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After a great tour, it has been very cool to be able to spend a few days in my ancestral homeland of Switzerland (my great grandparents were from here) before I fly back to Chicago. I visited the Lauterbrunnen/Wengen area last year after we performed in Switzerland and absolutely loved it, so I had to come back again. You are gorgeous, Switzerland…
Many thanks to Austria’s 2nd largest newspaper, the Kleine Zeitung, for the great live concert review of our March 28th performance at the Kultur Forum Amthof in Feldkirchen in Kärnten, Austria!
“…harmonies deep in bass, followed by single notes, sometimes reverberating and sometimes gentle, in harmonics. This creates a wave-like flow that fits perfectly with his current CD SUMMER WATER. First, literally the river in fog, in the summer light or before the storm - then the encounter with the sea. The sea before the storm, in the summer light and again in fog. A genius maneuver: the programmatic titles of the individual songs mirror each other exactly, from “Into River Fog” to “Into Sea Fog." Link to Read Full Review Here  Gebhard and I had a wonderful time last night performing at the Kultur Forum Amthof! Thanks for being a great audience, Feldkirchen in Kärnten!
The Scott DuBois / Gebhard Ullmann Duo will perform tonight at the Laguna Libre EcOsteria della cultura & World Jazz in beautiful Venice, Italy, 20h30!  The Scott DuBois / Gebhard Ullmann Duo performs tonight at the Kultur Forum Amthof in beautiful Feldkirchen in Kärnten, Austria, 20h!
 Whenever I’m in beautiful Vienna I try to visit the Wiener Zentralfriedhof, which is the massive cemetery where Beethoven, Brahms, Ligeti, Mozart, Schoenberg, Schubert, some of my favorite composers are buried. They all died long before I entered this world yet have had a profound impact on my life, so much so that sometimes I think the living are dead and the dead are living. 😉 Yesterday I decided to visit Vienna’s Grinzinger Friedhof, which is where Gustav Mahler is buried. (I didn’t have time to visit both cemeteries on this tour, unfortunately). Mahler is one of my all-time favorite composers so it was very special for me to be able to visit his grave and spend some time there.
It also got me thinking about some friends/loved ones of mine who have passed away over the past few years, including the great Jack Wilkins, a dear friend of mine for 27 years before he passed. (Jack loved Mahler’s 4th Symphony.) Jack liked to tell me the story that one time when he visited Beethoven’s grave, he saw a light coming out of Beethoven’s tombstone, so he moved the tombstone over a bit to see what was happening and there was Beethoven with his Symphony No. 9 score and a big eraser! Beethoven immediately turned to Jack and said, “hey, buddy, do you mind?!? I’m decomposing here!!” 🤠 Miss you, Jack...save me a seat at the Mead Hall in Valhalla next to you, Gustav, Ludwig, Arnold, Amadeus and Co…  I lived in NYC for 22 years, from 1996 - 2018, and during that time I met the great saxophonist/bass clarinetist, Gebhard Ullmann, my longtime musical collaborator in both the I lived in NYC for 22 years, from 1996 - 2018, an amazing time to live in NYC, especially in the 1990s and 2000s. During that time I met the great saxophonist/bass clarinetist, Gebhard Ullmann, my longtime musical collaborator in both the Scott DuBois Quartet and the Scott DuBois / Gebhard Ullmann Duo. Geb split his time for many years living between Berlin and NYC. We were both recording artists for the Soul Note record label in the 2000s, so one night I decided to go check out Gebhard's quintet in Brooklyn and was blown away by his playing. I knew that I'd be making music with Geb for a very long time after that.
Gebhard and I have been working together now for almost 20 years and since then we've done 22 European tours together, with both the Scott DuBois Quartet and the Scott DuBois / Gebhard Ullmann Duo. Here's a photo of us taken backstage during Gebhard and my first concert together, along with the wonderful rhythm section of Eivind Opsvik on bass and Jeff Davis on drums for the Scott DuBois Quartet performance at the 2006 Madrid Jazz Festival. The Scott DuBois / Gebhard Ullmann Duo will perform at the Kultur Forum Amthof in Feldkirchen in Kärnten, Austria on Friday, March 28th, and at the Laguna Libre EcOsteria della cultura & World Jazz in Venice, Italy on Saturday, March 29th. We are very much looking forward to our concerts in these beautiful places!  I’m very grateful to be able to spend most of my time between two of my favorite places on the planet, Northern Michigan and Chicago. I always love seeing these bear crossing signs not far from my home in Northern Michigan, during my frequent drives between here and Chicago. I was a school crossing guard when I was a kid in elementary school so I’m thinking I would make an excellent bear crossing guard as an adult, composer/guitarist/bear crossing guard/lighthouse keeper (fun fact: Michigan has more lighthouses than any other state in the US)…
Of course what I am trying to say is that the Scott DuBois / Gebhard Ullmann Duo will be performing in Austria and Italy next month! More about our March 2025 European tour dates soon! The full 90-minute SCOTT DUBOIS QUARTET LIVE IN MUNICH live concert film will be broadcast on the Stingray DJAZZ TV Channel tomorrow, Friday, August 16th starting at 18h00 CET!
