new music on the fly and make it look easy. We all watch as another guy steps up and adds to the first guy’s thoughts. Soon they are joined by others who move the music in a new direction.  Each time I hear Happy Birthday played at the Dirty Dog it is in a new form. No one plays it straight. Every time I have heard it played it is approached like we have never heard it before. Bands that pl

Dave Bennett will bring his band to The Dirty Dog this week. Before the lights are turned down and the music begins, the Dirty Dog Jazz Café is a beehive of activity. Unseen by those who are settling in at their tables in anticipation of an evening of jazz,food and drink, the restaurant’s back hallway is busy acting as an efficient conduit for all the good things that the guests will be experienced that night. The amazing thing is that it exists at all. When the Dirty Dog Jaz

ARTS PROGRAMS TO THE RESCUE We can be deeply but quietly affected by passion, or get carried away. but it sure helps to have a little in your life. If you look around and see a lot of  people going place to place in your neighborhood without smiles on their faces, you probably haven’t had a good arts program in your schools for a while. To test this, go to a place where folks live in a environment where art and good design is all around them. It turns out that being surrounde