Blue Eternity (Oster-Manring-Weingarten-Alberti) Live @ Yoshi's 12/14/15 "Silent Night"

It was a privilege being on stage at Yoshi’s in Oakland last week Monday with Blue Eternity. Humbling it is, every time I play with these gentleman. Jeff, Michael, Celso, and guests Frank Martin and Jeff Taboloff really killed it good. One of the things that makes this group so much fun are our four distinct voices and how we each support and play off each other. In this video, the guys gave me a solo moment to present a new looping piece I’ve been working on “Evening Sun”, before we slide into a rendition of “Silent Night”.

Thanks to everyone who came to see us! Please enjoy and share. --Carl

The Banjo Player | My Grandfather and Art Hickman during the Birth of Jazz

My grandfather, George Eveleth, was eight years old when he and his family survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Their house was also spared, and on that day, George sat on the front steps watching the parade of refugee’s stream by on their way to the tent city in Golden Gate Park. His father left that morning and when he returned, he brought with him two items - an antique clock and a banjo. George took up the banjo and by the time he was in high school, he was playing professionally. Along the way he met and was mentored by a local percussionist and bandleader named Art Hickman.

My mother has spoken of my grandfather many times over the years, but the significance of George’s connection to Art Hickman never occurred to me until recently. Hickman was a historic figure in the early days of jazz. San Francisco based, he helped not only pioneer jazz orchestras, but incorporated the use of multiple saxophones, having them play in harmony, and above the trumpets - a signature jazz arrangement. Hickman’s music is difficult to label, though perhaps described as a mix of Ragtime and Dixieland. Hickman didn’t consider his compositions to be so much jazz as it was primarily dance music. In 1913 The Art Hickman Orchestra was an established regional act, and became the first jazz band to play the prestigious Mural Room at The St. Francis Hotel. The run lasted for a decade. In 1919 Art Hickman’s band was invited to New York, where Hickman signed a contract with Columbia Records. National success quickly followed and lasted until Hickman’s death in 1930.

For a time during this period, my grandfather was in Hickman's circle of musicians. Whether George was ever an official band member, we don't know, but he did perform with Hickman at The St. Francis on a number of occasions. During the First World War George served in the Merchant Marines, and upon his release, he returned to playing music for a living. But as much as George loved being a performer, and the nightlife that came with it, music would soon become his lifestyle rather than his profession. “The only musicians earning a good living are session musicians” he told once my mother. George wanted to have a family and to play music locally. He entered college in 1923 and graduated from UCSF Medical School.

I was too young to really know my grandfather. He died in 1964. Our family lived in the Midwest and rarely visited. I do have a few memories, including watching George play banjo and sing at a Christmas party. After he died, George’s second wife changed his will to exclude my mother and aunt. Also against my grandfather’s wishes, she sold his instruments and otherwise liquidated his estate. Recently my mother showed me one of my grandfather’s few remaining possessions – an album of family photographs from roughly 1900 through the 1950s. Among them are several photos of my grandfather playing banjo or guitar, nearly all taken later in life with family and friends. However three photographs placed on the opening page, stand out as special. The first is a studio portrait of a smiling, youthful and smartly dressed George Eveleth. The second photo is also a portrait, that of another man, slightly older than George. The identical lighting and background of these two photos suggests they were taken at the same location. My mother pointed to the second photo and said, “My father always insisted that was Art Hickman”. Hickman was ten years older than my grandfather, and I’ve tried to verify this image, but photos of Art Hickman are rare. Assuming the man in the portrait photo is Hickman, as my grandfather had said, he appears very young as compared to the man in official publicity photos and record sleeves.

The third photo shows a vintage jazz orchestra posing for the camera against a backdrop. There are eight musicians; two banjos, one violin, bass, saxophone, trombone and accordion players. A ninth man stands in the back row with his hands at his side. The photo is only a few inches wide, is creased and unevenly cut, perhaps trimmed from a larger print. Fortunately as an original photo, it's sharp enough that a digital scan revealed more detail. Seated in the middle, posing with his banjo and with an uncharacteristically serious expression is my grandfather. He appears to be in his late teens. The other musicians are a mystery. At some point I hope to ID some of their faces, and perhaps verify if any or all were part of Hickman’s Orchestra. If so it would confirm my grandfather’s place and time during the early days of jazz.

I’ve restored this photo as a Christmas gift to my mother. Here is the before and after.

Mismatch.com

Moving from the Midwest to the West Coast meant getting acclimated to the climate change.  No more fiercely cold winters or broiling summers.  Just chill, fog, rain and sun; often on the same day.  Then there was the social climate.  In the mid-90s, I attended a tech fair in San Francisco.  At one busy table was a group of women promoting their new company called Match.com.  Anything online was still a new concept and Internet personals were a promising option to the social maze of San Francisco.  I took the free membership and set up my online profile, then spent the next few weeks trying to crack the code of others.  I wasn’t having much luck.  My emails usually went unreplied, or the responses suggested I was a suspect rather than a suitor.  One evening I received a message that looked promising. The sender was a single mom, 33 years old, a professional who described herself as a legal advocate for men in child custody disputes.  We started a conversation, sharing interests in music and politics, and over the next week our emails and phone conversations were refreshing in a city where people “networked” but rarely stuck with their connections.

