Q: what's the context/story behind jazz starbucks?
A: i've always been extremely proficient in reading rhythmic notation, because drums was my main instrument for most of my childhood. but i never really spent any time on reading pitched notation. i've played with many small jazz groups where they play standards off a lead sheet, maybe even sight reading it, and it sounds like a tune, just right off the page. i began to be really jealous of this, and i figured i was probably almost there. because i had already been using notation to write my own songs in the library, writing easily pretty much as fast as i could move the pencil. so i knew i was pretty close to having it altogether where i could sight read a lead sheet melody, but i felt like i never really put in the solid time to practice. so i started doing tunes out of a realbook, almost like pretending i was a small jazz ensemble, doing tunes i had never heard before. recording the tracks 1 part at a time, usually just drums, bass, chord, and lead. often i would take the tempo quite slow. i think i started with 'central park west' and then moved on from there. then fast forward about a year, i was scrambling through different possibilities of making videos, audio/visual content, etc, and thinking about preparing to get 'online', .... and some very simple experimental ideas came up, such as taking one of those jazz recordings and putting some kind of video on it. the jazz starbucks video would be an example of that. also there is one for the song 'tune up' where the video simply scrolls through the apps on my dock. i didn't do too many more videos like that, because, well, they're stupid