Ben Makinen: News

Ben Makinen is producing a Christmas CD to benefit the musicians who's livelihood was disrupted by Hurricane Katrina. The CD will feature Denver musicians performing Christmas songs infused with the spirit of jazz that New Orleans is internationally known for.
Recording begins October 3, 2005 at International Sound Productions with Mary Ann Moore [www.jazzarts.org/moore.php], the jazz vocal talent with The Big Swing Trio, singing in front a rhythm section comprised of Vlad Girshevich on piano, Eric Thorin on upright bass, and Ben Makinen on drums. Astute readers will recognize that rhythm section as the same one performing on Tom Ball's recently released CD Fishleather Jacket. Makinen has contacted the management teams of Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr., and Nancy Wilson in an attempt to obtain a musical contribution to include on this benefit CD.

The Bear Creek Church has raised over $11,000 in aid to the victims of Hurricane Katrina as a direct result of A Benefit Jazz Tribute To New Orleans held on September 16, 2005. [See news entry below.] Congratulations must go to Dan Leavit, and his Leavitt Music Service, for organizing the event; and especially to all of the generous people who donated their money. All of the musicians who performed did so as a gift to the cause. Not only did they contribute their talents, they all turned down lucrative Friday night gigs to do so. Hats off to the musicians!!

Ben will be performing in Telluride at the Blues 'N Brews Festival on September 18, 2005. He will be drumming for Hazel Miller and The Voices Of Faith Gospel Ensemble.
11AM - Main Stage

Join Ben Makinen and friends for A Benefit Jazz Tribute To New Orleans on September 16 2005. All proceeds are going to the humanitarin aid effort for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The evening of jazz begins at 7pm at the Bear Creek Church: 3101 S. Kipling ST, Denver.

Featuring:

The Fat City Mardi Gras Band

Line Two

The Park Hill Brass Quintet 

Singer/Songwriter: Warren Niles Boulanger from Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The All-Star Dixieland Band with members of the Queen City Jazz Band

Special Guest:

Ms. Henrietta Alves:
house singer/pianist directly from Pat O'Brien's in the French Quarter of New Orleans

Freewill offering will be taken.

100% of the donations will benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina

LA based singer Kelda[ www.Kelda.net] comes to Colorado for 2 gigs that were booked at the last minute by Ben Makinen. Kelda will perform solo in Denver, 7 PM at The Mercury Cafe on August 12, 2005, and in Boulder, 7 PM on August 13, 2005 at Ken Green's Trident Sandbox Patio Theatre with Makinen joining her on percussion. Kelda's music has been featured on MTV and on episode #216 of CBS's Cold Case.

When every member of a jazz quartet gets paid after performing for a CD release party, the evening is officially called a success.
Such was the case on the evening of July 27, 2005 at Dazzle Jazz when the Tom Ball Quartet performed before an enthusiastic crowd. The room was filled with a diverse audience: family, friends, students strangers, and the drummer's 3 year old daughter. Jason, one of Ball's students, sat beaming with his parents at a table in the front row. Jason is credited with "inventing" the title of the CD, Fishleather Jacket. Ben Makinen's daughter Dakota danced at the front of the stage for the first set and a half before falling asleep in her niece's arms. The acoustics of the room coaxed an intimate night of improvisation from the seasoned performers. Ball actually pulled out his conch shell for a rousing duet with drummer Ben Makinen. Ron Bland played superlative bass while Bill Kopper danced above his guitar pedals, throttling between retro-jazz and 21st Century Rock.
When the band finished autographing CDs, they packed up their equipment and headed to the bar for beer and burgers, where they were blasted out by a loud fusion band that tried to show off in front of the "jazzers". Paying their tab, tipping the bartender, and finding money left over, the band all agreed that the evening had been a success.

Written by guitarist Mitch Chmara, Blues In Flat Nine is chosen as Track Of The Day by garageband.com!!!

Bleary eyed cast and crew, looking suspiciously like the undead, assembled at 7AM this morning for the first day of filming on Matthew Mitchell and Erik Bakst's zombie movie. In case anyone forgot who was calling the shots, Bakst wore his directors uniform: a red t-shirt with a picture of Bruce Lee on the front. Cast members prepared for the hours of waiting that typifies film making by retreating to the break-room, which was stocked with muffins, fruit, and coffee... Ben Makinen was ready with his docu-cam! Wandering through office halls cluttered with the film crew's dollys, lights, stands, chords, duct-tape, etc.. Makinen captured the behind the scenes action that television audiences crave. He found the actors at ease in front of the camera. Break-room conversations ranged from having corporate jobs and working with bad improv groups, to learning foreign languages and discovering body hair sprouting out of odd places as one grows older. Makinen managed to annoy only one person with his in-your-face documentary film making style: James Wagner, who has the leading role as Ted The Zombie, asked Ben to "knock it off" when he awoke from a nap on the lunch room floor facing a camera dangling above his head! Makinen left the set early as he was no longer needed that day.

