User:Kepics

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Kepics, Nicholas

Location: Yorktown, VA

Official website: http://www.nickkepics.com

Myspace website: http://www.myspace.com/nickkepicsjazzband

Ethnicity: Hungarian

I was born April 22, 1949 in Tarentum, Pennsylvania. My grandfather on my Dad’s side was a mill Hunky (Hungarian) and my mother's parents were Slovenian immigrants. I basically spent the first 10 years of my life growing up on or around farms in Western Pa.

My father was a career Navy man and gave me my first guitar when I was 14 (1963). I learned how to tune it listening to Surfin' USA by the Beach Boys. I played by ear until about 1980 when I decided to teach myself how to read music.

Growing up I listened to absolutely everything, which is not necessarily the best way to learn guitar properly. I took in guitar players from Kenny Burrell to Jimi Hendrix. I also listened to a lot of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Hubert Laws, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock and Oscar Peterson to name just a few. I tried to voice my guitar chords like piano players and play guitar solo lines like horn players.

I am primarily self-taught, but I did take a lesson here and there from some great players like Ken Hatfield to name just one.

I cut my teeth on standards like Autumn Leaves, Green Dolphin Street, Moment’s Notice, A Night In Tunisia, That’s All, There Will Never Be Another You, Darn That Dream, Wave, A Child Is Born, Nica’s Dream and many others. I learned to play them as solo pieces using the chord-melody style of playing. Learning tunes that way makes combo playing that much easier once you already know the whole tune inside out.

I have performed in combos with saxophonists Rudy Wooten, Sonny Morgan, Phillipe Fields; trumpeters Bob Ransom, Bill Brown, Blake Wallace; jazz singer Gerri Hollins (Japan); bassists Elias Bailey, Terry Burrell, Chris Brydge; pianists Steve Weisberg, Tim McDonald; drummers Shannon Leggette, Russell Scarborough, Howard Curtiss, Leon Alexander and Jae Sinnett.

One of my goals when composing new music is to introduce jazz to people who may have never listened to it before or who have been somehow intimidated by it. My brand of jazz is not exactly straight ahead (so it isn’t scary) but it isn’t exactly smooth jazz either (so it’s not too tame). It’s place is somewhere in between the two extremes, and that’s okay!

Although I am older than the event, I always thought it was really neat that Earth Day is celebrated on my birthday. I also happen to believe in what it stands for; taking care of our little planet, and everything on it. It's the only planet we've got for the foreseeable future!

I think the SPCA is a good organization and support their ideas as well. I also believe in protecting endangered species. I wrote a Requiem to help raise awareness about the poaching that still goes on against Komodo Dragons. It’s on my next CD, which will be released soon.

I also love science and math (my day gig is at NASA), especially fractals and chaos theory. I'm convinced there is a lot of hidden, or underappreciated beauty all around us. I’ve always been amazed by the simple, natural beauty of a leaf, a feather, a spider web or a snowflake. It's like the universe uses simple clues to reveal its mysteries but wants us to figure out its secret code first.

Like many people, I naturally look for symmetry and patterns in nature and the things around me. Even when composing music, I try to write harmonies and rhythms that contain a kind of subliminal symmetry that evokes images to help tell a story. Storytelling is, after all, one of the most enduring methods humans still use to pass on knowledge, culture and lessons learned from one generation to the next. Ask any movie director. They will probably agree for they have become the master storytellers of our time. I think songwriting is like telling abstract stories using sound.

Here are some more neat music sites you'll want to check out: Starpolish.com, JazzReview.com, Broadjam.com, AllAboutJazz.com and CDBaby.com.

In a nutshell, that’s basically who I am, my musical background and some of my other interests; areas where we might share common ground. I am also a music publisher. The name of my publishing company is Patiwak Publishing. I am anxious to release my next CD, “Rounding The Bend” containing a lot more all-original music. Stay Tuned!