Guide Dogs for the Blind is an organization that started just after WWII when vision-damaged  returning vets needed help back home.  Many of them had brought back German shepherds from the front and these were the first guide dogs trained by GDB.  Now they are a national organization with headquarters in San Rafael CA.  The Oregon Chapter of  GDB (with a training center in the unfortunately-named city of Boring) hosted their annual auction recently and sold my services for a private party which happens to be this month at the home of a couple of members of GDB.  Nowadays, Guide Dogs are usually yellow or black Labradors and are given a year and a half of training and temperament assessment before they are paired with a client.  They made a pretty good haul from my sale at the auction, and the late afternoon party will be in a couple of Saturdays from now.  Sorry to say it’s not open to the public but i’m just so happy to be doing this.

From that party i will go directly to another benefit party, and this one is open to the public.  This event is to commemorate 90 years of existence for the B’nai B’rith Summer Camp.  Located on the Oregon coast, it is a Jewish-oriented camp which is non-denominational.  I have a special connection with this group.  Although i was never a camper, my dad used to go every year to the BB Men’s Camp.  The Men’s Camp was/is unique…the only one of its kind in the world.  My dad and his buddies never missed camp week.  Go to  http://bbcamp.org/events/bb-camp-90th-birthday-bash   if you are interested in attending this party.

I will only be playing there for the cocktail hour, because after i finish there i will be going over to the Benson Hotel to play the second of two nights with Shelly Rudolph.  All of the above takes place on Saturday,  September 17.  Whew! That’s a long night!

OK…so more charity events.

On the following Saturday, September 24, i have two in a row.  The first  will be for The Pet Peace of Mind program,  which trains hospice workers to allow for pets to stay with their owners in hospice care through end of life. For more info on this go to   http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=107548079350712
The event itself is called Paws for Art and will feature several artists from the area at the Castaway Showroom on NW 18th and Thurman.  This is open to the public.

Later that same night i’ll be doing a benefit for a wonderful woman named Marilyn Kirvin who has an aggressive form of thyroid cancer.  This concert will be held at the incredibly beautiful new theater inside the Arts and Communication Magnet Academy in Beaverton.  Here’s a link for more info on this show.

http://www.marilynsvoice.friendsofmarilyn.org

Then on Sunday September 25, I’ll be playing a benefit for Mark Simon. Mark is also a jazz pianist who I’ve known for many years.  He has a serious liver ailment that is costing him a fortune in medical bills.  So some friends are playing on that day from 1-3pm at Classic Pianos on SE Milwaukie Ave a couple doors down from the Alladin Theatre.  Classic Pianos has a very warm and inviting recital hall that is so fun to play in and all the people who work there are wonderful piano people.  Here’s a link for tickets:

https://ticketsoregon.com/event.php?event_id=1095

And last but not least, a joyous benefit to celebrate the baby that is coming soon to a theatre near you.  No this is actually the love child of chanteuse Shelly Rudolph and guitar guy Chance Hayden.  They’re having a slam bang, all star, no-holds-barred throw down on September 29 at the Secret Society Ballroom, 116 NE Russell Street.  Everything (and it’s a lot)  starts at 7pm.  Go to Shelly’s website for the low-down on the throw-down.

www.shellyrudolph.com

Bye for now.

Hey SEATTLE:  We’re playing in Issaquah at Bake’s Place this Friday night.  Bake’s is located at 4135 Providence Point Dr. SE, Issaquah WA 98029.  Phone is 425.391.3335.

Bake’s has been around for several years and is known for good food and good music.  Sounds like a winning combination to me.  We play from 7:45-10pm.  The “we” is myself along with bass wizard David Captein, master of the acoustic AND electric bass, and a pretty fine sitar player as well as a ventriloquist.  What a talent!

