Tiny Alligator

mccain on maddow

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:40:39 -0400

Why does this interview

http://gawker.com/5168770/meghan-mccains-failed-pundit-audition

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remind me of this cartoon?

tiny alligator faces mammoth project, quakes in tiny boots.

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:50:18 -0400

O, I am fortune’s fool.

About six months ago, jazz composer and trombonist Sara Jacovino and I decided that we needed an orchestra. A really, really big orchestra.

Both new to New York, we were overwhelmed by the glut of friendly, creative and insanely gifted players in this city. Two composers in such a candy shop could surely come up with something delicious.

Which we are. Next week, Thursday March 19th, we’re facing down a reading session of epic proportions, featuring 48 musicians playing 30 minutes of original jazz music. We’re bringing in Rebecca Pellet from Canada, a talented composer and sound engineer.

This is an ideal project for me to put together the two things I’ve been studying this year- jazz composition and orchestral conducting. I’m thrilled for the chance to put these two sides of my brain together in one place.

I had thought, having spent the last four years running a 16-piece big band, that I knew a thing or two about contracting large ensembles. But ye gods, those skills are being stretched to the max. Were it not for having two fabulous collaborators on the project, I would have caved some time ago. The sheer number of emails and phone calls required to make this happen is truly amazing.

So it’s with extreme excitement and not a small amount of fear that we head into our final week of part copying, contracting and detail-wrangling. Stay tuned to www.myspace.com/orchestralcommission for posted recordings of the group, once they become available.

And if you’re in Manhattan next Thursday and would like to check the session out, drop me an email and I’ll give you the details.

None but the brave deserve the fear….

Heartwarming Holiday Update: What A Wonderful World

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:03:00 -0500

Though I’ve been the most errant of bloggers lately, I can do no better than weary explanations and empty promises.

Weary explanation: I’ve been happy to have been involved in much music-making lately, and less thrilled to have been involved in very little sleep. Most recently thrilling was spending a few intense days this week hanging out with the gentle souls of Darcy Argue’s Secret Society Band, who were making a record in Jersey. You can see the dark circles under their eyes on Lindsay Beyerstein’s Flickr stream. The record is due out in the spring. It was a great honour to watch and learn from these amazingly talented musicians.

On to the promises: I’m working towards several large projects for 2009. I’ve decided to let the Alligator field lie fallow while I genetically modify some seeds to plant in the spring (yes analogy. yes). Our Farm hopes to grow such oddities as an orchestra (as in ORCHESTRA, as in strings and french horns and shit) project with the disturbingly talented Sara Jacovino (which project will also be an outlet for my new conducting fetish); a concert-length narrative opera/musical-thingy with TALB; a country side project; and a continuation of this Christmas’ successful “Songs for People You Love” pilot.

All this is to say: there has been music this year, and there will continue to be music. Which is to imply: it’s a wonderful world.

———-

So as not to leave a bad taste in your mouth with that stevia-flavoured note, I will end with a plea: all of these new projects need names. This is where you come in. The Caitlin Smith/Sara Jacovino Orchestra would very much like to be called something else. And good names for country groups are like fake blondes on the uptown 6 train: mention that you’re in a band, and they’ll all magically appear on your arm, plucking at your overcoat, telling you what talented singers they are.

So pull out that list of fake band names you made after too much nog at last weekend’s Christmas party, and send a few my way.

Make music happen.

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:01:51 -0400

Tiny Alligator Idol Darcy James Argue published an appeal today for help with the upfront costs of producing his upcoming Secret Society record.

A better cause I cannot think of. It’s nigh on miraculous that he has managed to keep a band together this long, with incredible players playing amazing original music.

It’s understandably exciting for me as a young composer to see Darcy setting the standard for what’s possible through all the struggle of producing large group jazz music. I see the current crop of young ‘big band’ (ugh) composers as one of the most vital voices in ‘art music’ (ugh) right now. Seriously- here is a group of musicians who have all the technical and theoretical training of classical musicians, the understanding of groove and feel of pop musicians, and the brains to weave in current events to make a relevant, challenging and beautiful product.

Case in point: check out the Secret Society show this Sunday night and listen not only to the awesome music being made, but also the strong political commentary Darcy throws in.

So grab this chance to help foster a music scene which will not only change the way you listen to music, but the way you think about the world.