We discussed getting together, but the 30 miles of time and traffic to her place in San Jose meant planning for a weekend.  To be honest, I was in no hurry.  Some years earlier, I had become involved with a woman who, shortly after we met, left town for a summer job.  Our letters while she was away greatly enriched our relationship.  It was an experience I still value.  It was also a lesson for all the times I’d rushed in, letting expectations get ahead of me.

My new friend and I continued talking over the next week.  The following Sunday morning, I received an email from her saying that she and her friends would be having brunch across the bay in Berkeley, and would I like to join them.  Yes, I responded.  It was nearby and would be a good day to meet and finally spend some time in person.  Through the city and over the bridge I drove.  Arriving in Berkeley, I was blessed by the parking gods with a spot only three blocks from my destination.  As I entered the busy and popular restaurant, a hand went up on the far side.  It felt good to be recognized and welcomed.  I walked over and greeted my date and her three friends, who were sitting comfortably in a booth.  They had already eaten.  After the formal smiles and head nods, I then noticed that no one was making room for me to sit down.  I pulled up an empty chair from a nearby table, sat down and ordered a coffee from the annoyed waitress who kept squeezing past me. The group seemed friendly enough, and I began talking with my friend.  She had seated herself on the inside, which caused me to speak directly past the person next to her, who was nice, but gave me the sense that I was going through a translator.  Fortunately, the scene didn’t last very long.  When the check was paid, we made our way out the door with the rest of the dispersing crowd. 

It was a beautiful morning, and I was anxious to spend time with my new friend.  The fog had burned off, the sun was bright, and the air was freshly clear.  Just the kind of perfect weather one imagines in the Bay Area.  As we stood outside, I asked my friend what she would like to do next.  “Oh, we have plans,” she said casually.  And the four walked off, piled into a sedan, and drove off into the Kalifornia sunshine.

"In A Small Sanctuary" by Carl Weingarten

One reason I enjoy improvisational music is the act involves as much listening as playing.  Recently I visited the Audubon Canyon Ranch in Stinson Beach, California.  It’s a beautiful wildlife preserve with hiking trails along the Highway 1 coastline.  On the hunch that I might get to do some playing in the quiet outdoors, I brought along my traveler guitar.  For fun, I started shooting some video on the park grounds. Then I came across what looked like a door to an old building.  It turned out that this was a Bird Hide - a camouflaged shelter for up close observing of nesting and feeding birds.  Covered by trees and overgrowth, the observation room and the sanctuary were screened from the open air and wind, making the room amazingly quiet and peaceful.  There was a brief period when there were no other visitors, so I sat in with the band.

“We Drove All Night Until We Reached 1930”

Growing up, we never had a color TV in our house. For most of those years, our set was a small portable early 1960s model with a 10-inch screen. The reception was often so distorted that even when we weren’t watching Star Trek, everyone on TV looked as though they were going through a transporter. Still, for some reason I thought our set was in color. Despite my father’s earnest explanations, and even my own witnessing of a color TV once at my grandparents, I still believed that the image on our little TV was true to life. Eventually I figured out the difference, especially when I began shooting and editing super8 movies. But black and white remained my photographic view. In fact, I didn’t fully embrace color photography until the prolific instantaneousness of digital photography finally gave me the crash course I needed. After 10 years of color work, returning to black and white seems more natural than ever – like the fresh perspective of a traveler coming home. My friend and photographer John Huseby introduced me to shooting with lens filters, which have added a new creative layer. It’s like color without color. True color is beautiful, but it’s complicated. Color can open your eyes, but it can blind you. There’s a timeless essence to black and white that appeals to me; like this photo, taken at a vista along Route 253 in Mendocino County.

Bodie 2011 or Las Vegas 2062?

Speaking of boom, bust, recession and what not. I traveled to Bodie California a few weeks ago. I have always wanted to visit and photograph a genuine ghost town. And Bodie it is. In 1880 Bodie was a sprawling mining town of 7000 men, women, prospectors, entrepreneurs, settlers, industrialists, gamblers, robbers, swindlers, business ladies, and bankers. Today only 5 percent of the peak era settlement remains above ground. Preserved as a national park, the decaying buildings stand sprinkled over the Martian like desert landscape. It’s a beautiful, eerie and amazingly quiet place. Though we arrived late, and I only had an hour to shoot, the afternoon light turned out to be perfect. As the jeep driving park rangers bull-horned people back to their cars, I wondered do all empires inevitably end up as tourist attractions?