JasonShadrick

As always, Chicago this year was great.  From the location to the housing to the great people at Judson who take care of us, it seems that every year our Chicago campus is usually my favorite.

The faculty this year included Matt Smith, Dennis McCumber, Cass Faulconer, John Horne, Murali Coryell, Mike Cramer, Shawn Purcell, Jeff Beasley, Dave Tiede, and several more amazing instructors.

The week began with meeting Amanda Monaco at O’Hare and then directly heading down to the Jazz Record Mart.  I had been there several times before and I knew that I had to put a time limit on our visit otherwise we would be there all day.  I ended up with a Paul Motian album and an early Jerry Bergonzi album.

The faculty arrived on Saturday and we had a nice hang before the students arrived on Sunday.  This year’s group of students were some of the most talented I had ever seen at NGW.  We had two students from Mexico, one from Italy and one from France. All of them had decided to come to Chicago to get the chance to see our guest artist, Buddy Guy.

One of the most memorable moments of the week was the night of the first student concert.  That afternoon the power went out for about half of the campus, which of course included our performance space.  At the last minute we decided to have the concert in a large classroom with minimal amplification and with the drummer only using a snare and a splash cymbal.

It was one of the most memorable student concerts ever.

Everyone who came had such a great time.  The students played great and many of them came up to me at the end of the week and let me know how great of a time they had.

On the 16th we headed down to Buddy Guy’s Legends to spend some time with the man himself.  As we arrived at the club, Buddy was sitting at the bar waiting for us.  Many of the students had to look twice as they walked in, not believing that he was just hanging out.

Buddy Guy at Legends Photo Courtesy of GuitarVibe.com

Buddy spent some time answering questions and telling stories about his life in music over the last 6 decades.  After he answered questions, he went back to sitting at the bar and proceeded to make sure everyone who attended had the chance to say hi, get an autograph or get a picture taken.  It was great to see someone at his level take the time to do this.

After all the autographs were signed the jam for the students started.  Buddy continued to hang to check out the first few bands and you could tell he was digging it.  It was an incredible thrill for everyone involved and I hope to talk to Buddy (and Isabelle) soon to bring him to another campus.

Another cool thing about this week was that Zack from GuitarVibe was attending as a student to document the entire week.  He did an amazing job of writing about the experience from a student’s perspective.  You can also check out some videos he shot on his YouTube channel.

I am already in Austin (very hot) and today we have the great Jimmie Vaughan on campus.  It is great being able to travel in the summer and see all of the students, but I am looking forward to going home on Saturday.

It always takes me a bit of time to get back into the swing of things when the annual (now my 6th summer) NGW tour begins.  As it has the last few summers we started in McLean, VA at one of my favorite campuses, The Madeira School.

A few of our teachers have already wrote about their experience at McLean.  You can check them out here and here.

The week began with a trip to Blues Alley in DC to see Pat Martino with an amazing group that included Tony Monaco on B3 Organ, Eric Alexander on Tenor Sax and Jeff “Tain” Watts on Drums. Of course the music was amazing and the whole run of shows at Blues Alley was recorded for Pat’s upcoming live CD.  The whole band was very nice and it was really exciting to see them work out some new material.

Once the faculty and students arrived and the workshop began it really flowed pretty smoothly.  The Madeira School always does a great job as our hosts and the view from behind the auditorium is really incredible.

After the shows at Blues Alley ended, Pat came to campus to give an afternoon workshop and then he was going to spend the next day giving private lessons to some of our students.  I have seen Pat give 5 clinics in the past, but this one was by far the best.  He presented the material in such a clear and easy to understand manner (relatively speaking) that pretty much everyone got something out of it.

The handout for the clinic was an article by Jude Gold from Guitar Player, a leadsheet to his composition “Welcome To A Prayer” and an outline of the chord substitutions he would use on that tune.  The clinic was packed full of not only jazz students, but students from nearly every other class as well.  After the clinic, Tom Dempsey and I took Pat and his wife Aya out for dinner and we had a great time.  Both Pat and Aya are incredible to talk to and spend time with and this was likely the highlight of the week for me.

The other guest we had on campus was Alex Skolnick.  You might know Alex from his work in Testament, Trans-Siberian Orchestra or even his jazz trio.  Alex has been a longtime friend of NGW and it was great to bring him back this year.  I picked him up at the airport and we grabbed some lunch and then headed to the campus.  His clinic was a great mix of both his approach to playing metal and his newer jazz offerings.  After his clinic I introduced Alex to Pat and we all shared a ride over to Pat’s hotel.  Alex was in DC less than 12 hours as he was flying out to Amsterdam to begin a five week tour with Testament.

Overall the week was a great success.  I reconnected with some old friends on faculty and was introduced to some of the best guitarists and instructors in DC.  After the week ended, I headed back to CT for a few days and then yesterday I flew to Chicago to begin another workshop.

It seems like I was just here.