Bobby McFerrin Concert 3/27/13

The first thing I think of when I hear Bobby McFerrin's name is his song "Don't Worry Be Happy". I love that song.  As a kid, I used to play it over and over and never got sick of it.  To this day, the song still brings a smile to my face.

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a Bobby McFerrin concert at the Ellen Eccles Theater in Logan, Utah.  It was awesome.  What made it so great? A lot of things, some of which I'll mention.  Here's some of my favorite highlights:

*"He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" song-McFerrin changed the key of the song something like 20 times all while alternating the style and tempo of the song. Did I mention he had a band backing him up the whole time? (Keyboard/accordion player, 2 guitar players, upright bassist and drummer) Throughout the craziness each musician kept up with the changes without even blinking an eye.

*Crowd participation moments: Audience members (Jen) singing "Natural women", (Wally) singing some random song and then McFerrin singing Happy Birthday to a girl in the audience. All these were fun moments where McFerrin and the band turned the interactions into special musical moments.

*Encore performance-After a standing ovation McFerrin and the band came back and McFerrin asked the audience if we had any questions for him. Immediately a guy yelled out "Sing Don't Worry Be Happy!" Other audience members cheered for that request (including myself). McFerrin quickly responded "No...I've already sung that 5 trillion times." The audience continued to cheer for him to sing it and he finally consented to sing only the background of the chorus if the Audience would sing the melody. We all sang repeating the chorus twice and then McFerrin stopped it. As short as it was, it still brought a smile to my face.

I enjoyed this concert so much because the whole show felt like one huge improv session.  It felt like I was hearing these songs like they'd never been performed before.  Thanks Bobby McFerrin for an amazing evening!  I hope to catch another one sometime soon. :)

More great McFerrin Videos:

The power of the Pentatonic scale. Given at The World Science Festival.

Bobby McFerrin improvisation with Richard Bona

"Thinkin' About Your Body" Song

...and I say to myself, "What a wonderful world"

Hi.

2 years since my last blog post.  Wow.  I feel the sudden urge to explain and justify why it's been so long since I've written something...but I'm not going to. I just feel like writing.

I went on a run tonight for the first time in 3 months.  It was 30° outside and snowing.  Not ideal running weather, but it was great to get out of the house.  I'm always amazed at how hard it is for me to buck up and commit to go for a run, but once I commit and start running it feels great.

I love the earth we live on.  It's beautiful.  Seriously, have you looked around lately?  The mountains, the snow, the trees, the clouds.  It's awesome.  Yes, I sound like an earth loving hippie right now and no, I'm not on any drugs.  Just enjoying and loving the outdoors man!

During my run I had to stop and snap a picture of the beautiful scenery around me. Surely this should be documented. It's beautiful. I quickly pulled my cell phone out snapped a shot and kept running. The result is below:

Needless to say, once I got home and looked at the picture I was disappointed.  I had felt inspired by nature and this boring picture was all I could come up with?  I went to delete the pic but couldn't. It reminded me of what I felt when I pulled the camera out in the first place. Could anything be salvaged to create an somewhat interesting image?  Here's what I ended up with:

I decided to zoom and crop a beautiful tree from the background.  The grainy pic still reminds me why I took the picture in the first place, which is this:  The world is a beautiful place. Every little piece of it.

Art and Technology

I came across a company called "Mr. Beam" this morning and was amazed at what they do. This company specializes in 3D video mapping, then projecting their work onto buildings and structures using multiple projector screens. This blows my mind. Here's my 2 favorite videos showing what they do.

Video 1---(Quoted Directly from their website):

Gent

Licht Festival Gent

For the first time in Belgium the city of Gent organized a Light Festival and Mr. Beam was a part of it. For this special event we chose the backyard of the conservatory of Gent, what gave us a beautiful 180 degree canvas to work with.

Projection: Mr. Beam

Audio: Starling Music

Tech: XL Video

Video 2---(Quoted directly from their website.)

Living Room

Concept by Mr. Beam

We created an unique 3D mapping video experience by turning a white living room into a spacious 360 degree projection area.

This technique allowed us to take control of all colors, patterns and textures of the furniture, wallpapers and carpet. All done with 2 projectors.

Living Room from Mr.Beam on Vimeo.

Happy New Year!

Hello 2011.

"It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life For me

And I'm feeling good."

Lyrics from the song "Feeling Good" sung by Michael Buble, Lyrics by -Nina Simone

1 week into 2011 and I'm still thinking about new years resolutions: Run every day, Read scriptures, Work out, Consistent guitar practice, Take more pictures, Record more music, Write original songs, Blog more...that's just a few. Bottom line of my resolutions: Be Better, Do More, Work Smarter, Play harder, Enjoy Every Moment.

This morning I woke up and looked outside and everything

was covered in frost. It was a beautiful sight, so I grabbed my camera and headed outside. Here's a few of the pics I took. I love winter time!

And a few more....

That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

James

Am I allowed to say the "C" word yet?

11/10/10

"Christmas"

Even though we're still in the month of November, I've already been busy getting ready for the upcoming Christmas season. The month of December is always CRAZY full of performances including the annual 3 night Eclipse Christmas Concerts. Planning, rehearsals and conference calls started back in September. Going on my 4th year singing with Eclipse, the Christmas Concerts are one of the biggest highlights of the year. It sounds cheesy, but Christmas is a magical time of year that I don't get sick of.

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,
Jack frost nipping at your nose..."

How can you not feel all warm and fuzzy when singing these lyrics? I love it. Thank goodness for headphones, otherwise I'm sure someone would punch me in the face for all the Christmas music I've been listening to. This years concerts will be different in that we'll have no opening act. Here's who we've had the last three years:

2007-Russ Dixon--------------From the band "Colors"
2008-Jenny Jordan Frogley---LDS Vocalist
2009-Hilary Weeks-----------LDS Vocalist

Since we don't have an opening act we'll be filling the time with more Eclipse music. It's been nice to have amazing artists open the concert, but it will be nice this year to sing a few more songs and have a little more time to get to know and enjoy the audience.

This year to help promote the concert we'll be releasing a few videos to try and hit the social marketing scene better than we have in the past. Here's the 1st video we've put out. It's our "Christmas Rap". We're excited about this video because we're at 1,000 views after only 2 days. We hope the web traffic continues! If you like the video, please share it with your friends. Even if you have to wait till AFTER Thanksgiving...I understand. :)




Thanks for stopping bye!

-James

Happy Halloween!

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! I HATE spiders!

I came across this lovely little guy when I was cleaning off the patio of a vacant apartment this afternoon. I moved a piece of wood laying up against the building and this guy was just hanging out behind it. After I recovered from nearly having a heart attack, I regained the use of my mind and watched it in awe of how big it was...and how much it looked like the fake spiders rings that people give away this time of year (during Holloween).


If the pictures weren't enough to creep you out, here's a wonderful video I shot of my little friend just for you.

New videos from Eclipse

Yeah, so I need to post a normal blog one of these days...but for now here's a couple videos from the group I sing in (Eclipse).

We've got one of our biggest shows coming up at the end of this month on Friday June 26, at the Sandy outdoor amphitheater. We're hoping to make this concert a summer tradition every year in Sandy City so spread the word to everyone you know!

Thanks for stopping by!

James


This video is an EFY show we did at BYU-I in Rexburg this year (4/18/09) What a crowd!