Claire Gordon, Yanti Gordon, Amanda Griffith

Jazz Society of Santa Cruz, Amanda Griffith - Flute, Steve Newman - Saxaphone

Last weekend I had an opportunity to play the song “Unforgettable” for Claire Gordon, the wife of songwriter Irving Gordon, and the woman for whom the song was written:) The occasion was a visit Claire made to the Jazz Society of Santa Cruz at my invitation to celebrate her 93rd Birthday! I met Claire through her Granddaughter-in-law, who is the nanny of one of my piano students, gave me her new novel entitled The Color of Music It was a terrific event, and the video I created and the visit were covered in the Jazz Society’s weekly newsletter (see blurb below).

You can find my video on my Facebook page, as well as from the links below.

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Excerpt: Jazz Society of Santa Cruz Weekly Newsletter, January 31st, 2012

CHECK OUT THIS LINK! Jazz Soc. of Santa Cruz- facebook
It contains a YouTube movie of Marcos Warshaw and our house band and Amanda Griffith on flute singing and playing “UNFORGETTABLE”! at a week ago SUNDAYS Jazz Jam at Bocci’s.

The occasion was that Jazz Soc director Mike Carder’s friend, the flutist Amanda Griffith came over with her friend CLAIRE GORDON and family. They all came from over the hill, but Claire who is in her early ninety’s is definitely not over the hill, Claire came to celebrate her birthday. The song was done because Claire was the wife of the composer Irving Gordon, who wrote “Unforgettable” for Claire!

Claire brought some copies of her book My Unforgettable Jazz Friends which she wrote a few years ago. It is her memoire of a life linked with jazz greats like Duke Ellington, Benny Carter, Dizzy, and countless others. It begins in Los Angeles in the late 30′s. It’s a fascinating, honest book of what life and music was like from then to now.

Find out more about this great book here- http://www.myjazzfriends.com/

Besides this book, Claire also wrote a novel about jazz and race entitled The Color of Music – ClaireGordonJazz.com
PS- I didn’t get the link to the YouTube movie from anyone who was at the jam. I got it from a jazz musician, Wil, in New York who I’ve known for 30 years. He got it from a good friend of his who was at the jam because she is a good friend of Claire’s. Wil looked at it and saw me, so he sent it to me. The small world of the Internet! Weird. (Steve Newman, president, Jazz Society of Santa Cruz County)
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Greetings and welcome to Mountain View Piano.  My name is Amanda Griffith.  Mountain View Piano is my private music studio where I teach piano, flute and voice to both children and adults.  I use a breakthrough music method called “Simply Music”, which has students playing songs with both hands from their very first lessons.

Call Today for our Free Introductory Session.

Call 650-964-1552 today for a Free Introductory Session to learn more about my approach and to get started on your musical journey.

Music of the Hemispheres

“Even though listening to Mozart won’t make you smarter, a growing body of evidence suggests that playing his music will. Musical training doesn’t just make you a better musician — the acquired skills seem to transfer to other areas, various studies have found. And research focused on the brain’s particular relationship with music and language suggests that engaging the mind with musical training could remedy language impairments such as dyslexia.”

See full article at Science News:  Music of the Hemispheres

In this interview, Neil Moore talks with two-time GRAMMY Nominated jazz pianist, Taylor Eigsti. Regarded by many as a child prodigy, Taylor began studying piano at the age of four, and by age eight he was performing with internationally renowned jazz artists. At age 15 he joined the teaching staff at the Stanford Jazz Workshop at Stanford University. In this informal dialog, Taylor talks about his earliest experiences of learning music, as well as his thoughts on the future of music education.

To listen to interview, click here.

Amanda Griffith, Accredited Simply Music Teacher

This August, I attended the Stanford Jazz Workshop at Stanford University and had the opportunity to participate in Master Classes provided by some of the leading musicians in the world, including:

George Cables – Piano
Taylor Eigsti – Piano
Victor Lin – Jazz Ensemble
Joshua Redman – Woodwinds
Andrew Speight – Woodwinds
John Calloway – Flute
Dave Douglas – Composition
Rebecca Martin – Songwriting
Nicholas Payton – The Music Business

Thanks to all of the fine instructors and students – it was a wonderful week!

On December 8th, 2009 I had the opportunity to interview Daniel Pink, the author of A Whole New Mind:  Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, along with Patrick Tedjamulia, co-founder of the International Mentoring Networking Organization.

See http://imno.org/articles.asp?qid=298&sid=3

Check out this great video clip of Anne Heche teaching Regis Philbin the first song in the Simply Music Curriculum on the nationally broadcast “Regis and Kelly”.

Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the power of the pentatonic scale, using audience participation, at the event “Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus”, from the 2009 World Science Festival, June 12, 2009

World Science Festival

I’ve been enjoying a great book by Norman Doidge called The Brain That Changes Itself.  Though not specifically focused on music, this book outlines new theory in neuroscience that indicates that our brains continue to develop throughout our lives, as opposed to some theories that assume that development ends after childhood.

A great summer read, and there are some interesting passages on the benefits of music in enhancing brain function.

For more on this interesting book, see:

In case you missed the Nova/PBS webcast about the book “Musicophilia” by Oliver Sacks that I mentioned in my ad below, here are some additional sources of information about his important work:

Here is a link to pre-order the DVD from Amazon (due out mid September): Nova: Musical Minds

Here is a link to the Nova/PBS Description of the Program “Musical Minds” that was broadcast on June 23rd, 2009

Here is a link to an NPR Interview

Here is a link to his book on Amazon: