Because Matt’s show takes place during the noon hour I was listening via internet stream at my desk, and while my reaction was tastefully contained, it was very cool to hear my music coming out of speakers because someone I didn’t know put it on.

One aside: I decided against grabbing the one laughably outdated boom box we have in my office to hear the broadcast (aren’t all boom boxes outdated, anyway?) but soon thereafter realized that it may have been one of my last chances to hear myself on an actual radio.  Oh well.  Just wait until I release my iPhone app a la Bjork…

I'd also like to send my thanks once agian to Andrew Jones and Jonas Oglesbee without whom Anthology, For Now would not have been possible. Both Andrew and Jonas dedicated a lot of time, energy, and creativity to Anthology, For Now and it's been their unfortuante burden to be known only as members of the Blake Lyman Trio for the past few years as we've played around town.

As I write this it’s been five days since the official release of Anthology, For Now, and already, its reception has been phenomenal, and well above what I would have ever predicted.  From what I can, tell the album peaked around 14 on Amazon’s most popular jazz albums last week (not sure where it was at its highest or where it is now since the updates were mostly coming from my wife’s frequent checking of their rankings - see the image below for proof).  In addition the album was very well reviewed by David Sumner of eMusic.com (check the “press page” of this site for his review), and has been getting some good comments from users of Amazon and iTunes (some of whom I may or may not know).

Unfortunately, not all of the news this week was so great: we received notice that the jam session at the Tea Zone will be changing hands and formats after next Wednesday’s session.  This jam has been going on for a few years with my involvement only covering the last two (see my post from February 6, 2010), but in that time we had a very positive impact on the local jazz scene, welcoming in a great range of players, styles, abilities, instruments (I’m looking your way, melodica guys), and perspectives.  It’s been a real treat to run this with Akila Fields, Sam Foulger, Jim Prescott, and Noah Bernstein.  I’m not sure if we’ll find a new location for ourselves or not, but check back for further news in that regard.  In the meantime, we wish all the best to the Tea Zone and their new fusion jam session leader, Errick Lewis.

• BlakeLyman.com (in the "Buy" section)


• CDBaby.com


• Amazon.com


• iTunes

Don't forget to join us also for a special release party at Vie de Boheme (1530 SE 7th Ave.) on Friday, January 13 at 8:00pm.

Once again, here's the cover art (it's supposed to be blurry):

Look for more information here on how to purchase the album via the internets and the cloud.

First, the full-length Mobile Music Festival video is available online, take a peak below, or here.

Many, many thanks, once again, to everyone who organized this and allowed us to take part, including, but not limited to the New~Railvolutionaries, Women's Transportation Seminar, Benna Gottfried at PDX Pop Now! and SQWare LLC  It was a fantastic way to participate in some of the great things happening in Portland and, on top of that, a lot of fun.

Here's Ben & I playing a whole song (note the attentive audience):

Also, Ben Graves & I are featured (in picture only) in the November 2011 issue of Washington County Review for our recent performance at Tigard's Third Friday at Live Laugh Love Glass.  Full issue here. 

You can read the full article here.

First, the big event of the summer was my wedding. I'm officially married to the most amazing woman of all time (and don't you forget it). Wedding planning is unlike anything else, I've been assured, so it's great to be on the other side of all the logistics, though I no longer have the event to look forward to anymore. I guess I'll have to console myself by looking forward to the rest of my life with my amazing wife.

On the music front, Graves|Lyman had some fun performances at AlexEli Winery in Molala, Koji Osakaya restaurant in Portland, and, most recently, on the Portland Streetcar as part of the Mobile Music Festival. The Streetcar gig was a lot of fun as we had a surprisingly large and captive audience for a 45 minute ride through SW and NW Portland celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the Streetcar. Though we were expecting a few surprises from the movement of the train we managed to do okay, not making too much of a spectacle through the performance. I've posted some photos in the galleries of this site from our performance, courtesy of Cheryl Juetten. Here's one now:

The Streetcar gig followed my debut at the Blue Monk's Ninkasi Jazz Series the night before. That gig, the first by the Sorta Bison Quartet since a March performance at the Camellia Lounge, was a great performance and a really fun time playing with three musicians I enjoy very much.

The Blake Lyman Trio will be playing in the series on Sunday, October 18. That performance, like the Sorta Bison one before it, will be the first performance by the BLT in a few months, and should be a lot of fun.

Aside from my regular groups, I've been working hard with Art Resnick on his Sonata for Soprano and Saxophone, which we'll debut at a concert of Art's compositions on Friday, November 18 at Sherman-Clay Moe's Piano in the Pearl District. This should be a very special concert, and I'm very excited to be a part of this amazing piece's debut.

I also had the pleasure of playing with the Darren Kleintet for the first time this summer. It was tremendous fun and a great way to get my wedding nerves a rest (the gig was the week of the wedding) while playing in front of my parents for the first time in years. This is a great group and I hope to have more announcements about playing with them in the future.

For those of you in the know, the other big project of the summer (late-spring/early-summer, actually) was the mixing and mastering of my as-yet-unreleased, as-yet-untitled debut album, which was recorded in February. That project got sidelined a bit for wedding preparations, but I hope to have an announcement soon about its release. Three tracks have been added to the music section of this site for you to enjoy.

Finally, watchers of my calendar will note that the Camellia Lounge Jam Session will move from its Tuesday night slot to Wednesdays from 8-10pm beginning in February. Come on out, bring your horn/guitar/sticks/polite request to play bass or keyboard, and sit in.

Ben and I have been performing duets all around for the past few years and, with increased demand for our performances, we thought it appropriate to carve out some web space all our own.  Go to GravesLyman.com and take a look, have a listen, and let us know what you think.

We had a little difficulty selecting the URL since most options were either too long or too abstract.  When we finally settled on our last names we realized that the inverse of our final choice ("LymanGraves") sounded too much like it might be a mortuary service.  So, we made our choice.  Easy to remember, right? 

Here's Art's description of the piece from the program:

This is the second movement of a sonata in 4 movements, a "waltz" in 3/4 time. It contains characteristics of the entire sonata such as compound rhythms like 5:3, 4:3 etc (the first movement is predominantly in 5/4 as is the final movement). While not atonal, it does not hold to a harmonic system either. The entire piece will be presented in a concert of jazz and classical compositions performed and written by the composer later in this year.

As the name and Art's description imply, this is only one part of a larger work.  Hopefully there will be an announcement here soon about a performance of the rest of the piece.  Stay tuned.

Big thanks also to Cascadia for the opportunity to perform and for putting on the program.  It's a very talented group of local composers and I'm looking forward to hearing more from them soon.

In sadder news, I took this opportunity to reexamine my links page and have decided to finally kill my blog, "Can't Think of Anything."  There is some sadness in seeing it go and finally coming to terms that I will never update it again and that no one ever read it anyway, but everything has its time.  It was born on the tail end of the blogging craze of a few years ago and helped me fill a lot of time while I was unemployed and looking for work.  No longer can I anger cat-lady-bloggers by calling them inane, nor can my sister's friends tell her they "don't get it."  Goodbye, blog.  Goodbye.