Over the years I’ve played all the important jazz clubs in Seattle.  This includes Parnell’s, The Pioneer Banque (with Joe Henderson and Charles Lloyd), Jazz Alley many times, once with the great vibist Milt Jackson, and in later years after Jazz Alley moved back downtown after a short stay in the U district, several appearances with my band in the 80’s and 90’s.

This will be the first time at Bake’s and we’re really looking forward to it.  We’ll do the usual mixed bag of musical excursions:  the Great American Songbook, The TG SongBook, the Beatles songbook…and oh so many other songbooks!

We strongly recommend dinner reservations for our dinner guests on that night.  The place fills up quick and you want to have a decent shot at a good seat….Although I’m told there isn’t a bad seat in the house.

See you Friday on Seattle’s East Side!!

I have some very interesting gigs in August.  Here we go.

Tommy Owens, the proprietor of Tommy O’s restaurants in Vancouver, is putting on a very nice concert series at Camas Meadows Golf Course in Camas, WA. It’s called Concerts for a Cause. Our appearance there will be on Wednesday, August 3rd.  I’ll be with my band (Jeff Frankel drums and David Captein on bass) with special appearances by my long-time percussionist friend Curtis Craft on miscellaneous hand percussion.  Then we will be treated to a visit by the young and extremely talented singer, Jackie Nicole. This will be a knock-out show; showtime is 6-8pm.

Then it’s me and Shelly Rudolph at some of Portland’s swankiest hotels:  Saturday August 6 at the Benson from 8-12pm, again at the Benson on Friday August 11 from 7-10pm.  Then we do Friday the 12th of August at another of PDX’ venerable old hotels, the Heathman.  We’ll be playing.   in their Lobby Lounge from 8-12pm.  And then we’re back at the Benson again on Thursday the 25th.

I’m playing solo piano at the Tillamook County Library in Tillamook OR on Monday August 15.  This is part of a series that is their “summer reading program.”  So bring a book…i guess.  6:30-8pm.

We are once again doing our concert/jam at Tommy O’s on August Sunday’s in Vancouver.  We are coming up on our third year of a very successful run at Tommy’s.  The format has proved a huge draw in a town that doesn’t have a lot of thriving music venues.  When 6:30 rolls around, we are usually packed with patrons and jammers (singers and instrumentalists).  Try it out. The Hawaiian-influenced cuisine is incredible and there’s lots of affordable items on the bar menu.

We’re playing Seattle on August 19th at Bake’s Place in Issaquah.  This is my first time at this busy suburban venue that’s pretty much been rockin’ for several years as a showplace for NW jazz artists.  I’ll be appearing there with Dave Captein on bass.  That’s a Friday night and the place is small, so get your tickets ahead of time.  Please click thru on the link and see more about Bake’s and get more info, address, contact info, times, etc.

And finally, I’m playing at a place on the Oregon Coast called Gracie’s Sea Hag. It’s in the town of Depoe Bay and I’ll be there with Shelly on Friday the 26th, and then by myself on Saturday the 27th.  I love the name. We play from 7-10pm.

So go out and see some live music.  And take this newsletter with you.  See you at the gig!

As many of you may know, we have a concert/jam session every Sunday night, 6:30-9:30 at Tommy O’s in Vancouver.  There are two versions of that restaurant:  one of them (the newer of the two) is out in east Vancouver just a stone’s throw from Camas.  The one that we play at is the original version downtown at the corner of 8th and Washington.  Tommy Owens opened the place up several years ago and features a Hawaiian cuisine and décor.  It’s a smokin’ little place.

We started playing there about 3 years ago with my band. We’ve had Curtis Salgado show up, Marilyn Keller, even Peter Tork of the Monkees showed up one night. I didn’t know that was him until after he left.  We could’ve jammed out on “I’m a Believer.”

So at the jam, we usually play an hour or so with just my band (Dave Captein on bass, Jeff Frankel on drums).  Then we open it up to a jam session, inviting instrumentalists and singers up to “sit-in” with us.  We encourage everybody and anybody with the proviso that people know some of the basics about improvising, following tunes, knowing when to come in, knowing when to let someone else take it, etc.

