James Danderfer

It is not the critic
who counts;
Not the one who points out
how the strong stumbled,
or where the doer of deeds
could have done better.
The credit belongs to those in the arena,
who fail and come up short
again and again;
who know great enthusiasm
and great devotion,
who at the best
know in the end the triumph of high achievement;
and who, at the worst,
if they fail, at least fail while
daring greatly,
so that their place
shall never be
with those timid souls
who know neither
victory nor defeat.

- Theodore Roosevelt

Good morning everyone, er, rather, Good Afternoon!  I’m running a bit behind and I apologize to the 2 readers (out of 9) who check my news page first thing Saturday morning.

It’s been a full week, after my devastating defeat in the National Jazz Awards last Saturday I pawned my clarinet and got a job painting docks, on Sunday I embarked on a downward spiral of drugs and alcoholism, showed up late to my dock painting job on Monday and was consequently fired, on Tuesday my woman left me for being a “jobless good for nothing”, on Wednesday my dog left me for similar reasons and so I sank further into my pit of NJA loss induced self loathing, I found God on Thursday morning, lost Him Thursday night, checked into Betty Ford on Friday, got my horn back from the pawn shop this morning et voila, I’m back baby! more…

It’s official everyone. I’m a 2 time loser! Of course, I’m referring to the National Jazz Awards in which I was one of the nominees for best Jazz Clarinetist. This year however, I’m going to try on the “gracious in defeat” hat by thanking all of you who supported me and congratulating all of the talented 2009 winners! … besides, it’s easier on my liver and a lot cheaper than the “jealous rage induced binge drinking” hat. (I am fond of that hat too though.)

For those interested, Bob DeAngelis is the winner of best jazz clarinetist. Who is Bob? I actually have no idea. In fact, out of the list of 6 or 7 nominees Bob DeAngelis was the only guy I’d never even heard of! more…

Welcome to this edition of the Saturday Morning News Post everyone! I thought I’d have the final results of my artistic plan for you today but I don’t. As the above title would suggest, this hasn’t been a very productive week. This has been a running around dealing with shit week, like my laptop for example which broke down many times (thanks to Mark Busse for bringing it back from the dead), and then my audio interface, and then my microphone cable, etc, etc. Big pain in the ass.

Of course, I did spend some time on developing a plan, but that too was unproductive. Really, it just involved me getting up at the crack of 10, lounging in my robe with a cup of coffee, and staring at my big dry erase board for several hours thinking more…

It’s been an exciting week for this ol’ clarinetist as the electro-acoustic project is officially up and stumbling. I can’t say “running” just yet since all I’ve got are two demo songs but I’m nonetheless excited about taking this project all the way, and the inevitable world domination that will follow.

The impetus for this quick & dirty demo came from FACTOR (The Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent on Recordings), or more specifically, from the faint possibility of receiving funding from FACTOR to record a full-length album. The deadline was yesterday, so fingers crossed that this new music sufficiently blows FACTORs mind. I’d also like to offer a shout-out to producer/singer-songwriter/drummer/engineer Joel Fountain, who spent many hours (including one ludicrous all-nighter) in order to get this thing off in time. Thanks Joel!

So what does this have to do with planning?

Why? Everything, of course. You see, it was a plan (albeit a rough one) that put me into action, like so … more…