Curt Siffert

Hello everyone! It's been a few months since I've last updated you all over here at curtsiffert.com, and several of you are new. I've been working quite a lot on things in the background and there haven't been many big items of news to report, just slow and steady progress.

First off, I wanted to announce that my band Deja Nu is playing at Tony Starlight's Supper Club And Lounge this Friday night, November 9th. I'm the pianist/keyboardist (I still make strangling sounds when I say "keyboardist") of the band, and will be singing a couple of songs, too. According to Tony himself, there are still reservations available that night, either for the early show (~8pm) or the late show (~9:30pm), so call now before they fill up. You can have a full dinner, or if you wanted to risk bar seating, you can get drinks at the bar.

We've performed a couple of times at Tony Starlight's so far, and have sold out both nights. It's a wonderful venue for this type of band, slightly formal and retro but also goofy. We'll be playing some standards, but also some things you might not expect. Hint: Neil Diamond might make an appearance.

I'm still occasionally posting new piano musings. They're not going up as often, but it's not for lack of material - I actually have a six-month backlog of piano improvisations. It's more that I'm starting to be a little more choosy about what I upload. The piano musings were always just supposed to be a creative exercise in quickly generating content and stretching my improvising skills, and I do have a fair number of subscribers to the Piano Musings Podcast, but I also don't want the site to be dominated by new age music. Luckily, the date of the improvs is approaching a time when I feel like the material started to become more inspired. I've also posted a couple more paintings by Kasey Baker that were created in response to some of these pieces, and there are more to come. I've clarified that almost all of my content posted on the site is available under a Creative Commons license, so I'm looking forward to more collaboration possibilities and mashups in the future. For a recent example, check out the YouTube video that someone did, setting All Aboard as the soundtrack for his photo and video slideshow.

I'm still working on original material in the background. Some of it I take more seriously, but every once in a while something stupid falls out. Back in June I came down with a cold and thought it would be fun to try and write a song about it before the symptoms really socked me. Seeing as that my judgment was impaired, I can't deny that I'm slightly embarrassed about the song, but then again, I'm supposed to be here for your entertainment. I Have A Cold is about when you start experiencing... feelings... that you don't want to be feeling. Feelings such as unrequited sneezes and post-nasal drip. If it's within your control, try to laugh WITH me and not AT me. This song is screaming for a trombone solo, and so there might yet be another version in the future.

In addition, I also uploaded Together to GarageBand, where it got some very good reviews, and a couple of community-generated awards, including "Best Potential Soundtrack" for the week of June 11th, 2007. It's a cool system that GarageBand has put together - I'll probably upload more songs there in the future (although I'm a little frightened to do it with I Have A Cold). I've also become an artist through the iLike system, so if you're an iTunes nerd, you can add me to your favorites there and increase the odds that other listeners will discover me.

Most of my time these last few months, however, has been devoted to singing and playing jazz. I'm trying to work up a few sets of repertoire, jazz standards, that I can perform by myself or as part of a trio. And, good news! I've also managed to restore all my recordings of jazz standards to the website so you can all hear them. The catch is that they are copyrighted by other people, and I can't make them publicly available. But I can give access to friends and family. So I set up a username and password - if you know me personally (and at this point in my career, if you're receiving this in your inbox, you probably know me personally), just email me to ask for the username and password, and I can give you access. They are all at http://curtsiffert.com/standards. They're all rehearsal recordings, but there are some good ones there, including a recent recording of What A Wonderful World that I think turned out rather well. Someday I'll have my three hours memorized, and then look out.

It does feel like activity has been picking up recently. There are potential opportunities to do more jazz piano in town now, and I'm also doing some keyboard work for Quoting Napoleon, a great band here in town. I'm also working on a couple of projects with a few people that are floating around in that laid-back jazz kind of way, and hope to have more news on that soon. Keep checking the site - more piano musings and uploaded artworks are coming soon, and I also recently got my hands on some video footage of Deja Nu. So if you want to see a youtube video of me singing, you'll find it on the site.

I'm looking forward to these next few months, and you can always stay updated by following along on the website. If you know anyone who would like to be on my mailing list, please send them along. Thanks for your support!

