To learn more about me and my history playing the trumpet and learning jazz, please start with the following links: About this site // Six-year anniversary // My playing history - the beginning // My playing history - the blowout // My playing history - the comeback // My introduction to jazz // Recommended recordings // Equipment information
Archived "About Me" blog entries are listed in the left-hand column.
When I started my trumpet playing comeback, I spent a fair amount of time looking for guidance on the Web. Along the way, I visited several websites and jazz blogs by professional jazz trumpet teachers and musicians. While I enjoyed reading these websites and blogs, they typically lacked information about HOW the people became great musicians... and that just happened to be something I wanted to know!
I did find a few exceptions, however, by both beginners and professionals. Their willingness to share their journey through ups and downs, inspired and motivated me to do the same.
I want to be clear: I'm not an expert. I don't think I'm a great jazz trumpet player, nor do I ever expect to become one. I'm simply learning as I go; playing for pure enjoyment. I built this jazz blog with the single hope that my experiences, both good and bad, will offer some encouragement or advice that will ultimately aid you in your own musical journey.
Oh, and my name is Rick...
I named my jazz blog after the George Gershwin tune "I Was Doing All Right." I first heard this tune about 15 years ago, on Dexter Gordon's album "Doin' Allright." The laid-back feel of the recording and the confidence exhibited by the musicians have inspired me ever since. Of course, the name also fits in well with my role as a comeback player :-)
To make things a little easier for my repeat visitors, I've also registered the domain name rickjazz.com. It's easier to remember than iwasdoingallright.com and it will get you here just the same (rickjazz.com does a redirect).
This jazz blog was built mostly during the last week of December 2003. All code is ASP.NET, with a SQL Server data source . This is the first complete website I've built with ASP.NET (and hopefully my last!). Well, actually, not all of the code is ASP.NET. My ear training tool is a Java applet. In addition to the public pages that you see, I built an administration tool that I use for entering all of my jazz blog entries.
This is also the first site I've built that uses CSS instead of tables for layout. It was a total pain in the @ss getting everything to line up nicely in all of the major browsers, but after a few compromises, I managed to get things looking pretty good. And what do you know, the site is also XHTML, CSS, and RSS compliant.
Nope, I'm not a professional jazz trumpet player (I know... big surprise!). Rather, I work as a web developer and software engineer for an IVR company. I mostly build Java-based tools for our voice application developers. The bulk of my work can be found at evolution.voxeo.com.