Here's the tv listing in Belgium's Mousique Magazine: https://tv.moustique.be/emission/scott-dubois-quartet-live-a-munich-f4138mi6k.html This is my quartet performing my composition "Evening Blizzard" in the film... Here are some photos I took of the amazing show the Northern Lights put on early this morning, at home up in the North Woods of Northern Michigan…
The full 90-minute SCOTT DUBOIS QUARTET LIVE IN MUNICH live concert film will be broadcast on the Stringray DJAZZ TV Channel tomorrow Friday, June 28th, starting at 17h56 CET!
This is an English translation (below that is the original in French) of the description of the film from the tv listing in France’s Télécâble Sat Hendo tv guide: “A rising star of jazz guitar, Scott DuBois leads a quartet composed of Gebhard Ullmann (reed instruments), Thomas Morgan (bass) and Kresten Osgood (drums). The talent of these three musicians is such that they can go from a subdued style to a fiercely avant-garde approach in the blink of an eye. As part of this intimate and atmospheric performance delivered at the Jazz Club Unterfahrt in Munich in March 2016, DuBois and his band performed the entire album 'Winter Light', released a few months earlier, as well as 'Lake Shore Suite'." “Étoile montante de la guitare jazz, Scott DuBois est à la tête d'un quatuor composé de Gebhard Ullmann (instruments à anche), Thomas Morgan (basse) et Kresten Osgood (batterie). Le talent de ces trois musiciens est tel qu'ils peuvent passer d'un style feutré à une approche férocement avant-gardiste en un clin d'œil. Dans le cadre de cette performance intime et atmosphérique livrée au Jazz Club Unterfahrt de Munich, en mars 2016, DuBois et son groupe interprètent l'intégralité de l'album Winter Light, sorti quelques mois plus tôt, ainsi que de Lake Shore Suite.” Here's my quartet performing my composition "Noon White Mountain" in the film...  I caught my first King Salmon last night, around 2 miles (3.2km) out in Lake Michigan!
A couple photos I took this weekend of spring's arrival up where I live in the wilderness of the North Woods. The wildlife is making music everywhere and the bears will be waking up soon…😴 🐻
Here's a little part of a long poem I very much enjoy about the woods: “There Is a Pleasure in the Pathless Woods” (from “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” canto IV, stanza 178) - Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.  Gebhard and I had an awesome time performing in Switzerland! I spoke to quite a few people in the audience after our concert in Zürich and met someone from Le Locle, which is the tiny village in the French part of Switzerland where my great-grandfather was from. My great-grandparents were Swiss and immigrated to the United States through Ellis Island in NYC. There is a book/family tree with the names of all of my DuBois ancestors in Switzerland going back to the 1500s (I believe the book even goes back to the 1400s when my family was all in the south of France!) so it was very cool for me to be able to speak with a local about this rural area of Switzerland where I have deep roots.
I took a day trip today with my dear-old Swiss friend for 28 years, Marc Burger, to Lauterbrunnen/Wengen where I took this photo. Switzerland is an incredible and stunningly beautiful place…  Thanks for being such a great audience last night, Fulda!
Gebhard and I are off to Switzerland now and we are excited both for our concert this evening at Jazzclub Allmend Oberengstringen in Zürich (Oberengstringen), CH, 20h, and for the fact that the German rail strike is over! The Scott DuBois / Gebhard Ullmann Duo performs tonight at the BackStage Jazzclub (part of the Jazzfreunde Fulda) in beautiful Fulda, Germany, 20h!
Great rehearsal today in Berlin for the upcoming Scott DuBois / Gebhard Ullmann Duo concerts this week in Germany and Switzerland! This is an excerpt from my composition "Lake Shore Suite."
We’re performing at the BackStage Jazzclub (part of the Jazzfreunde Fulda) in Fulda, DE, Fri. 8 March, the Jazzclub Allmend Oberengstringen in Zürich (Oberengstringen), CH on Sat. 9 March, and the massive German rail strike happening right now can’t stop us! ;-)  The Scott DuBois / Gebhard Ullmann Duo will perform live at Jazzclub Allmend Oberengstringen in Zürich (Oberengstringen), Switzerland on March 9, 2024!
