I, for one, am not sorry to see it go. It started with an attack on our nation’s capital and ended - just a few hours before I’m writing this - with the death of Betty White.
But I’m here to talk about music: The recordings I was able to release, and the shows that happened this year, and the ones that did not…
I did about 65 shows in 2021, give or take a few. That’s quite a lot considering the state of things. Most of them were outdoors, and quite a lot were in Woodstock with Cloudburst but many of the usual suspects were represented: Supercluster, NAIL, Nail Jung, and the Eric Personquartet. There was a lovely gig in august with the Robert Kopec Trio doing the music of Bill Evans; I did shows with the Flash Band, Damon Banks, and Joe Deninzon, and sat in with the Burr Johnson Band and the Dave Fields band during the Skipfest concerts (on the same day). There was also the launch and year-long run of “Night Flight Music Live”, an online streaming series created by Eric Person and produced by Eric and I. Those shows aired last Friday of every month and featured some great local artists. NFML performers get paid by donation and overall, you all were very generous.
I also did close to a half a dozen “Live from the Lab” streaming concerts. Again, your generosity was overwhelming, and is very much appreciated. You can watch my livestreams here.
There were also the cancellations: several rained out dates at the Colony in Woodstock, 2 cancelled NAIL shows (one due to a personal injury – I’ve recovered, thanks) and a gig with Ray Levier in Nyack cancelled due to the Omicron surge currently, um, affecting everything.
One of the highlights of the year for me was the premiere of “Convergence: Series A”, a new piece of contemporary chamber music I created thru funding from Arts Mid-Hudson and performed by X Ensemble. It was originally supposed to premiere in June of 2020, but we know how that went… The premiere finally happened on the April edition of Night Flight Music Live. Many of you tuned in and donated significantly - enough so that I could, all expenses covered, host a second performance in July. We did so at the Ritz Theater’s Greenspace (outdoor stage) and after almost getting rained out, the show went on to great acclaim and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Read the D & H Canvas Articleabout the show.
As far as 2021 recordings:
As you probably know I use Bandcamp to host my CD & download sales, and during the pandemic they started “Bandcamp Fridays” on the 1st Friday of each month during which all administrative fees are waived. This was a great incentive to release collections from my back catalog. In addition to all the music I released in 2020 I was able to put out 3 more discs in 2021: Nail Jung “Live at the Linda” (January), “The Valley of Hidden Dreams”(April) and “Inner Mountain” (November). I put out a bunch of music in 2020 as well, and you can find all of them here.
All in all it was a super busy year and I am ever grateful I get to do this magical thing called music.
Looking ahead to 2022 there are a few things of note already in the works including the return of Mr Gone, recordings of new music by NAIL, Nail Jung and X Ensemble, regularly scheduled events from the Ableton Hudson Valley Users Group [AHVUG] and another season Night Flight Music Live.
I think that will do it for this year end wrap up version of the NAILing List. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you – whoever listened to a track, came to a show, watched one of my YouTube videos; tuned in to a livestream, or just reached out to me this past year - your support means the world to me – and to wish you all a Safe, Happy, Healthy and Productive 2022.