I'll see you next time,
Curt

Hello everyone! Time for another update from curtsiffert.com.

It's been a fun month. It's difficult to balance all the musical goals with the rest of life, especially when the musical goals aren't clear yet. But in the meantime, the exploration is quite interesting. It's like finding clues along the way of where the best future directions are.

In March I put together a quickie recording session and jam session to work through some song ideas I had. One of the songs we worked on was All Aboard, a song I wrote a few years ago while visiting Nashville. Check it out at the website to listen or download. My previous recording of the song wasn't a live recording, and was missing drums - this was my first experience of truly performing the song with multiple musicians and it was such a blast.

Incidentally, the two musicians helping me out on the recording are Steve and Ken from Quoting Napoleon, a great band based here in Portland. Check out their website - they're playing out a lot and they have their first cd coming out in the next few weeks. Special thanks to them for helping me out.

I was happy to have a new recording of a song, but wasn't sure what to do next. Then I heard about a local songwriting event involving an A&R representative coming to town. I wouldn't have considered it had I not had the recording, but I signed up. The event was to present the song to the representative and a room full of other songwriters. I was of course completely tense about it and almost didn't go, but it ended up being a good experience. You can read more about how it went on my website. In short, I got a lot of good comments and encouragement. I was particularly encouraged to start my own band.

I'd like to present my latest song. Last November I wanted to see if I could write a song in less than an hour, and I came up with Balancing Above The Air, which I just recorded and uploaded. Check it out, it's a simple little tune and I like how it turned out. I wouldn't have come up with the song if not for all the piano improvisations I've been doing in my Piano Musings podcast.

Speaking of the Piano Musings, I have a backlog of improvs that I am going to start uploading to the site again. I've uploaded The Interrupting Sister, which I'm hoping my two small nieces will get a kick out of. I've also just now uploaded Eidolon. The podcasts are going well - remember you can subscribe to both to have my songs automatically downloaded to your computer or iPod.

I've also finished posting the series of collaborations that Kasey Baker and I did. Check them out - the paintings are fabulous and bring a new dimension to the piano pieces. I'm hopeful there will be more in the future.

There is more podcast news. We've completed a new episode over at Acoustic Conversations. The Bart Ferguson Band (aka Kerosene Dream aka Nine Days Wonder) sat down with us, performed several of their songs in my living room, and shared their thoughts on what it means to "make it" musically. It's a great episode - go to the site to listen and to hear the songs we recorded.

I've also had an idea for a new podcast - I would like to host a songwriting workshop with a few other Portland-based songwriters. We'd give each other comments, but also open it up to our listeners. If you know of songwriters in the area that might be interested, put me in touch with them.

Finally, for those of you who are interested in Deja Nu, it's going quite well. We're through our membership changes and have added Steve Morgan, a great bass player new to Portland who is already playing out a fair amount. Deja Nu's repertoire is building and we're in the middle of finding gigs. I also have a fun recording of me singing "You And Me And The Bottle Makes Three" - if anyone would like to hear, click reply since I can't post it on the website for copyright reasons. :)

So there are several possible directions currently. I'm thinking about forming my own group, I'm hoping for it to go in a jazz-influenced direction, but I'm also continuing with the more introspective and classical style of my improvs. I'm hoping that over time, the jazz, classical, and songwriting impulses will converge into something really cool.

Until next time! Stay tuned to the website to keep up. And if you know of others who might want to subscribe, please send them my way. Thanks for your support!

Curt
curtsiffert.com

Hello friends and stalkers! (I don't think I'm important enough yet to have "fans", so if I don't know you, you're just a stalker for now. Welcome.)

A few things to report since my last newsletter. There are some new features on the site, a few new songs, a new project, and some additional paintings as well.

I've been trying to figure out how to share my recordings with you all - a lot of the work I've been doing has been about getting more comfortable with jazz. Lately I have been recording and singing a lot of jazz standards, trying to find my own voice and approach. One of the features I've added to the site is a Request form, as in "I Take Requests". A few of you have already used it, including my father, who requested a rendition of When I'm 64 for his 64th birthday (it turned out great).

