Jeff Wahl: News/Journal

I played Friday night at a private party in Denver for a gathering of mostly psychiatrists and counselors. It was great as always. This is an annual event that I play at. What a great night. Wow. Thanks to Jeff for including me again on this terrific party.

I played a really great event for "New Community Christian Church" in Littleton on Wednesday. It was really cool and everyone was really nice. I played pretty much all Christmas tunes all night which was new for me, but it felt great. Thank you to Julie for setting this up and for doing such a great job with the planning and the message. And thank you to everyone who stopped by after to talk with me. Really a great night.

I am having a great time right now! I mean just in general. Everything is really working, creatively and every other way. It's great. I feel like I've kind of been asleep for a while and I'm waking up again to so many things. The world is a pretty cool place when you're eyes are open to it. I'm not going to analyze it or question it, I think I'm just going to enjoy it. So many things to be thankful for. I guess that's cool to tap into since we're just around the corner from Thanksgiving!

Halloween was great and November feels awesome! The cool weather is terrific! I got rid of my television antennae a few weeks ago and it feels great to be cut off from t.v. I still have a dvd player so I can watch movies if I choose but no t.v. stations. It's great. I'm reading a lot again and I'm getting a lot more guitar work done.

I recorded a song for a CCM Christmas guitar compilation album last weekend. It was "Christmas Time is Here" by Vince Guaraldi. It was a productive session. The producer, Darren Skanson is really excellent. I have a tendency to really push tempos and rush. Darren delicately pointed this out to me and proved it to me by listening to the playback. Anyway, I controlled my rushing this session and I am now aware of how much I do this. It will be a great album. I think it will be called "Holiday Guitar".

I played at Denver's "Swallow Hill" about a week ago and it was great. Other acts on the bill were "The Milemarkers", "A.M. Whiskey", and Marcy Baruch. It was fun and Marcy gave me some great music business suggestions. Thanks everyone!

I'm rambling like always. I downloaded a lot of great music today and I'm totally enjoying listening to the new songs as I write this. A lot of music that I liked as a teenager. I would list the songs but it's a little embarrassing. I have always had kind of corny taste in rock music. I downloaded a lot of metal and punk rock from the 80's today. I am really loving listening this stuff.

O.K. I have a gig to get ready for tonight. I've become so quick with my load in and load out. It used to take me forever to load in and out for a gig. Now I accomplish this in a few minutes. I've got a good system down and I just go on auto-pilot until it's done.

Oh yeah. I played for another music history class last week. It was great. It's basically demonstrating the history of acoustic guitar music from the Middle Ages to the present in 30 - 45 minutes. Very fun! That's a lot to cover in that amount of time so it's kind of a whirlwind. I learn a lot every time I do this. I brought my amp and live rig into the class this time which made it a lot of fun. Guitarists always love to play loud. There's an old joke - "How do you get a guitarist to turn down" answer "Put a piece of sheet music in front of him and ask him to sight-read it". Very true. Most of us are terrible readers.

I have to go now.

Hi all. I had a great time playing for New Horizons church in Lafayette, Colorado this Sunday. Awesome! What great people. The music director there, Natalie is an amazing musician. I was amazed at her talent. Very inspiring. The service was great and everyone was super nice. Thank you all so much!

Now to my next gig -- almost. I was scheduled for another gig right after New Horizons but up in Fort Collins, CO -- which is like an hour away. For some reason, I thought I could make it on time. I didn't. By the time I showed up, there was no point setting up. Very embarrassing. It's so hard to say no to a gig, but when I can't get there on time, I need to not book the gig. Anyway, sorry to anyone who showed up to hear me play. You live and learn I guess.

O.K. It's October, my favorite month. Finally it's cooling off and all the Halloween decorations are just awesome. The changing leaves are really beautiful too. Wow. Playing out a lot these days which is great. Meeting a lot of great people on gigs and having a really good time. Thanks everyone! I gave a presentation on the history of guitar with lecture and performances of pieces from the Renaissance right up to now with my compositions. I've never played a "gig" like that before. It was fun and I learned a lot from putting this together. Did you know that Francisco Tarrega (great classical guitarist and composer) was almost completely blind? I didn't.

Hi all. I'm still working on the classical album. As always, I have this vision of it all being done in one quick session, but that's never how it works. But it's good.

I'm playing every Saturday at Cafe Caliente in Denver now which is a lot fun.

I have ideas for other albums - an all jazz album, an all new age age, a compilation one, a Christmas one. There are so many ideas and so little time in this physical body to get it all done.

Playing in Denver again has led to me re-connecting again with a lot of old friends I knew from when I lived in Denver. That's great. It's like re-connecting with family. Hi everybody.

The youtube videos continue to be very successful. I would like to film some more videos and post those this year as well.

I guess that's all for now.

Jeff

Today I'm doing my first recording session for an all classical guitar album. It's probably going to be very challenging but I've wanted to do an all classical album for a while. Hopefully I can also record an all jazz guitar album and anothe new age one this year as well. That's my goal, but I had better take it one step at a time and just focus on the classical sessions right now.

I was contacted this week about the use of my song "Freedom" in a really nice, short film about a baby owl that was rescued. It's very adorable. You can see the film at this website.
http://www.littlepearls.org/home.html

Hi all. A while ago I posted some videos on youtube, also available on this website, and they've been viewed a lot. That's really cool.

In other news, I discovered the music of Earl Klugh this last week. Most of you probably have known about him for a long time, and I guess I did too, but I never really, really listened to his music. He is a solo jazz guitarist (not many of those around), and he is awesome! I'm going to buy several albums of his this week. I need some inspiration because I'm trying to write a new all solo jazz guitar album and it's proving to be pretty difficult.

There are now about 20 videos of me playing live posted on YouTube. Just go to www.youtube.com and search for Jeff Wahl.

I played a wonderful gig today at the Unity Church of Boulder. What a great experience! Thank you very much everyone!

I was interviewed for a podcasting show from San Francisco called a Logical Path. This was a lot of fun and it's posted online.
http://logicalpath.com/podcast/LAV-JeffWahl.mp3

I just wanted to thank everyone at the Columbine Unity Church in Lafayatte, CO for having me play there. It was great. Thank you very much.

"Meditative Guitar" moved to #1 today on Magnatune's best seller's list. This is only two days after this album's release. "Guitarscapes" moved up to #10.

Within one day of its release, "Meditative Guitar" is #2 on Magnatune's best selling list of albums. Another one of my albums, "Guitarscapes", which came out on 1999, is #13 on this same list. And, one of my songs, "Freedom" is featured on the Magnatune New Age and Jazz Compilation album, which is at #44. Thank you to everyone who is enjoying this music! And as always, thank you to Magnatune!

My album "Meditative Guitar" is now available for download at Magnatune.com.

My music is now available on Applie iTunes.

After a very long recording and production process, I've finished two new CD's.

One is "Meditative Guitar", which is a collection of beautiful, soft guitar pieces all played on open tuned, nylon string guitar.

The other is "12 String", which is an album of all 12 string guitar pieces, played very fast and percussively.

You can hear samples on the "music" page of this website.

I'm sorry that it's taken so long for me to get a webpage. I'm very embarrassed about this and have no good excuse. Thank you for your interest, and thanks for visiting.