Category Archives: jazz

skronk, swing, miles davis, ornette, john ellis, my list of 1,001 sax players, new artists on tour, people who book their own tour but will talk to me for 45 minutes when i cold call, nina simone “save me…yeah” project, compositions, instruments, artists, recordings, labels and people

Shedroff farms

Posted on May 22, 2012 by markweiss86

(Hit play on both of these videos simultaneously….) nb: Nathan Shedroff is my high school classmate at Gunn High and neighbor twice growing up in LAH; in fact we first met at Temple Emanu-El Sunday school when we were about … Continue reading →

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Steps in stone(d)

Posted on May 15, 2012 by markweiss86

Steps in stoned That’s David Middlebrook, 2000, “Steps in Stone” in front of the Westin, Palo Alto, says Mark Weiss, who admits to being Windows-aided, although he also saw two Middlebrookses just yesterdaze at Montalvo. Speaking of Montalvo, Beth Custer … Continue reading →

Posted in art, jazz, music, Plato's Republic, sex, sports, this blue marble | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mort Weiss clarinet player

Posted on May 9, 2012 by markweiss86

My name is Mark Weiss but I was named for Mort Weiss so it kinda shocked me to realize there is a clarinet player Mort Weiss. Check him out: for comparison sake, this is a picture of my grandfather, Morton … Continue reading →

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Ava Mendoza sends glad tidings

Posted on May 7, 2012 by markweiss86

Hi everyone,  I’m happy to say that I’ll be on tour in Europe and in the eastern U.S. with a few different projects for most of the next two months. First up in Europe I have several improvised music shows … Continue reading →

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Good luck to SF Offside music series and logo

Posted on April 30, 2012 by markweiss86

The esteemed blogger, college radio dj and music nut Wedge (CM) was my source to the incipient “figuring out” of another “dynamo-and-virgin” named Laura something, from Dublin, who produces blogs and concerts under two pseudonyms including Fenderhardt or something. I … Continue reading →

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Plastic Alto welcomes “Palo Alto” and “The Set of All Blind Piano Players”

Posted on April 29, 2012 by markweiss86

1. A whiles back I ran into Jim Keene, the City Manager for City of Palo Alto, at a chain coffee house on El Camino, near Stanford Avenue, the place that us old timers think of as the former Mountain … Continue reading →

Posted in jazz, music, Plato's Republic, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Announcing Earthwise Productions Institute and news-reading service, not necessarily in that order

Posted on April 23, 2012 by markweiss86

WE RECOMMEND YOU BUY THIS BOOK: Niners Stadium price shows how stakes are rising, by Gwen Knapp, who the very busy doctor, dad and blogger from the midwest Dr. Brian Moore, a transplanted New Englander helpfully or perhaps wishfully remembers … Continue reading →

Posted in art, film, jazz, media, music, Plato's Republic, sex | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Godspeed to Dayna Stephens

Posted on April 9, 2012 by markweiss86

Whatever I was going to write today was pre-empted by noticing this teaser above the mast in The Daily News: Sax Genius Doesn’t Let Kidney Troubles Slow Him Down. Dayna Stephens first appeared on my radar in 2007 when Peter … Continue reading →

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Thirty-three things I (might) write about on “Plastic Alto”

Posted on April 8, 2012 by markweiss86

1. Laurel Nakadate ‘The Wolf Knife”, free in Believer; 2. Andrew Bogut, and Kent Lockhart: Kent told me he once coached Bogut, who worked out with Dandenong, Kent’s old team, in 1997 as a teenager and guard; 3. A Passover … Continue reading →

Posted in art, film, jazz, la la, media, Plato's Republic, sex | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Coming attraction: Shipp of shuls

Posted on April 1, 2012 by markweiss86

On one hand I was working on a piece about the local Jewish congregation and it’s Bob Dylan-based Shabbat service. On the other hand, I had interviewed jazz pianist Matthew Shipp about his new album. So why not combine the … Continue reading →

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