slimzim
@jameszimmermann • 21,627 subscribers
Clarinet and Bread || Homeschooler of 3 Girls || Catholic || 15x Certified Salesforce Developer || Content © Me
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In Nashville Symphony negotiations when musicians would ask for "4th winds" (expanding the flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon sections from 3 to 4 players) management would say "No, too expensive" then add jobs like "Director of Inclusion" without batting an eye. It sounds like a fake job (which the woman only got because her son was part of the "free lessons for minorities" program) but she instituted diversity trainings and struggle sessions in which she pounded her fist on the table while berating the symphony for being racist. Very charming lady, played a direct role in getting me fired. This is where your donor dollars are going, not to musicians:
slimzim117,843 views • 2 days ago
Mind-blowing musicianship in this clip, allow me to break it down: Anderson gives a countoff and the chaotic intro ensues, then in bar 7 Anderson gives a triplet in a distinctly slower tempo which the keyboard player picks up perfectly – you see his head bop as he pulls the tempo back, lazily arpeggiating as Anderson says "ooh!" and smiles, he digs it. Anderson is absolutely the front man but he's always listening to his guys, playing off them (must be a blast being in his group). Then Anderson cues the band with "Alright, check it out" – he let the vamp simmer a little longer than he did on the album version, had to let it get cooking properly. By the time he gets to "Your Heart Don't Stand a Chance" they're locked in, slower than the album version but it's a different environment with fewer instruments in a cramped space which affects how a band plays. That's the beauty of live music, you never know what's gonna happen even if you're in the band, hence Anderson saying "Let's see how we're gonna do this" at the top, even he's not sure. There's a good reason this video has 122M views (I think about 10M of them are me).
slimzim453,693 views • 10 days ago
Nothing tops “Rasputin Dance Couple”, most wholesome thing ever posted:
slimzim2,550,093 views • 3 months ago
Imagine showing up to work to be lectured about the "sickness of America" by a raving lunatic who can't do his job, then having him ruin your life because he knows you won't bend to his twisted worldview. I have stockpiles of receipts like this from 2020 but receipts didn't matter back then – all it took was a couple crybullies shouting "racist" and it was game over. I'd move on if I could but what these people did in 2020 continues to haunt me professionally, while all of them are still out there terrorizing everyone they work with with their ethnonarcissism and horrible playing. No one should forget who these people are and all the institutions continuing to platform them deserve to crumble.
slimzim30,342 views • 2 days ago
Strangely enough I’ve always considered playing on the back side of the beat to be a “black” thing (D’Angelo and Miles Davis do it masterfully) then I stumbled on this clip of Miles saying it’s something white musicians do! Wild hearing him say this, he’s legendarily caustic:
slimzim96,380 views • 9 days ago
This post did well so a deeper look with click track and graphics added. Someone commented it’s all the same groove with different feels, I hear it differently: Live music takes time to settle (especially with a chaotic intro like this one) and it’s fun to hear the band jive and chase perfection. If you don’t notice these nuances I can only assume you don’t notice if your thermostat rises a couple degrees or your shirt doesn’t fit or your food’s overcooked. Life gets better when you pay attention. The best musicians are meticulous, these guys are no exception. Have a listen:
slimzim53,044 views • 9 days ago
John Tesh got the idea for iconic NBA theme “Roundball Rock” while traveling and sang it into his answering machine from a hotel room. Here he is playing the original tape then playing it with a full orchestra. Goes insanely hard, greatest American sports theme ever composed:
slimzim185,161 views • 2 months ago
Surreal seeing my old Nashville Symphony conductor Giancarlo Guerrero conducting Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime show. Giancarlo is the guy I stood up to for trying to fire a black oboe player at a botched blind audition in 2019. I thought that oboist was my friend but I was wrong, he blackmailed Giancarlo and the orchestra into canceling me. It’s a shame because Giancarlo and I used to be great friends, he gave me my big break when he hired me in 2008, helped make me into the player I am. For a guy who doesn’t understand America at all, he’s sure doing well. Amazing he got away with what he did and rode that DEI wave all the way to the Super Bowl. I guess he understands how America works way better than I give him credit for.
slimzim340,668 views • 6 months ago
Nauseating word salad by Boston Symphony CEO Chad Smith. Comes right out and admits they kicked conductor Andris Nelsons to the curb for not being woke enough. One bumbling buffoon like this is enough to do decades worth of damage to an institution that took a century to build.