( Photo by Karl Toomsoo)  The Scott DuBois / Gebhard Ullmann Duo will perform live at the BackStage Fulda Jazzclub (as part of the Jazzfreunde Fulda) in Fulda, Germany on March 8, 2024!
(Photo by Karl Toomsoo) The full 90-minute SCOTT DUBOIS QUARTET LIVE IN MUNICH live concert film will be broadcast on the Stringray DJAZZ TV Channel this Friday, January 12h starting at 17h54 CET!
This is a description of the film from the tv listing in France’s Télécâble Sat Hendo tv guide: “A rising star of jazz guitar, Scott DuBois leads a quartet composed of Gebhard Ullmann (reed instruments), Thomas Morgan (bass) and Kresten Osgood (drums). The talent of these three musicians is such that they can go from a subdued style to a fiercely avant-garde approach in the blink of an eye. As part of this intimate and atmospheric performance delivered at the Jazz Club Unterfahrt in Munich in March 2016, DuBois and his band performed the entire album 'Winter Light', released a few months earlier, as well as 'Lake Shore Suite'." Here's my quartet performing my composition "Late Morning Snow" in the film... I had a great day today in the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago…
I love reading about the daily rituals of composers, painters, prolifically creative people in general. Here is the daily routine of the great William de Kooning, from Mark Stevens' and Annalyn Swan's book, DE KOONING: AN AMERICAN MASTER: If Elaine [Fried, whom de Kooning married in 1943] found it strange to return directly to work on her wedding day, she never said so. That was the way of life on Twenty-second Street: every woman in de Kooning's life from Nini onward could attest that he was already married to his work. During the time when Elaine was commuting back and forth to Brooklyn, de Kooning's days were devoted to art, and they continued to be so after she moved in permanently. Typically, the couple rose late in the morning. Breakfast consisted mostly of very strong coffee, cut with the milk they kept in winter on a window ledge; they did not have a refrigerator, an appliance that in the early forties was still a luxury. (So was a private phone, which de Kooning would not have until the early sixties.) Then the day's routine began with de Kooning moving to his end of the studio and Elaine to hers. Work was punctuated by more cups of strong coffee, which de Kooning made by boiling the coffee as he had learned to do in Holland, and by many cigarettes. The two stayed at their easels until fairly late, taking a break only to go out for something to eat or to walk up to Times Square to see a movie. Often, however, de Kooning, who hated to stop working, began again after supper and pushed far into the night, leaving Elaine to go to a party or concert. "I remember very often walking by and seeing the lights on and going up," said Marjorie Luyckx. "In those studios, the heat used to go off after five o'clock because they were commercial buildings. Bill would be painting with his hat and coat on. Painting away, and whistling." Artists (clockwise, starting top left): Ernst Ludwig Kirchner; Alice Rahom; Joan Miró; Jackson Pollock; Joan Mitchell; Willem de Kooning In honor of Beethoven’s 253rd Birthday today, here’s a video taken by Scott “Of the Woods” (that’s what DuBois means in French) driving up his very long (~0.4mi / ~0.64km), steep and rugged dirt/gravel driveway way up in the North Woods of northern Michigan.
Most of this long driveway is owned by the National Park Service but I have an ingress/egress easement on it to access my land and home at the top of this little “mountain.” It can be a serious challenge, especially in the heavy winters up north, but totally worth it to live in this incredibly inspiring and wonderfully wild and beautiful place. Thankfully my car is a beast and has been victorious against the driveway (so far)… I took this video this past summer while driving up my drive and Beethoven Symphony No. 5 just happened to be playing on the classical music radio station I listen to often. Beethoven’s Spirit must’ve followed me back home from his grave which I visited while on tour in Austria last year (I wouldn’t be surprised as it’s a very mystical place here)… Happy Birthday, Ludwig!  Happy Birthday to the great Gebhard Ullmann! Here’s a photo of us taken in Berlin last year while on tour in Europe.
Geb and I have done 21 European tours together since 2006. Our first performance together was at the 2006 Madrid Jazz Festival. He’s an amazing musician and I’ve learned a lot from him while sharing the stage together so often over these many years. Gebhard and I will be on tour together quite a bit in Europe in 2024 (more about that in a few months…)  A photo I just took of my backyard up in northern Michigan, which is the entrance to a very large forest. Amazing wildlife roaming there…some you want to meet while exploring, some you don’t ;-) but all fascinating and beautiful…
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