New Video: Tappercussion Underground 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qrmBnA8yQk
Coming Soon! Some new videos of an alternate-style of my music-making.
I have posted a new video to the live performance playlist on the youtube channel! It is from excerpts of a set I did at Seattle's famously fun Moisture Festival from March of this year.
Here is a youtube playlist of studio takes from my 2015 recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRDh7YS3ocg&list=PL7O5sHH3ie4NcPSoMjERITnlsjZgHzgyh
Check out Shoehorn's recorded catalog on cdbaby. He performs plenty of original tunes, some jazz classics, movie themes, and covers some cool Japanese tunes as well.
https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/shoehorn12
Shoehorn has written a piece for Oregon Music news about tap dancer Sarah Reich and New Change Live.
Shoehorn also worked with Ms. Reich on her Tap Music Intensive in the band playing for the tap students. They all created a new piece together based on tap steps.
Shoehorn has written a piece for Oregon Music news about Biamp PDX 2019 Jazz Festival.
2019 Biamp PDX Jazz Festival first week. Jazz: Past, Present, and Future in Real Time.
Shoehorn working with the Jellyroll Society, Baby Gramps and Son de Cuba in March as well as some solo gigs.
2019 is off to a roaring start! I have been playing with a couple of groups and working solo as well. On a sad note, one band I loved performing with lost it's leader when Chata Addy died in December. We all loved him (the guys in his band Susuma) and we loved playing his music.
Hopefully I will get into the studio to record some of my recent material soon. I have a video project to complete as well, shooting in my found-percussion studio, including shoes and horns of course. I am digging playing the clarinet a lot recently, especially with the loop pedal.
I will be covering the 2019 Portland Jazz Festival for oregonmusicnews.com, and I have some young students who I love working with. I wish everyone well and hope things go great for all of us this year!
late 2018:
I have been trying to get into writing more in the last 12 months, and have published 7 pieces on oregon music news dot com including 2 this past week: an interview with tap dance phenom Sarah Reich , https://www.oregonmusicnews.com/sarah-reich-qanda
And a review of a world premiere for concert band by Canadian composer Cait Nishimura. https://www.oregonmusicnews.com/cait-nishimura-review
I have done reviews of 5 other concerts including Robert Glasper, Donald Harrison and Paquito D'Rivera.
I am trying to get warmed up for some bigger projects.
Happy Thanksgiving!
"Dances with Instruments" by MC Shoehorn, a multi-instrumentalist arranger/composer, combines woodwinds, percussion and electric tap dance with sophisticated forms and concepts into entertaining spectacle.
May 24, 2018 During my time in Mexico a new song came into existence, with a romantic, nostalgaic feeling and lyrics in Spanish. I hope to record "Noche Perdida" in the near future. I recently reconnected with some folks in New York, when I attended my daughter's graduation from university. I am performing my solo shows and with various groups as usual, and just posted some of those dates for the summer.
February 28,2018: I just returned from a 2-week artist residency in Quintana Roo State in Yucatan, Mexico. I had connected on facebook with some old friends I knew there from the 1990s and went back after 21 years. I performed at Charlie's, Zamas, and Boheme in Tulum, and we had a righteous house concert party at Bryan's place in Playa Del Carmen and another show at Bar Unicos in Puerto Morelos. The following video was recently unearthed of one of the first performances of a tune I wrote inspired by the good times I had down there in the 1990s. The song "Waking Up In Mexico" has appeared on several albums; "Café Cirque"; the live Shoehorn CD "The Blue Monk"; and also "Joyous Panic" by the Wanderlust Circus Orchestra, in radically different arrangements. This video was recorded in 2008 at Jimmy Mak's Jazz Club in Portland. Shoehorn-alto sax/tap dance, with Pere Soto, guitar, Skip Elliott Bowman, bass, Ward Griffiths, drums, Dan Gaynor, piano, David Valdez, tenor sax, Max Pollak, tap dance/conga .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kmYBVKl8A
Happy 2018 to Everyone! Year of the Dog!
