An important lesson from this musical genius

An important lesson from this musical genius

I’m assuming you’ve heard of the composer named Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou. Ok, maybe you know him as Vangelis (hard G). Vangelis passed away about a year and a half ago but lived a spectacular life. I’ve always considered him to be one of the all-time great film composers, having been…

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Vangelis
An important lesson from this musical genius
I’m assuming you’ve heard of the composer named Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou. Ok, maybe you know him as Vangelis (hard G). Vangelis passed...
Miles and Bill Evans for featured image on Nardis chat post - darker
Point and counter points on the 'who wrote Nardis' argument
One of the most popular pages on MusicSavvy.com is the post I wrote a while back called “Who Really Wrote Nardis.“ That article came from several...
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Examples of learning and entertainment from Jazz Chat
As I continue to improve and test Jazz Master Chat, my AI that uses interviews, course, blog posts, and books as it’s ‘brain’, I asked...
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Richie Beirach on unnecessary ornamentation in improvisation
With audiobooks becoming more and more popular and with the recent addition of audiobooks to Spotify, I thought I should record my last book with Richie,...
Guy playing guitar
How to improvise jazz better
What is jazz improvisation? Let’s first define what I mean by jazz improvisation. Jazz improvisation is a spontaneous conversation, but instead of...
Cuba slum
Ignacio Berroa on the realities of Cuba
I’ve been putting my custom GPT through some testing as I ask it questions from the collective interviews I conducted with over 60 jazz masters a couple...
Paul Bley
Lessons from the great Paul Bley
My fascination with pianist Paul Bley goes way back, and I was reminded of this while putting together a new video lesson for Pocket Jazz. If you haven’t...
Picture of Michael Lake

Michael Lake

Trombonist, author, composer, marketer

Courses and books

Pocket Jazz

The Pocket Jazz course is a completely redesigned series of online videos of no more than three-minutes each. Most of the lessons also contain short excerpts of tips and wisdom from masters like Ron Carter, Randy Brecker, Dave Liebman, Richie Beirach, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and many more.

Teaching & Learning Jazz

From this book, Richie Beirach and Mike provide great stories of jazz wisdom, a reflection on university jazz education including how to choose a school, an analysis of the Hollywood view of jazz education, a look at the psychology of education, and many other previously unexplored essential topics for both teachers and students.

Available in soft cover and digital editions.

Trombone Improvisation Savvy

Trombone demands different physical abilities from other instruments, but certain skills are universal such as connecting your instrument to your musical mind. Learn from exercises and audio files specifically focused on trombone that will help you improvise much better.