slimzim66,989 views • 1 month ago
Responses to this viral tattoo tweet are the tried-and-true “you’re a puritan” or “stop looking at other women” but none is more sinister than the dreaded “Why do you even care?” You should care about the aesthetic devolution of the public commons whether it’s the rise of obesity, Bluetooth speakers or weed stench (Inez Stepman ⚪️🔴⚪️ articulates this quite well). Regarding tattoos I’m with Dago Supremacy who said “A beautiful woman’s skin cannot be improved upon.” Having been happily married to two gorgeous women (the first cut short by death) and now raising three daughters I constantly marvel at the female form in its beautiful simplicity. It’s one thing when an obese woman who has clearly given up on herself is covered in doodle tats, it’s entirely another when a woman endowed with so much God-given beauty goes that route. Kat Rosenfield joked recently with Bridget Phetasy about the fine line between vanity and the expression of beauty as a low-level public service and she is unironically correct. It’s different for men but I view my hair, physique (on which I work hard) and clothing as net positives for the world around me. A world full of beautiful women is vastly superior to a world without them – why are so many people so apathetic about this?
slimzim30,445 views • 22 days ago
APRIL 11TH FUNDRAISER CONCERT: If you’re in Nashville come hear this! Playing some classical, jazz, film music, even gonna sing and play saxophone. Have some great players from X joining me, it’s at a historic venue, gonna be great. Links in the video and below. See you April 11!
slimzim149,954 views • 5 months ago
Sad to hear of Catherine O’Hara’s passing. She’s best known as Kevin’s mom from “Home Alone” but her best work is Sheila Albertson from “Waiting for Guffman” where she plays a bad community theater actress. This audition scene is a riot – her terrible singing and dancing, the way she mouths along with her husband’s lines, it’s all incredibly convincing. Takes a highly skilled actress to pull this kind of thing off, she’ll be missed.
slimzim183,618 views • 7 months ago
Loved this talk between my mutuals Bridget Phetasy and Kat Rosenfield, very glad Kat brought up the Kennedy Center debacle I’m always posting about. Leftist musicians hate Trump so much they’ll burn down the institutions they work at to thwart his efforts to improve them. Sad!
slimzim39,271 views • 1 month ago
The intent here wasn’t to dunk on Tiana Oberoi – she sounds like a talented kid trying to make it in a near-impossible profession, she’s probably happy to get a bump even if it’s for her ethnicity. My beef is with the people funneling money to the “global brown majority” which explicitly discriminates against whites while toppling meritocracy. Without institutional support, white music students will never realize their potential, which is exactly what these people want: Elimination of white excellence. Notice the piece she’s singing is Italian, from Puccini’s “La rondine” (1917) – show me even one musical work of this quality that has ever emerged from the “global majority”.
slimzim70,871 views • 3 months ago
My wife says I’m a “messy cook” because I don’t clean as I go like she does. I’m the same way with software and music: I focus on what I’m doing so I can keep moving forward, then I clean up when I’m done. Cleaning as I go distracts me from the task at hand. Marc Andreessen recently said that when writing software it takes 2 hours to get into what you’re doing, then you work for 10 hours then take another 2 to unplug. That’s the kind of clarinet practicing I did in my 20s – it was maniacal but it got me where I wanted to go.
slimzim44,706 views • 2 months ago
One of my favorite recording credits is the sequel to "A Christmas Story" back in 2022. Ralphie grows up to be a struggling writer, this is the scene where he finally sits down to write his dad's obituary. You hear his dad's voice over a sad clarinet solo, that's me. Surreal hearing myself play the same solos I practiced growing up. It's called "A Christmas Story Christmas", worth a watch (it's on HBO)
slimzim106,852 views • 8 months ago
I played with Elina in 2015, but never performed. I was about to, but I had an emergency: We’d just played the overture and I was called off stage and informed that my wife was in an ambulance with chest pains. When asked what I wanted to do, I said “I’m out” and ran out of the hall in my tuxedo, left my clarinets on stage. As I ran out the door the last thing I heard over the PA was the clarinet solo echoing the opening, played by my colleague on no rehearsal. “It’s gonna be ok” I thought as I sprinted for my car. Sadly my wife was not ok, passing away two days later. I always think of this when I hear the Sibelius Violin Concerto now, in a way it was the perfect piece for the occasion, the ultimate expression of loneliness. Here’s Elina playing it that same year, the music of her people. Hope her violin is ok:
slimzim42,265 views • 4 months ago