Clay Cabe walked into International-Sound today carrying his Taylor 6-string in one hand, and his trusty Guild back-up in the other. He met president and engineer Steve Wiest , and immediately made a new home in the cozy studio environs. Cabe recorded guitar tracks for 3 of his original songs. First takes were used in nearly all cases and only minimal punches were needed. Packing up Cabe said, "I have never felt so relaxed in a studio before! And the sounds were amazing! I could really hear my guitar in the headphones the way it's supposed to sound."
Wiest gives all of the credit for the good sound to the newest member of his microphone family - The Neuman U-87.
Midway through the session, bassist Dave Randon, and his 6 year old son Sam, dropped by for a visit. The father son duo remained respectfully quite in the studio's anteroom while, next door, Cabe strummed his moody masterpieces undisturbed. Sam was caught doing imitations of producer Ben Makinen: filling his cheeks with water, Sam would smash his face with his hands, spraying a small geyser onto the welcome mat.
Paul and Sarah, long time friends of Cabe, and hopeful CD guest artists, dropped in to scope the scene. Paul has been practicing his 12 string to add to Cabe's song Shine. Sarah is preparing to add back-up vocals to the same tune. This young duo will have all weekend to overcome their studio-anxiety. Makinen's creativity will be put to the test in finding a way to help this sweet couple feel at ease when the tape begins to roll on Monday.
Spirits were high a the end of this successful recording date. Sam and Dave left with smiles on their faces - Dave looking well rested for his evening gig. Paul and Sarah went home, arm in arm, to drink beer and book a truck for their upcoming move to Nashville. Cabe sped eagerly off into the mountains to join his girlfriend 100 miles away. Ben and Steve cleaned up in the studio and then walked the 50 yards down the street to their favorite japanese/korean restaurant Uoki's. Over many cups of sake, the two worked out a plan to become Denver's next major Hit-Making-Studio.

AREA 15's Blues In Flat Nine [writen by Mitch Chmara] will be the featured Track Of The Day at garageband.com on 7/27/05.

Ben Makinen, drummer, composer, and music producer, can now add actor to his resume. He was given the role of "Steve" - an uptight dick of an office supervisor - in a comedy/zombie film to be shot in Denver. Ben's wife insists that he will have to do no real acting in the movie. Makinen, who is currently producing a folk-hop CD at International-Sound, can be found in the studio's restroom, on breaks, screaming obscenities at the mirror
in preparation for the shoot.

Sitting calmly at the center of a neatly assembled heap of wires and pedals, Mitch Chmara, stratocaster in hand, added gossamer layers of guitar to Clay Cabe's songs Freak and Black. From dancing funk lines in Freak, to haunting bottle neck slides in Black, Chmara displayed a talent that has made him the most sought after guitarist in town. His sense of adventure - and humor - was made apparent when he informed the producer [Makinen] and engineer [Wiest] that he was going to try out a distortion pedal that he bought at a yard sale for $5. He didn't even know wether it would work or not! The guitar gods granted favor to Chmara, who used that pedal to blast through the outro of Black in a furry of angst filled Rock 'n Roll. With his pockets flush after a killer session, Chmara invited Makinen and Wiest to lunch at Uodis just around the corner. The sake was splendid.

Ben Makinen oversaw the tracking of Mitch Chmara's virtuosic guitar playing for Clay Cabe's song "Freak" in Steve Wiest's studio International-Sound.

After the session, Ben read for a part in a ZOMBIE film, in which he was given a role.

Freak and Zombie. Art mimics life. Ben and his wife celebrate their 7th wedding anniversary today as well.

Makinen will read for a part in a comedy/horror film to be shot in Denver. He is reading for the role of Steve, a brown nosing office jerk, who ends up losing his job to, and fighting with, a ZOMBIE!

In a bold move, Ben Makinen has transfered Clay Cabe's The Underworld CD project to the forward thinking studio International Sound, founded by president and master engineer Steve Weist. [Wiest can also be heard playing trumpet in Denver and Paris night clubs.] Clay Cabe gave the okay to switch studios midstream after bumpy roads were encountered at the previous studio. Makinen and Weist have put in 25 hrs in 2 days to complete the transfer of a Q-Based project over to Mac Pro-Tools. MIxes are brewing, and a renewed sense of adventure is taking over.

