Last night was the first time in years that I watched (at least much of) the Grammy Awards. It was the first time I’ve ever watched an awards show while being on Facebook so I got to see immediate response from my “friends”. Here are some random thoughts:

I heard very little Autotune, and I can hear it in places most people don’t (due to my studio production work). It wasn’t used at all as an effect, at least from what I heard. It’s interesting to look at the trajectory of Autotune: it started out as a stealth studio tool to pitch correct a less than perfect performance from real singers, then it “progressed” to a tool to make “singers” out of people who can’t sing, then it became an effect to make people sound like machines. Most singers aren’t pitch perfect 100% of the time (Yolanda Adams and Streisand make it look easy), and I guess that the producers finally realized that it was better to have people sound like human beings.

After Christina Aguilar’s painful (to me anyway) rendition of our national anthem at the Superbowl, you’d think she’d reign it in a little but the girl just can’t contain herself. Sing the song, girl. I’m all for embellishments when they’re what the artist is naturally hearing (like Charlie Parker or Mariah Carey or Fantasia Barrino) but these vocal contortions she puts on do nothing for the music because she’s not hearing or feeling them. She puts them on like a hipster in some funky hat, but it’s just a hat.

Watching Rhianna’s performance was like being in a strip club; sorry, but a stripper with a microphone is not a singer. Not that I mind a little eye candy but it’s got to be part of the larger package. I think a lot of people confuse sexual attraction with talent or vision or leadership. (Do you think that if Sarah Palin looked like Janet Reno anybody would be talking about her?). A lot of people I know (musicians in their 40’s) were ripping on Lady Gaga, saying that she’s a big Madonna ripoff, like Madonna needs defenders, but they’re way off-base. Sure, they’re both dealing with pop/club/dance music, but where Madonna was really a producer’s product until well into her career, and marketed herself by becoming a bigger and bigger slut Gaga is much more than T&A and a funky beat. Not only is she a really good singer and pianist, but the music behind the vocals is more complex and she puts forth an image that redefines sexy as creative and imaginative (and humorous).

Last Saturday I went to the Midwest Gypsy Swing Festival in Madison. I used to play in Harmonious Wail, the band that puts this on, and I was looking forward to hearing Gonzalo Bergara and Frank Vignola, two monster guitarists of international reputation (BTW, Vignola played for Madonna at one time). It was a great concert and the two of them played together (for the first time ever) for the last few tunes of Vignola’s set. I got to meet these guys, all really nice and down to earth people, just really into music. Later in the evening, there was an impromptu jam in the dressing room and I even sat in and played a bunch of tunes with them. It broke up around 2:30 am mainly because Frank and Vinny Raniolo (Frank’s guitarist) had to catch a flight and we had to get back to Milwaukee for Sunday commitments, but I think everybody could have played til dawn.

Well 2010 was a heck of a year, lots of good stuff and some major challenges too. I woke up one morning in early March in the most incredible pain I’d ever experienced…it was almost religious. It felt like all the nerves in my neck, arms and shoulders were firing simultaneously. Ninety minutes later I was in the ER, and the weird thing was all the drugs they kept giving me had no effect whatsoever. Finally they put me on a morphine IV, that worked. An hour after that I left the hospital with a bottle of pills….The next morning I woke up in the same pain, but could not move my right arm. It didn’t hurt to move it, it’s just that when I tried to lift it or reach for something nothing happened; basically I was paralyzed at the shoulder (fortunately I could still move it from the elbow down).

It turned out that two cartilage discs between the vertebrae in my neck had herniated and were compressing nerves, causing pain and preventing neural impulses from passing through. About two weeks later I was scheduled for a spinal fusion. They took out the two discs and fused my c3,4,5 together. Recovery was no fun, but thanks to a great surgeon (Dennis Maiman at Froedert) and a great physical therapist (Craig at St. Francis) I have made pretty close to a full recovery. I’m playing bass and lifting heavy gear again, the show must go on!

Ironically, right at the time when I wasn’t sure if I’d ever play upright bass again I was voted Bass Player of the Year by WAMI. I could do a somewhat limited job on bass guitar by sitting down and and parking my right arm on the bass, dangling my wrist over. This is how I played a Salt Creek gig 10 days after my operation (with a lot of pharmaceutical support). I wouldn’t have minded missing it but since it was already booked I didn’t want to take a gig away from my band mates. It turned out to be a pretty good gig, and gave me a needed boost.

I kept teaching (I took one week off), and pretty much kept working: I recorded another CD for the Branches Band, Salt Creek played a great gig at Summerfest in July and several more over the summer. In the fall I recorded EPs for Micah Olsan and Uncle Larry. Recently I just started the second session of my beginning guitar class. I’ve also been playing gypsy jazz with a new trio, Djanka 3. We’ll be playing at the Art Museum during the upcoming music video contest, March 24.