Generally speaking, it’s a jazz jam session.  That means that we play music from the “Great American Song Book” (Cole Porter, Gershwin, Rodgers & Hart, et. al.), and then improvise in the jazz tradition.  But we do sometimes stretch into other forms: pop, r&B, funk, etc.  So it’s pretty wide open and eclectic. For potential jammers, it’s best to know some tunes, and for singers, we ask that you know what key you do the songs in, and bring charts for the piano and bass player.

This format was pretty much invented and perfected by my drummer friend, Ron Steen.  He has run jam sessions in Portland for the last 40 years and is pretty much the grand master of the jazz jam.  He currently has a jam every Sunday night after ours at Clyde’s Prime Rib in NE Portland.

This last Sunday, we were booked with my band to play the Cathedral Park Jazz Festival in St. Johns.  After 31 years of Cathedral Jazz Festival shows and never a cancellation, our night was cancelled due to bad weather.  We had replacement players ready to fill in for us at Tommy O’s.  They were gracious enough to step aside when we told them about the Cathedral Park cancellation.

We basically moved our show from St. Johns over to Tommy’s.  I had lined up the beautiful powerhouse singer Shelly Rudolph along with a young Julliard School of Music student and trombone sensation, Javier Nero.    And an incredible night it was.  Besides Javier and Shelly, tenor saxophonist Tim Jensen came in as well as young guitarist Chance Hayden.  Masterful jazz drummer Gary Hobbs showed up and was totally ridiculous.  John Knowles (the “singing barrister”) crooned as did Victor Valentino. And the icing on the cake was the appearance of a true ghost from the past:  guitarist Jerry Hahn of the “the Jerry Hahn Brotherhood” showed up and played out the night with us.

So I’m imploring you to come out to Tommy O’s on Sunday nights.  Watch the magic unfold before your eyes…and ears.

Congratulations to Mike and Donna Ziegler of Edgewood WA.  They are the winners of the Gold video contest.  You can view the winning video at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEYeQJVyhgM.  They were able to download a video of me and Shelly performing the song and give it a special atmospheric/textural treatment. They also expertly synched that version up to the audio from the new single release of Gold (The Wedding Song).  Way to go Mike and Donna! Thanx to all other entrants.

The newly-released single of Gold (The Wedding Song), is still available for purchase at Amazon.com and at iTunes.

This Sunday I’ll be playing at the Cathedral Park Jazz festival in St. Johns. We go on at 6pm. The festival has been a regular summer event since 1981 when the owners of the Hobbit restaurant and jazz club started it up under the Cathedral-like support structures of the St. Johns Bridge.  I haven’t played there with my own band for at least 25 years.  This year I will be featuring my band with Jeff Frankel on drums, David Captein on bass along with young trombone master Javier Nero.  Sultry singing sensation Shelly Rudolph will also join us for a combination of jazz, R&B, and originals that defy categorization.  Please come to this…the park is a gorgeous setting and the music will be fun.  Patrick Lamb will play before our set.

Some of you may have noticed that we stopped playing at the Oswego Lakehouse as of this last weekend.  This is after posting a summer schedule full of Lakehouse appearances.  So now we’re planning on returning there in October after a July-September hiatus, just as we did last year.  Sorry if any of you traveled out there only to find us gone!  Such is the sometimes capricious nature of the music biz.

Shelly and I will be showing up at the Benson hotel later this month and next.  And the Heathman has us playing in their lobby-bar for some dates in August.  Check my Appearances page for the latest on that (it should be posted by 7/14 am).

Over and out.

Last year at the Oswego Lakehouse, Shelly and I took July thru September off.  This year we will be playing on Friday’s and Saturday’s in July, August and September.  On those nights we will play from 9-12pm.  So make a note in your calendars that you can see the Tom and Shelly show thru the summer in the bar at the Lakehouse on weekends.  You should still check our schedules when you plan to come out because on various nights Shelly or I might have other shows we are doing so that we have people “subbing” for us. But there will always be quality music on Friday’s and Saturday’s.