Take a look at the calendar page to come and see a performance. I am also actively booking the coming season. I feel I experienced significant artistic and personal growth in 2017, but the madness of the world at large infringes on the calmness I feel in my heart. I also mourn the loss of 7 people I knew or worked with to illness and accidents. In 2018 I want to present more completed projects to the world, and if you are interested I always love to hear encouragement, advice, and funding ideas. Some projects I would like to tackle include a "Shoehorn Fakebook", a concert band arrangement of my compositions, a solo CD project, extended technical capacity for my e-tap instruments, finishing visual works-in-progress, and a compilation of stories and poems. Thanks for looking at my site!
Holiday Events: Sometimes is seems like we are on a crash course to oblivion! But music and dance helps maintain our sanity and converts bad vibes into positive feelings for our fellow humans. We need this. Check the calendar page for upcoming Shoehorn performances and the News/Blog page for links to some reviews he wrote for Oregon Music News. Happy Holidays- meaning ALL the holidays! Shoehorn performs killer sax & tap versions of Christmas tunes and other seasonal favorites, and has some calendar openings for your private event or holiday office party! Live it up while you have the opportunity! Blessings to all!
Fall Greetings: I had a pretty good summer. My quartet had some gigs, including shows at Oregon Country Fair and a wedding, and I played sideman gigs with Chata Addy, Son de Cuba, Norman Sylvester, Baby Gramps and others. I've been working on new material and practicing vibes and drums, making loops and tapping and playing my sax like there is no tomorrow! I will post some new stuff as soon as I can edit some video tapes I uncovered, and post new recordings as I make them.
SUMMER 2017 UPDATE:
I hope everybody is having a great summer. I am out here doing what I do best and I am ready to rock it on another level. I have some new numbers in the act including found-object gongs and 4-foot drumsticks, which I also use to strike the floor by my feet. I am also doing "trance numbers" for real now with all my sounds going into a loop pedal, adding wonderful layers of harmony and rhythmic counterpoint. I always considered the trance aspect part of my music, utilizing what I called "implied loops" to create movement, but this looping tool is very powerful and opens up a new dimension to my sound in spontaneous creations. I actually created and used loops in my 1998 recording, on the CD "The Shoehorn Swing", available from cdbaby with my other 6 titles. I am recording a solo audio album for release in the near future, in response to audience request, and I will also be posting some new videos on my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MC-Shoehorn-tap-dancing-saxophonist-120543294628579/
This video of a show at Moisture Festival was suggested as the lead reel by a good friend in the business- take a look!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8La6QEzH3s
Update: April 23, 2017
Hey folks, music and love are the only thing keeping me sane in this crazy world!
Bringing light to darkness, it is a life-affirming force, and I hope that goes not just for me but all of you. If you can, purchase a CD or download, spread the word about my work to your networks and invite me to perform and teach in your city or town.
Thank you!
Here is a clip, with the band, titled "Ice Cream and Bubbles" which is part of both of these projects:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNV7z1C5F8k
"Fuego Azul (Silk Road)" is a solo number from the DVD
"Dances with Instruments"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRDh7YS3ocg
Entertainer MC Shoehorn- tap dancer and saxophonist (and multi-instrumentalist/vocalist) works as a solo performer, bandleader, soloist, accompanist and sideman.
MC Shoehorn makes music with his feet and dances with his horn, combining body rhythms and sophisticated forms and concepts into improvised entertainment. Specializing in saxophone and tap dance, he's a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and composer, utilizing wind and percussion instruments, playing classic and original songs, with an ear for music from around the world.
My most recent CD is titled "Wingin' It". Check out this blurb:
A World Jazz Extravaganza with MC Shoehorn! The tap dancer and saxophonist presents his new CD "Wingin' It" and his new DVD "Dances with Instruments". The CD has a strong Afro-Cuban flavor, with a Japanese twist. The music is grooving hard with bassist Damian Erskine, drummer Martin Zarzar, percussionists Miguel Bernal and Scott Wardinsky, and pianist Gordon Lee . "Wingin" It" features guest vocalist Eileen Conley on two tracks and Kite Giedraitis, leader of African-style marimba band Fools in Paradise, plays mbira and bass kalimba on one selection. (Two tracks from the CD recording session are also part of the DVD as well.)
For more videos, here is a link to my youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYUlUSsdW98nNHvz6cO-mhA?view_as=public