Updates later this week...

Sorry for the long time between posts. I've been trying, only partially successfully, to finish a new arrangement of an Andy LaVerne tune called "Process of Illumination," and just got past a major case of writer's block. So I've put the blogging on pause for a week or two, but I plan to get a new piece written this week.

I thought it would be good to learn about the listening habits of some of the young jazz musicians I heard at the Viking Jazz Festival last month, so I E-mailed their band directors and contacted them. Several of them replied with answers to these questions:

1. When did you start listening to jazz music?
2. How much listening do you do every day?
3. Who are your top two or three favorite jazz players...and why?
4. When you're listening to something for the first time - something you haven't checked out before - what are you listening for? What's your approach?
5. How much is listening to jazz a part of your daily practice regimen?

I'll be back later this week. You have been listening on your own...right?