And remember that the Lakehouse is known for it’s wonderful lakeside patio/bar, the only one of it’s kind in the Northwest.  And our music can be heard thru the patio speakers.  In addition, there is a huge video projection on the side of the building next door which shows us while we’re playing in the bar.  It’s really pretty awesome.  Did I say “awesome?”  What’s happening to me?

Win the gold medal by showing us your best effort to transform “Gold” into a killer music video. The contest starts now and ends at midnight July 11. The winner will have their video uploaded on the Official Tom Grant YouTube channel and they will receive autographed copies of my last 8 CDs along with two VIP tickets to our annual “Winter Warm” concert on December 4.

Here’s the back story.  We are releasing a single of the song “Gold”. The release will only be in the digital realm. The song is a streamlined new mix of the “Life is Good” album version, shortened and enhanced in other ways. It is written and performed by myself and Shelly Rudolph.  And now we are calling it Gold (The Wedding Song).  So keep that in mind for video content. Feel free to use any photos pulled from our websites, perhaps mixed with live action shots, but most importantly, give free rein to your creative impulses.

You will need to download the song at: http://www.yousendit.com/download/UnlCSXR5SWVwTVd4dnc9PQ?cid=tr-cv-web-stnd-dl-litesend-null-c-19072&s=19072

Then send me a MP4 of your completed video to tom@tomgrant.com.

Going to the link above until June 20 to get one of the first 100 free downloads of the song.  After that you can download Gold for $.99 at iTunes, Amazon and Rhapsody.

Good luck, video constestants!

My parents had a small vertical piano made by Everett.  Today that piano sits in my daughter Heidi’s house as a TV stand.  In the old days, this type of piano was referred to as a “spinet” (pronounced spin-it).  This was the smaller, more affordable style of pianos made in mid 20th century.  It is distinguished from the larger, heavier “upright” style.  Since the length of strings is a major factor in determining the quality of sound, spinet pianos with their smaller cases could not generate the better-deeper-richer quality of sound which came from uprights and grand pianos.

But our little Everett sounded nice enough to me and was easier to play since all the mechanisms in the piano were smaller, and therefore lighter than those of an upright or grand piano.  It took less power to depress the keys of our piano.  The “action” was light.  So much so, that when I went on my first serious gig on a grand piano with Jim Pepper at a restaurant in Seattle in about 1971, on my first serious solo on that gig, my hands stopped working after about a minute of seriously trying to play every lick I ever learned.  I couldn’t move my fingers.  It was like when I first tried to run the 440 yard dash in high school. When I came around that last turn of the 1 lap race, my legs felt like they were filled with sand.

In the ensuing years, I learned how to pace myself on the heavier pianos, and eventually developed enough strength to play the way I used to on the old Everett.

I love pianos.  I love the look of them.  And I especially prefer black, grand pianos.  And they always seem to sound better to me than ones with walnut or some other brown wood finish.  But that must be my imagination…right?  I like the higher gloss finishes because that’s the sound I like to have in a piano. Again, a psychological mind trick?

Of course the really impressive sounding pianos are usually the largest ones. And the largest are 9 feet in length.  (Bosendorfer does make a 9’6” piano.)  Some top names in pianos are Yamaha, Bosendorfer, and Steinway. (Some might argue about the order).

I bought my first piano from Maurice Unis. He is the Moe of Moe’s Pianos in Portland.  It’s confusing now because Moe’s Pianos was bought by Sherman Clay and they kept the Moe’s name.  Now Moe Unis has a wonderful piano store next to the Alladin Theatre on SE Milwaukie Ave in Portland .  It is called Classic Pianos of Portland.  He has several other stores throughout the Western States. Moe is the king of piano marketing. He is nationally renown as a piano dealer and is a great guy to boot!

I have much more to say on the subject of pianos, but I might save it for a future blogisode.

**One thing is though, if you’re thinking about getting a piano for home, church, nightclub or other, please feel free to contact me.  I’d be happy to answer questions you might have about pianos.

tom@tomgrant.com

When I was very young, my parents used to take me to the old Amato’s Supper Club in downtown Portland.  It was right across the street from the Paramount Theatre on Broadway.  It was on the very same block as today’s Winningstadt-Newmark Theatres.

Longtime and famed Portland disc-jockey Dick Novak had a booth there in the club from which he would do live radio broadcasts for KPOJ.  My brother and I even got to go backstage one night because we were guests of a comedy act that had dined at home with us that night.  My dad owned a record store and we often entertained traveling show business folks who ended up comping us seats at the venue where they appeared.

The supper club scene was replete with show girls, stand-up comedy, bands, singers, slick masters of ceremony, and certainly characters of the Portland seedy underbelly.

Which you may or may not find at today’s retro supper club called Tony Starlight’s.  But Tony’s is definitely a throw back to the style and ambience of the 50’s SC scene.  It has a classy look, with nice stage lighting and even occasional  audience members who dress the part of the swank patrons from the distant past.

Shelly Rudolph and I will be playing this Saturday at Tony Starlight’s.  It’s just us with our repertoire of standards, blues-y Motown hits, and jazzy-sultry love songs.  Andwe do some TG music from days-gone-by for good measure.  This is a part of the Portland jazz festival and will be a one-time-only appearance.

So make plans to see us at the fabulous Tony Starlight’s this Saturday night.  Showtime is 8pm.

Last night at our weekly concert/jam in Vancouver at Tommy O’s, our friend Mary came to the gig.  Mary is a delightful (and tiny) great grandmother in her mid eighties or so.   And she plays the piano in a rollicking old style that lights the place up.  On my first break we often ask her to play and she always obliges us with 15 minutes of saloon songs that people absolutely adore.  After she had played 3 songs, I asked her to do one more.  And she dug down deep and started the irresistible melody to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”  Everybody sang along and it was hellacious fun.

A couple days ago I was watching the Tampa Bay Rays playing the Minnesota Twins in Tampa Bay.  The top of the 7th inning came and went and it was time for the time-honored tradition called “Seventh Inning Stretch.”  And instead of that good ol’ song that Mary played with such verve at our jam, there was a massive army major out there on the diamond, singing “God Bless America.”

Now I’m not saying that GBA is a bad song or anything.  (I’ll never forget the Ray Charles version.)   Nor do I quarrel with the concept that God (if he/she exists)  might find it in his/her supreme being heart to bless our great country.  But com’on.  The September 11th tragedy was a decade ago, and since all ballgames start with the National Anthem, why stop in the middle of the 7th inning for yet another musical paean to the greatness of the US of A.

The founders (not of the US, but of baseball) clearly had it in their mind to stop the action of the game long enough for everyone to get on their feet and sing a goofy, mindless song about a national pastime that is nothing if not light, carefree, relaxing and fun.  We sing our allegiance to baseball.  Not God and Patriotism.  We sing “if they don’t win it’s a shame”….NOT “…  if we don’t win we’re disgraced…” or “….if we don’t win we should hunt them down and do them serious bodily harm …”   We don’t need a second burst of patriotic fervor in a three hour ball game just to reaffirm everyone’s love of country.

I don’t really know if the rest of the league is still doing this and this was, after all, in Florida.  But please, let’s give it a rest.  It’s BASEBALL.  As the great philosopher Tom Hanks once said, “there’s no crying in baseball.”  Well in the same vein, there needn’t be any false, hyper-patriotism in baseball either.

NOTE**Sorry…i know I’m violating my own self imposed ban on making any statements that could be even remotely construed as political.  I just couldn’t help myself.