Afganistan as a Canadian Election Issue

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:50:20 -0400

If you’re still feeling overwhelmed by your choices in the Canadian election, please stop reading. Here’s one more issue to chew on:

How well do you know each party’s position on Afganistan?

My brother gave a brilliant, detailed interview on CBC’s Dispatches this weekend (October 6th edition), which I think gives a very grounded summary of what it’s like over there right now. This is an issue which seems to be getting much less limelight than it deserves in the current campaign, given our country’s role in Afganistan.

Have a listen, read the policy on the parties’ websites, and let me know what you think.

Palin on CBS: the most awkward five minutes of my life.

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:08:47 -0400

Palin on CBS: the most awkward five minutes of my life.

Margaret Atwood Hates Harper More Articulately Than I Do

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:30:00 -0400

I’ve been fuming for days, ever since Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s ignorant and pandering remarks about ‘ordinary Canadians’ disliking ‘liberal elite artists’. Mr Harper suggests that all artists ever do is attend shiny, expensive galas, bathing in jewels while whining about their diminishing grant funding.

Since then, I’ve been planning this blog post in my head. Something angry but clear, explaining to ‘ordinary Canadians’ how incredibly amazing it is that I am here, in New York City, using Canadian grant money to learn about and make music. How, despite the ridiculously huge cut I took to my standard of living to be here, I wake up every morning excited to hear what new sounds I will hear today. How thrilled I am to be able to take these new sounds and new perspectives back home with me, so that I can be a unique participant in the Canadian cultural voice. How, with the training and experience I’m getting here, I hope to eventually be able to actually employ the musicians in Canada who are generously working for free for me right now.

I was going to include a witty paragraph joshing about the ‘galas’ comment: the biggest ‘gala’ I’ve attended thus far was the night I opened a bottle of cheap corner-store ‘wine’ in celebration of the fact that the roaches have stopped crawling into my bed at night. If this is the life of a ‘liberal elite,’ I’d hate to see how the rest of Canada is living.

There was a piece I was going to say about how, were I part of Harper’s traditional (c)onservative, ‘ordinary Canadian’ voting base, I would still be absolutely offended by his comments. He speaks to the people as if we are 15-year-old high school debate team members looking to score points at the county-wide Federal-Provincial Conference Simulation (I know, because I was there once). This kind of childish stereotyping, this kind of pandering to each camp’s generalized sense of self, helped us to win at high school politics. Please dear God, tell me it doesn’t work in the real world.

But, thankfully, in today’s Globe and Mail, Margaret Atwood has beaten me to it, and said it much better than I ever could have.

Please read her article, pass it on, and encourage your friends and family to keep our cultural voice in mind when they vote on October 14th.

Give the Gift of Original Music

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:37:39 -0400

Please do not be alarmed: the Holiday Season fast approaches. This year, be awesome and give the gift of original music. It’s personal, eco-friendly, cost-effective and guaranteed to jerk many happy tears.

Here’s how it works:

1) You email caitlin@tinyalligator.com to tell me who you love enough to commission an orignal song about them.

2) I call you, and we gab for hours about the many ways in which you love that person, and the unique ways that your Loved One loves music.

3) I turn those feelings into a song.

4) On Holiday Morning, your Loved One opens a package containing a beautifully printed score of their new, original song as well as a recording of Tiny Alligator All-Stars playing that song.

5) You and your Loved One experience increased Holiday Spirit.

Order now!! Songs take time to write. Email caitlin@tinyalligator.com.

Tiny Alligator's Pre-Turkey Surprise

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:36:22 -0400

There’s nothing like the crisp deliciousness of fall to make a girl feel homesick. Come and hear us sing many songs to this effect:

Caitlin Smith and
Tiny Alligator Large Band
Sunday, October 5th, 8pm
Trane Studio (964 Bathurst St)
Toronto
$20/$15

**Save money and Alligators! Take transit or bike to the show, and help us to increase Tiny Alligator’s eerie greenish-glow: Show us your TTC transfer, metrocard, GO or VIA ticket or bike helmet, and get $5 off the price of admission!

