A huge highlight of my Market day last week was watching the group billed as "The Keenan Dorn Experience." They ended up asking me to write "Old Soul" as the band name on the whiteboard, and that was an apt description as well. Keenan, up there in the red shirt, is fourteen years old and plays like he's more than twice that. He blazed through electric guitar classics from Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and original tunes too. And it was his first public performance. Judging from the way the crowd went wild after every song, I feel confident saying it was a big highlight for everybody who saw him.
The gig was arranged by his guitar teacher, Geoffrey Mays, pictured here from an earlier gig. Geoffrey also lined up a stellar rhythm section with Mark Schneider on bass and Jason Palmer on drums. Keenan is one lucky guitar obsessed teen. That was a great way to start performing.
We are all lucky in Eugene. This town is filled with dedicated music teachers, both in public schools (though not enough positions are funded, in my opinion), and those who teach private and group lessons, and/or generally mentor young performers. Over the years we've been able to host student gigs for many of these music teachers and they are always, always a great treat.
Last month we had students of Paul Safar and Olem Alves.
On July 24 and August 14 at 2 PM we'll see the return of bands from Music's Edge Rock Camp, which is organized by Tim McLaughlin and includes great musicians like John Shipe and Zac Johnson among the instructor/mentors. Here are a couple of photos from last year's performance.
They do a phenomenal job of getting kids to form a band, in some cases learn from scratch how to play instruments, learn several songs and perform them, all in one week. That boggles my mind, and makes me excited to see what they come up with this year.
To all the musicians out there who are passing your skills and love for music down to younger generations, thank you sincerely. You've given me many of my best Market Moments!
