Stefon Harris

Stefon Harris, the vibraphonist who played at the Lied Center Saturday night, came out to work with my jazz ensemble at Southeast last week. He is one of the most exciting young musicians in the jazz world, and one of the best I have seen at working with kids. He is doing a multi-year residency in Lincoln to teach and perform at UN-L and to work with students in LPS. There is a great article and video on the Daily Nebraskan web site which also features Paul, playing flugelhorn and former LSE student Tommy van den Berg playing trombone with the UN-L Jazz Combo I.

You can read the article and view the video here.

Kauai Trip

Here's a brief day-by-day description of our Spring Break trip to Kauai, April 8-15:

We arrived at night on the 8th and checked into the Sheraton at Poipu Beach, which is on the only real dry portion of the island. Kauai is mostly rainforest, and has the wettest spot in the world. It rained off and on even at our hotel, but the weather never kept us from doing anything, and there was still plenty of sun for the beach.

April 9: Spent the whole day breaking in the beach in front of our hotel. See pictures on KodakShare Gallery (I sent a link on email).

April 10: We spent this day hiking the Napali coast. It's about a 2-hour drive to the trailhead on the other side of the island. It was dry for about the first mile of the the 2-mile hike along the mountainous coast, and then rained the rest of the way to the beach at the end of the trail and all the way back. We saw humpback whales breaching off the coast, just like Chris and I did from the same spot 20 years ago on our first trip to Hawaii. The hike continues for another 9 miles if you have a permit and the time, which we didn't. Upon return to the trailhead, we snorkeled for a while at the adjacent beach, and while Chris and I were in the water, the kids got their snorkeling gear stolen (the only black mark on the trip). This is where we saw the "manny-legged" hen (see the Share Gallery).

April 11: Spent the day back at the beach, and ended it with a Luau at the Sheraton. The buffet was fantastic, but it started to rain and they had to move the show inside. The show wasn't nearly as good as the one we saw in Mauai last year, but it was still fun.

April 12: We went to Spouting Horn, a lava tube that shoots water in the air (see video below), and then drove along the lip of Waimea Canyon, "The Grand Canyon of Hawaii". At the end of this road, there is an overlook onto the Napali Coast.

April 13: Spent the day back at the beach and playing in the pool. Kids loved the water slide, and we played a lot of hide and go seek. Another favorite pasttime of the girls was stalking "hot guys".

April 14: Our last day. We took a Catamaran cruise (powered upwind, and sailing downwind) and snorkeling trip along the southern coast, including right in front of our hotel, where we saw a bunch of spinner dolphins jumping and spiraling out of the water. After we cleaned up in a courtesy room provided by the hotel (in record time for this family - 1 hour), we drove to see Wailua Falls and then went out to dinner before heading to the Lihue airport for a 9:00 p.m. flight. We arrived in San Diego at 11:30 the next morning. The family handled the overnight flight really well. We were tired, but fully refreshed from a great trip!

SI Article

Sports Illustrated has an interesting article on Nebraska football on their web site - click here to read it.

Randy Brecker

On Tuesday, I got a chance to meet and work with one of my musical heroes, trumpet artist Randy Brecker - he came to town with the UNO Jazz Ensemble to perform a concert at Southeast - he also performed with the LSE Jazz Band which I direct. Randy is a multiple Grammy Award winner, and was one of the players I tried to emulate when I was a student in high school. You might remember the band I had in college with Matt Wallace, Andy Hall, and Bill Bolmeier - we were trying to play some of the tunes from the Brecker Brothers albums that Randy recorded with his brother Michael.

In addition to his jazz performances with many of the great players of the last 40 years (Jaco Pastorius, Dave Sanborn, Horace Silver, Larry Coryell, and many, many others), Randy has also performed and recorded with pop and rock artists as diverse as Steely Dan, Frank Sinatra, Chaka Khan, Frank Zappa, George Benson, Bruce Springsteen, Parliament-Funkadelics, and James Taylor.

A pic of Randy and me after the concert - in the process of autographing the CD he was giving me:

Here is some video of his performance with my students - Randy's solo starts at about 4:30 into the recording (btw, the first trumpet soloist is my son Tommy). The piece the kids are playing is an original composition called Southeast Six Step - commissioned specifically for the LSE Jazz Ensemble I, and written by Eric Richards.