| Greetings Friends! I’m just back from a wonderful day hanging out with the good folks of USC. That campus is on fire with activity! There was a whole movie crew shooting a movie, zillions of gifted and motivated kids walking somewhere with a definite purpose, and for me, getting to spend some music time with the studio guitar class. I played some solo guitar, talked about the nuts and bolts of what I do, and at the end played a few tunes with my vocalist friend Nina Francis who is currently a student at USC refining her trip.
Even though the campus was filled with people everywhere, I still ran into some old music friends from when I was living in Los Angeles. Otmaro Ruiz was trying to park his car quickly to make it to teach his class. Same for Aron Serfaty, a great percussionist who played a hit with my string group. He was hurriedly directing his drum gear towards his classroom. I ran into Bruce Forman, Steve Trovato, and guitarist Richard Smith who heads the program there. I knew Richard from the days when we we’re both teaching at Musicians Institute in Hollywood. The day capped off nicely with getting to hear a wonderful young guitarist named Jesse play an Ellington tune with Nina singing—the new generation keeping it real!  Hanging at the USC guitar class with Jesse, Peter, Richard, and Nina. A few months back we played a concert at the Museum of Making Music with Bop Moderno and I’ve just completed editing a video that I posted on YouTube. If you missed our concerts through the San Diego and L.A. area, maybe give this vid a spin to hear and see what we were into. This tune is slow but it’s sweet.
This week we garnered some CD release ink noise from Reader columnist Robert Bush. He highlights details from both Dr. Einstein’s Spin and Intersection as we’ll as Rob Thorsen and Steph Johnson’s new releases. We’re all churning out this music and we do it for you, dear listeners! Hah!
I’m only gigging once this week and I’m putting everything I’ve got into those 2 sets. Hope to see you on Thursday at the magic Roxy in Encinitas, 7pm downbeat! That’s it for this week folks and thanks for tuning in. hanging ten, Peter |
“Caro Mio Ben”
This week when I was driving up to L.A. I was listening to my iPod on shuffle mode. On came Nando Lauria’s beautiful music and this led me to the time that he and I connected on my recording project called Nikki’s Rose. For this album I wanted to include the popular aria “Caro Mio Ben”, which was a piece that Nikki sang, but do a Brazillian version of the tune. I first pulled Nando into the loop to add his gorgeous wordless vocal ridding over the samba groove. I sent the tracks to him in Florida, he added his parts there and then sent his tracks back to me to be mixed. It’s cool the way that we go with our version of the song and then near the end of the tune we blend it back to Nikki’s version, using her vocals taken from a recital many years earlier. It’s a touching moment for sure and great to bring her presence into the project. I love this track! Check it out.