Individual songs from the AREA15 LIVE CD may now be purchased at the following digital music distribution sites :

Apple iTunes
MSN Music
MusicMatch
MP3tunes
Rhapsody
MusicNow
MusicNet
LoudEye
Sony Connect
NetMusic
BuyMusic
Bitmunk

Reacting to a last minute desperation call from the management of Sambuca, Ben Makinen threw together a crack trio to play for Sambuca's Savory Secrets private party. While patrons bought nickle martinis, Dave Randon slaped his electric 6-string bass, Seve Weist alternated between the grand piano and trumpet, and Makinen whipped his 2-piece drum-kit into a frenzy. The crowd went crazy. We all took a break to indulge in Mary-Lou's superb catering: mussels, baked brie with blackened paprika, and an assortment of tropical summer fruits. Yum. What a gig. The boys in the band debated over whether to call themselves The Gumbo Guys or The Gumbo Boys. Steve had the only mic. He won out with the Gumbo Boys. The Boys put their cajun spin on everything from Louis Armstrong to the Beattles, with a dash of James Brown to boot. The vibe was so hip, Weist insisted on bringing the trio back to his studio, International Sound, to recapture the sizzle felt by all in attendance at Sambuca that night.

Denver's Westword will carry a review of Fishleather Jacket in this Thursday's edition - Hits newsstands 7/7/05.

Area 15 was hired to play a private auction/fundraiser party in Cherry Hills where the Denver Nuggets NBA star Anthony Carmellow and his girlfriend La La, of MTV fame, were the featured guests. Mr. Dean Ross brought his seasoned talents to Area 15's bass chair for the star studded evening. Area 15 - Mitch Chmarra, Ross, and Ben Makinen - dug into their bag of standards while Carmellow and La La sat relaxed just off the hi hat elbow of drummer Ben Makinen. Quietly eating blackened salmon on a stick and admiring the hosts citronella filled Tiki Torches, Carmellow and La La tapped their feet to the tunes , patiently gave interviews to film crews, asked for dipping sauce, and later thanked the band for a good time. Later that night the members of AREA 15 all agreed that giging poolside, in view of the basketball court, and receiving hand delivered Mai Tais was, by far, a more sensible way to make a living than playing in smoke filled clubs with drunk patrons asking for Mustang Sally.

Ben Makinen is being asked to compose original music for children. Makinen says, "I've always been fascinated by the sounds I recall from the womb. There is a great power in music to commnicate with, or at least to stimulate, the baby in-utero." Asked to describe his concept of children's music Makinen continued, "Infant's awareness tends to be vastly overlooked. I can compose music that engages new borns and infants directly-music that invites them to experience and participate in the world of sound as an equal. They don't need to be told how to listen and how to feel. They need to be allowed to respond in their own unique way. My music needs no companion booklet to help parents 'facilitate understanding.'"
Rather then cater to the restrictions that major labels impose on the making of music, Makinen is seeking grant money to help complete his project.

Fishleather Jacket is now in heavy rotation on jazz 89.3 FM radio in Denver. The jazz/latin CD produced by Ben Makinen and Tom Ball has been selling like mad at cdbaby.com/tball and will make its way into digital distribution by summer's end.

Ben, in a mad attempt to share his music with the fans, has uploaded additions to the following music sections: Lost Lullaby (cdbaby.com/makinen); Fishleather Jacket (cdbaby.com/tball); and the eagerly anticipated CD The Goliath Beetle And The Ladybug Jam.
Label executives are seeking a restraining order against Makinen for allowing his own music out into the public. When reached for comment Makinen, entrenched in loop mixing, said, "Let the )(^$#!@#$s weep!!!"

Tom Ball, a freelance low brass artist in the Denver Colorado area, has
released an independent jazz euphonium CD project titled:
tom ball quartet fishleather jacket
Mr. Ball plays euphonium and conch shells, composed all songs, and
produced the project in conjunction with drummer Ben Makinen.
Musicians on CD include Ball, Makinen, Eric Thorin-bass, and Vlad
Girshevich-piano.
The group recently performed at the Rocky Mountain Region International
Tuba and Euphonium Conference in Greeley Colorado on April 8th.

CD is available through CD Baby at
www.cdbaby.com/tball
Mr. Ball has his own website at www.jazzeuphonium.com

Makinen's "The Goliath Beetle Meets The Ladybug" is now getting airplay on BandRadio. Following is the acceptence notification containing instructions on how to listen to this station:

Response:
Hello and Congratulations!

We have chosen your song to play on BandRadio Live.

The station will debut soon, but is running in beta right now. The station is running 24hrs currently and we do not have a set playlist but you can listen at http://66.219.105.175:8000/listen.pls (for Winamp)
http://66.219.105.175:8000 (Windows Media player). Open the player and select File>Open Url and then paste the url above in.

For song history and requests (in testing) go to http://66.219.105.175/stream/
We will notify you when that station goes live which should be about 2 weeks from now.

Thanks!
Mike