Featuring:

Jennifer Ryan
Kristin Mueller-Heaslip
Alexis Marsh
Carla Perotta
Jeff King
Dave French
Anthony Rinaldi
Ondrej Golias
Lina Allemano
Kevin Turcotte
William Carn
Darren Sigesmund
Colin Murray
Chris Donnelly
Dan Fortin
Ernesto Cervini
&more!

Women of my generation: stop trying to be hip and dig the fuck in

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:46:30 -0400

I have a theory about all this Palin madness: her instant stardom goes beyond the usual American craving for starfuckery. In a fluffy news piece on NPR this morning, I heard middle-aged women in a conservative mid-west town expressing admiration at how this woman was being herself, loudly, on a national stage. These were women who had grown up as the third or fourth generation to have the vote, women who gained abortion rights and equal-pay legislation in their lifetimes. They were surprised, awed: she has a strong personality! She digs in for what she believes! And she’s in a powerful position!

And that’s the reason they cited for pledging McCain/Palin their votes; no mention at all of any of the laughable policies favoured by this woman with a strong personality.

In high school I took a women’s literature class from a teacher who was probably in her late fourties, a fiercely intelligent, beautiful, independent woman who used literature to remind us that woman are often unaware of their own power. We all rolled our eyes and sighed: we knew that we were strong and equal, blah blah blah, please stop lecturing us and let us get on to our two college degrees and successful career-family life balance.

But, hearing the awe in the voices of women cheering for Palin, it has occurred to me that perhaps my generation has taken the message of feminism a little too much for granted.

The recent (Canadian) edition of Adbusters magazine features a treatise on “Hipster: the Dead End of Western Civilisation”. In the title article, Douglas Haddow paints a picture of my generation as “lost… desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves.” I believe that this rings especially true for young women.

This sentiment can be seen in the Palin phenomenon: young hipster-feminists of my generation and boomer-feminists of our mothers’ are clinging to the notion of a woman in power, and the breadth of Palin’s instant stardom derives from the fact that we are all a little afraid of becoming that woman ourselves. If we were all taking full advantage of equal rights and giving our own strong personalities sufficient air, perhaps Palin wouldn’t be such a phenomenon, and we could get past her gender to actually examine her policy stance.

I see a sad parallel in the music world. Since moving to New York city on my own to start a big band of my own, many, many people, mostly women over thirty, have expressed awe that I have undertaken such a venture. A young woman! On her own! Writing her own original music and getting it played! By the best musicians in New York! What guts she must have.

I always feel a little guilty when people say things like this to me. Inherent in their comments is the inference that they themselves were not bold like this when they were young women. I don’t want to make light of how insanely difficult the last six months have been, and I’m pleased as punch with myself for getting here. But I’m not an anomaly among young creative musicians, and I’m disturbed by the notion that it’s surprising to people that a woman would be leading a band at my age.

To bring back Haddow’s point, however, I’m also disturbed when I look around me at other women of my generation who are making music. He is especially critical of the indie-rock scene in his article, and I see a parallel in jazz. Female singers who don’t worry about the technicalities of singing, like having a good tone, time feel or grasp of pitch, are embraced as hip and feminine. Reviewers use words like ‘coy’ and ‘subtle’ to mask the singers’ total lack of personality and skill. They are hip and blase: as Haddow claims hipsters are clinging to things which seem real in place of becoming real themselves, so jazz singers recycle the same (exceptional, the first thirty times you hear them) standards in fear of furthering the tradition by writing something real of their own. There is absolutely no excuse for making someone else’s music.

There are, of course, many fantastic exceptions, and I am surrounded here by strong women of all ages making amazing music of all sorts. But, regrettably, these are not the women who get the adoring starfucky articles in their college magazines or a week opening at the Bluenote (this week, ahem). And so the picture of female success continues to be one of deference, coyness and subtlety.

A pox on such women who feel they can coast with zero original content and who peddle themselves as coy and cute to sell a shitload of records. It is because of them that I continually encounter surprise when I say that I write my own music, hire my own bands, produce my own concerts. This is how music is made. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just trying to sell you something, and is likely using her body to try and sell it.

And a pox on women who are coasting in their own lives, and so feel that they can vote for Palin in lieu digging in and having their own personality and opinions.

“The only thing Alison enjoys more than promoting anorexia...

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:48:06 -0400

“The only thing Alison enjoys more than promoting anorexia is showing off her ignorance about the basic rules of English grammar.”

