First off, hats off to Kelly McGinty for throwing one hell of a party on Fat Tuesday at the Sheridan Opera House. If you weren't there, you missed out. We hope to do it again next year.

Secondly, my apologies to those of you out there who have registered lately and have not been able to verify your registration via email. I will have to look into what exactly is causing that, but in the mean time I have activated all accounts manually, and have changed the website registration mechanism so that all accounts are activated automatically without email verification.

Peace and popsicles.
pz

Top Shelf will be collaborating with the rythm section of Ultra-Violet Catastrophe for the next couple of gigs. This collaboration will involve the original horn players of Top Shelf, Jon Phillips and Everett Cencich, and the three founding members of Ultra-Violet Catastrophe, Bailey Vince, Joel Waller, and Joseph Johnson. UVC is the jazz off-shoot of local band, Fractalia (see our links page to visit their website). Make sure you come check out what this collaboration has to offer your ears and soul... you will not be dissappointed, guaranteed (but no money back, ).

This is not a change in staff, but is more indicative of a shift away from the "band mentality" towards the "collaborative mentality" (which has been my vision for the group since shortly after it's inception). The idea is similar to the concept behind a sports team where x number of players are "on the team" but only y number of those players are "on the field" at any given moment of gameplay. There are two goals that I hope will come from this shift of mentality. The first is more consistent gigging potential. The second is a more interesting experience for the repeat listener. Five different possible configurations of the same group will provide more variety than just one, right? Of course all musicians are "auditioned" first so the quality of music will not decline.

Please contact me (via the "Contact" link in the main menu to the left) if you have any feedback, or know of any musicians who might be interested in joining our collaborative.

peace,
pz

so watch out!! We have Everett Cencich back for the summer and will utilize him as much as possible. I also have a pool of musicians to cover all chairs to maximise gigs. Some of the new musicians you might see appearing with Top Shelf on top of our core members include:

Michael Scherr - keys (you have to see his sick set up of toys)

and

Joseph Johnson - guitar (not as many toys but like butter for the ears)

There might be others added as I need them.

These additional musicians are hailing from a new hot group here in Montrose that I've been working with a little lately called Ultra-Violet Catastrophe (or UVC for short) which is a branch in the Fractalia family. Be sure to check them out if you see them playing around or check out their website at www.fractaliamusic.com.

I will post more news as I get it.
Peace and much love to all
pz

It's been a long time since I have posted anything on the website, and half the reason is I have been waiting to find out what is going on myself. The past few months have brought a lot to Top Shelf, unfortunately they all land in the difficulty column. I won't bore you with details (and potentially embarass people I don't care to embarass), but we will be back soon, hopefully as a quintet again for that "phat" horn sound. Keep an eye on the calendar yall, and I'll keep ya posted.
Much love and peace.
jonpz

A month has passed since Everett left for college. We have no solid leads on a sax player to replace him and have therefore decided to continue as a quartet. This, of course, means changing our sound a little bit, but it shouldn't take us too long to do and we hope to be gigging again soon. Keep checking with the website to see what events are up and coming. Also, don't forget to spread the word about Top Shelf and get others turned on to our sound. Should any of you happen to have any leads on any sax players we could audition that live in the area, please get in touch with us.

Peace to all.
pz

Well, we've hit the moment all of us in Top Shelf have been dreading. Everett Cencich, our star sax player, is taking off for college. I guess he figures he can learn more at college than he can from a few washed up old farts in Small Town, Colorado. The nerve! Seriously, we wish Everett the best and look forward to him visiting us for the summers. In the mean time, we are working on getting a replacement sax player, and have a good lead on a potentially great player. I will definitely keep y'all posted. Until we settle on a replacement player, though, we will be taking a break from gigging. I hope this break will last no longer than a month.

Also there are seven more mp3 files posted in our Downloads section (available to registered users) that were recorded at our last show on August 25, 2005. As with the mp3s from June, these were recorded on a single-mic mini-disc recorder in the audience, so the quality isn't the best, and sometimes you can hear traffic and conversations better than the music, but all in all, they are great recordings and worth downloading. If you are wondering the songs were played in this order:

1. Mercy Mercy Mercy
2. Summertime
3. Pick Up the Pieces
4. In Memory of Elizabeth Reed
5. Mr. Clean
6. Babadabah
7. Black Eyed Pea

Make sure you are in the 'Music >> Live Recordings from Coffee Trader August 2005' sub-categories (click here) to ensure that you're downloading the most recent recordings of these songs.

Thats it for now... Keep it funky!
peace
pz

There are mp3's posted in the downloads section (available to registered users) of the first set of one of our recent performances. The performance was outdoors at the Coffee Trader and the recording is a bootleg from a single mic mini-disc recorder set up, so the quality isn't the best, but it is surprisingly good. Many thanks to Rodney Cencich for giving us this recording. For those who are wondering this is the order in which the songs were played:

1. Footprints
2. Naima
3. Red Baron
4. Chameleon
5. Le Miroir Noir
6. Watermelon Man

There are multiple versions of some of these songs posted in the downloads section, so if you are wanting to hear the most recent mp3's, make sure you're in the "Live at Coffee Trader..." subsection of the "Music" section.

Other than that, I am working on getting more images up soon and possibly tweaking the graphical layout of the site soon with additional images, etc.

Peace to all
jonathan
aka pz

Yes, I have posted mp3s of some old demo recordings we made through the course of the last year. We are hoping to get into a studio soon to cut some more demo tracks, and, as soon as that happens, I will upload that content for download. Downloads are restricted to registered users, so please register with the site so you can hear the funky fresh sounds we make.

Also the Events Calendar is up and running, however it is in that "functional but not pretty" stage, so, if you are looking at our site on an 800x600 resolution screen, I apologize for some of the weirdness you will see on some of the calendar pages. I will get that worked out soon (as I have time).

We are in the process of booking massive gigs for the summer. The only two that are confirmed as of this point are the two you can see in the calendar (June 2nd at the Coffee Trader and July 2nd at the Balloon Affaire). There are many more in the works though, so keep checking back.

Well, that's about it. Don't forget to register with the site (its free), and keep it funky.

Peace to all.
pz

I think I'm done tweaking the visual layout of the site now. On to adding content/features. Look for these features coming to the website soon. Mp3 downloads (for registered users), events calendar, bio pages for all band members, image gallery (for registered users) where you can submit photos of the group or gigs or whatever to us to post on the site, and other stuff that I'm sure I'll think of along the way. If you are a guest to this site, please register so that we can keep in touch with all of you.

As far as the group goes, we are just about ready to step out in full force with our new drummer Rick Manero, and things will be HOT guaranteed. Keep an eye out for us.

pz

This is it. Development on the brand spankin new TopShelfJazz.com dopey fresh and funky site is under way. I mostly post this news story as a frame of reference so everybody can tell me how cool I am to have gotten this website done so quickly. Ha! Speed is not an approach I usually employ, though, so please remain patient as I work on this site. Much appreciated...
Jon aka pz