Unfortunately, if I'm going to make jazz standards publicly accessible, I have to pay royalties to publishing companies that are quite often very hard to find. At the same time though, many of you are personal friends of mine and shouldn't be considered part of the "general public". (Yes, it's a rationalization, but one that the performing organizations would hardly sue me for.) I'm still working on a solution to that puzzle.

In the meantime, I've uploaded more original material. A New Steeple is another piano musing that explores the Small Town theme I've been so drawn to over the past few months. Incidentally, this "Small Town" theme is something that may be expanded in a few exciting directions in the future months. Keep checking my site for more news on this.

In addition, I've added two versions of one of my favorite originals, As One. The first one is a version I did for my old a cappella group, In The Buff, back in 1995 - it's for voices only but has somewhere between sixteen and twenty parts. The second one is a cover produced years later by two people in Germany! It's a wildly different rendition. Listen to both right after each other and you can see just how different a song can sound when put in different hands. I like both, but I personally think that the purest version of the song doesn't exist yet, and finding that is still part of my future plans.

I wanted to briefly mention a new project I am involved in, as a co-host for a new podcast called Acoustic Conversations. This is a local podcast that is devoted to interviewing working singer/songwriters. We have one episode in the can already, featuring Al James from Dolorean, and I found it just fascinating to learn about the music industry from the perspective of an indy musician that is already touring and recording. He also performed some original works for us on the podcast. Go to the site to check out the show and hear the first episode. And if you know of performing songwriters you think would be a good fit for the show, let me know!

If you want to see some cool art, watch the site for the next three weeks in particular - Kasey Baker has supplied several more paintings for my piano musings project, each an artistic response to a particular piece, and I will be posting them every three days. The first one you see here is for Rundown Playground, an improv I came up with a few months ago. Check out the site for a closer look and to hear or download the piece. I'm very excited about this series - we're planning to make the art available in other forms, and I'm also hopeful the project will continue to grow, to include more and more artistic collaborations. More collaborators are always welcome!

Finally, summertime is here and my jazz combo is ready to gig! If you have any ideas on where a great eight-piece (three horns!) jazz combo named Deja Nu could perform this summer, let me know! We've got quite a bit of material, and I'm singing some of it, including Mack The Knife and You And Me And The Bottle Makes Three. I'll keep you all posted for gig announcements.

Until next time! Stay tuned to the website for more up-to-date information.

Curt
curtsiffert.com

Hello and welcome to the first newsletter of Curt Siffert, the brand! I'm still getting used to speaking in "official" voice, so have patience. It's taking all my willpower to fight off the usage of the royal we, but I'm sure you'll agree with me that the royal we-ness is best avoided.

There's still some kinks to be worked out here, including the possibility that this email might arrive a bit garbled. If so, let me know (works for me). But for now, here's the haps in the curtsiffert.com-land.

Many of you may know that I've been running a podcast for a while now of my various piano improvisations. The pieces are raw and with bobbles, but the point is to use them to explore the creative process, and get some interesting ideas out. I've since found that quite a few people enjoy the pieces as finished works, and it has something of a following now. I wrote about the project and its history on my site - It's called "Piano Musings", and it was on hiatus for a time, while I worked out some technical issues. I've started it back up and am finding that the subscriber base is increasing - I have close to 100 regular listeners now, and am starting to market it a bit more. Many of these pieces may turn into more finished works on future recording projects. I've also added a new improv named "She Owns A Boat" (click to listen or download), which has been downloaded about 200 times at last count. If you're interested in how to join the podcast, you can read about it, or if you have iTunes installed, you can actually subscribe automatically simply by clicking here.

One other interesting development is that I've started collaborating with an artist in Las Vegas, Kasey Baker (hi Kasey!). I've mentioned this briefly on my site - she's quickly coming up with artworks to be paired with several of my improvisations, and we're also looking at various ways to package them and show them - there are several exciting possibilities here. Pictured here is the painting for Insects Crossing Ice, an improv I came up with a few months ago. Several more paintings are coming soon.

Other than that, I'm basically networking around town. I'll be writing more about the various Portland musicians and groups I come across, as well as my own efforts to get a repertoire of original songs and arrangements together, so keep checking out the website. We're also coming up on gig season for my band, Deja Nu - expect gig announcements when they're relevant.

Thanks for your support!
Curt
curtsiffert.com