Ye Olde Presse Kitt

Venues

Performed in over 200 different places in or near Pittsburgh, a number rapidly growing. Also recorded on 6 or 7 CD's now.
Where was I all my life??

Professor Beautiful's solo repertoire

Bach cello suites, Telemann flute sonatas, songs of Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Taj Mahal, Aretha Franklin, Mississippi John Hurt, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, many songs of many genres of Latin America and Africa, Irish and Scottish folk, and every kind of jazz.
My patriotic musical experience includes the Star-Spangled Banner to the rhythm of Stevie Wonder's Superstition (in Eflat minor), first rolled out for the Pittsburgh Roller Derby.


Latin American Music --- ¡Te amo, Latinoamerica!

I play regularly with Bésame(mostly Colombian), occasionally with Onda Brasil, and rarely with Musuhallpa (Andean).

Here's how it all began at the Tango Cafe... "my place in Pittsburgh" on WDUQ

 

Bésame - Carmen de Bolivar
(Every Professor Beautiful solo is completely unplanned for better or worse. This one came out fine. Whew.)

 Tango Cafe home page - nice spontanous medley! With Claudio, Melissa, Socrates &others.

 

Ernie Hawkins & friends

On WRCT, Saturday Light Brigade

 

Sitting in

On Pretty Polly, my friends in Devilish Merry called me - out of the men's room - to join. I didn't know the song
- but the duet towards the end shows that a tuba can rock a room, with the help of a kick-ass bodhran player.

Flashmob funk

This materialized out of the air one day. Tower of Power - Oakland Stroke

Sacred Tuba

Shalom Aleichem at Temple Sinai

Namedropping corner

No self-disrespecting amateur wannabee will forgo a chance to preen with those brief touches with the truly famous and deserving. In the early days, I learned from Ken McIntyre at Wesleyan University. At the Quinnipiac Jazz Festival 1971, our Creative Black Arts Sextet was officially declared "dangerous", and I shared the "miscellaneous instrument" prize with Stanley Clark. Boy was he pissed. (He was already playing with Joe Henderson at the Village Vanguard. I was nobody, just like now.) I got invited to play with Dizzy Gillespie, but chickened out-- couldn't read music at the time. Time passed. Learned some more from Sam Rivers at Wesleyan. At the end of a long free jazz concert sitting next to Ed Blackwell, that I ended with a two-note flip, he turned and said "hubba hubba tuba". Grasping at straws, I know, but it's a precious memory. Shared a stage once with Clark Terry. "Studied" briefly with Jimmy Garrison and was at a Mccoy Tyner concert when I heard he'd died. Was in Charlie Haden's Liberation Orchestra, (Pittsburgh pick-up band version) for the Hidden Valley Jazz Festival. Way back there, I played with various not-so-well-known but very great jazz musicians: Keith Underwood, Gerry Hemingway, Jane Ira Bloom, Leo Smith, Mark Helias, Michael Gregory Jackson. That's about it, unless you're into the incredible local Pittsburgh talent. I'll pick the dead ones so as not to make anyone angry. Rodger Ryan, Mike Taylor, both very precious friends and wonderful musicians.