Tiny Alligator: New York plays the music of Caitlin Smith

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:53:00 -0400


Tiny Alligator: New York
Plays the Music of Caitlin Smith
at the Brooklyn Lyceum
227 4th Ave, Brooklyn, NY (R train to Union)
Wednesday, September 3rd
8 pm
$10

Featuring

Yoon Sun Choi, vocals
Anne Ricci, soprano

Aaron Irwin, alto sax and flute
Rob Mosher, clarinet and oboe
Dan Willis, tenor sax, soprano sax, clarinet
Tony Barba, tenor sax, clarinet, flute
Josh Sinton, bass clarinet and bari sax
Alden Banta, bassoon 

Trumpets:
Seneca Black
Russ Johnson
Nadje Noodhuis

Trombones:
Mike Fahie
Alan Ferber
Jennifer Wharton

Mike Eckroth, piano
Dan Loomis, bass
Fred Kennedy, drums

This Week in Awesomeness: Gfscott; Fighting Sad With Sad.

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:34:59 -0400

Tiny Alligator’s loyal web/design/coolness consultant is taking another big step towards running the world. We give Alligator Claps for him. However, we also stress here his previous loyalty, because we are quaking in our Alligator Boots that he might leave us/bankrupt us now that he is famous and all.

Were such a day ever to dawn on the Alligator Farm, we might find ourselves cuddled up in the barn, playing one of our recently-created Sad Sad Pop Songs (as previously whined about on this blog). Just in time, we have learned that there may in fact be scientific proof of the uplifting possibilities of such musical apple pie [see also this weekend’s Globe and Mail Review print edition]. Tiny Alligator Large Band: fighting Sadness, one sappy song at a time.

Joss Whedon just keeps getting awesomer.

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:20:56 -0400

Joss Whedon just keeps getting awesomer.

In Which I Learn To Recycle (or, It's All Been Done Before)

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:14:00 -0400

I have a knack for standing quite still and pretending I’m not there. Apparently, I’m quite convincing: last week, while waiting, late night, for an interminable F train, a roach crawled over my foot.

Two things followed quite quickly: one, I resolved to never ever wear sandals ever again in this city, ever; two, some words flashed through my head. These words have been tumbling around since I moved here, bouncing up every time some such discomforting thing happens. The first time I heard this phrase, it was as the title of an excellent program from This American Life, about those who found themselves homeless after Hurricane Katrina.

I ran home and started imagining this phrase in a typical Tiny Alligator setting, all big vocal lines detailed with winds.

But, knowing the cleverness of radio producers, it occurred to me that this phrase was probably yet another pop-culture reference that I, having grown up in a cornfield in which all the radios were stuck on CBC 2, missed entirely.

I guessed correctly. Thank heavens for the internet; it prevents many bumpkinly embarrassments.

Why were music videos so cool back then? Why don’t musicians wear suits anymore? Can I still rip off this phrase? Damn it, Graham, how do I enable comments on tumblr?

Zimbabwe election: The stolen ballots | World news | guardian.co.uk

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 14:25:54 -0400

Zimbabwe election: The stolen ballots | World news | guardian.co.uk

Making Mr. Rushdie Proud?

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:24:41 -0400

Oh the pain. After having written nothing fit for listening since having packed up my crockpot, I just wrote a pop tune. A completely diatonic, teenage pop song, playable by sensitive youths with hair over their ears and mistuned acoustic guitars who wish to decry injustices they have yet to identify. If such a strapping lad were to sing it, the unadulterated angst would cause your overly-lipsticked 16-year-old cousin to ruin her mascara, and wish she was dead, or in love, or something.

So much for being a composer. I might have to stop pretending and just be a songwriter (“Just a songwriter?!” Good thing I haven’t figured out how to enable comments on this blog yet), or perhaps a maker of squirrel lamps.

But really, I was only following the advice of everyone’s (my) favourite hero of novel-writing, Salman Rushdie. In an interview on Charlie Rose tonight, he ducked a tricky question about the recent public tragedies of his love life by declaring that such events have made him only more attuned to the human condition. He is, he told us, not just an artist but a crafstman, and the makers of crafts must craft whether or not they feel well or beautiful.

So, I have crafted, and content myself with the knowledge that Mr. Rushdie’s best novels have been made now that he too is over the jitters of his twenty-something horomonal discomfort. I will get old first, and then I will write my opera.

Visiting Florida? Rent a car.

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:10:43 -0400

I had opportunity to attend the International Jazz Composers’ Symposium in Tampa, Florida this weekend. It was a fun hang, and a rare opportunity to geek out over obscure musical details with like-minded composers. Highlights included readings of new charts by Lars Moller, Peter Jensen and Alan Ferber, an intimidatingly life-changing paper on Augmented Scale Theory by Javier Arau, and getting valuable feedback on my chart from Bill Holman, Jim McNeely and Stefon Harris.

I was one of 3 female attendees at the conference, and the only woman who presented at a reading session. For the first time in my life, I fully felt the fact that I’m on the tail end of only the second generation of women to believe that we’re entitled to a career in music, in any capacity we want.

I had an interesting conversation about this with Tami Danielsson, lead alto player in Chuck Owen’s Jazz Surge. She was the one of the first women to play lead alto in the big band at North Texas. Hearing her stories about encountering outright sexism on gigs, it occurred to me that I’ve very rarely run into that kind of attitude working in music, a fact for which I am very grateful to women of Tami’s generation. But, inspite of this, I felt very uncomfortable at this conference. Being the only woman in the room greatly changed the nature of what was largely a social event.

And, finally, visiting Florida for the first time has helped me with another important insight: I can truly say I understand the nature of the phrase ‘car culture’. My hotel was literally across the street from USF campus, where the conference was held. To get back to my hotel, I walked through the beautifully-kept university grounds for ten minutes, and then spent ten minutes crossing the street. Pedestrians were obviously the very last thing the designers of this stoplight thought about.

In a shuttle bus at the Tampa airport, I had a very kind and chatty driver. Hearing that I’m a Canadian, he told me that a friend of his runs a park’n’fly at the Toronto airport, should I ever need to park my car there long term. I explained that I don’t own a car. He turned around (while still driving forward), looked me with panic, and said, “Why the hell not??!” with a kind of horrified fascination. He shook his head and clucked at my explanation about subways.

America is screwed.

Politesse at The Symphony

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:10:00 -0400

I heard the New York Philharmonic play Mahler 9 tonight. It gave me a funny impression of New Yorkers’ ideas about politeness.

I splurged and bought a $40 nosebleed seat online, at the very back of the last balcony. Running late, having not quite figured hammered it into my brain yet that Bay Ridge to Upper West Side = a very long ride, I made it to the will call window at the box office two minutes before show time… and, just as I was about to whip out my credit card, an usher came up to me, tapped me on the arm, shoved a ticket in my hand and said ‘run!’. So I did.

Turns out I was sitting next to a very nice lady who had happened to have an extra ticket in prime orchestra seats. I thanked her profusely, babbled something about being sooo excited to hear the Phil, and we chatted for the ten seconds before the concert master came out.

The lights went down, I bit my lip to keep myself from giggling with anticipation, and, after the usual ‘ladies and gentlemen, don’t be asswipes, turn off your cell phones’ announcement, Maazel walked on stage, all flourish and pep….

Ten bars in, a cell phone rang. One hundred people coughed, big spluge-y coughs.

Ten minutes in, a man down the row from me looked at his watch, couldn’t see it, and PRESSED THE TALKING WATCH BUTTON on it to HEAR what time it was. DURING MAHLER 9. During the sweet, angsty, slow beginning of Mahler 9. I couldn’t decide between stabbing him in the eye with his pretentious tie pin or shoving my programme down his throat.

While I was paralyzed with this indecision, the first movement ended and, while no one accidentally clapped (I kinda like it when this happens; I advocate for more appreciative clapping generally during the course of life), EVERYONE turned to their neighbour to discuss the weather. The conductor waited patiently for a good three minutes while the audience cleared their brains of all possible wordy clutter. The very very kind and awesome lady who had given me the seat turned to me and complained that the first movement had been ‘too brassy’.

Tie pin? Programme?

This same ritual happened after every movement.

This is why I prefer to go to the symphony alone. Sometimes I like music much more than I like people. Too brassy?!

Speaking of brass, The New York Philharmonic brass section. Yes.

O but I miss Toronto....

Mon, 19 May 2008 14:57:03 -0400

O but I miss Toronto....