Letters from The Jazz Cottage
Because I also run a recording studio with my partner, Eldad
I am starting a series of posts about my activity as a multimedia producer in jazz, contemporary classical (my favorite genre), funk, world, and (hopefully one day) singer-songwriter music.
Today I asked ChatGPT what it can tell about me after reading my main blog in English, which I started in 2006, and I have increasingly dedicated to my professional life as a geospatial data consultant. Here is what it told me:
”Alina S. Tarmu is a multifaceted professional with a rich background in art, science, and multimedia. Her blog, "A. S. Tarmu," serves as a platform where she shares insights into her diverse endeavors.
Recent Highlights from Her Blog:
Career Progress and Community Engagement: In October 2023, Alina discussed her focus on cultivating joy amidst global events. She highlighted her recent readings on the subject and shared her involvement in community events at a local coffee shop. Additionally, she relaunched her multimedia production company's website and resumed weekly dance lessons.
Digital Creativity and AI Exploration: By September 2023, Alina delved into her photography archives, experimenting with AI and graphic design platforms like Canva and Adobe Express. This exploration led her to create promotional materials for her multimedia production company. She also engaged with WordPress prompts to inspire her writings across various blogs.
Reflections on Blogging and Teaching: In August 2023, Alina reflected on her blogging journey, likening her blogs to a "palimpsest," where she revisits and updates older posts. She incorporated AI-generated images into past entries and shared her excitement about the new academic semester, during which she taught Ecology.
Professional Affiliations and Volunteer Work:
Alina has been actively involved with organizations such as the Society for Conservation GIS and Women in Geospatial. She co-founded the NY/NJ chapter of SCGIS, emphasizing the significance of networking and volunteering in professional growth.
Social Media Presence:
On Instagram, Alina identifies as a nature enthusiast, scientist at Sylvana Consulting, gardener, dancer, sailor, and multimedia maven at Queen of Bohemia Productions, embracing a cottagecore lifestyle.
Through her blog and social media, Alina S. Tarmu offers a glimpse into her interdisciplinary pursuits, blending art, science, and community involvement.”
The thing is, I am not “blending” anything. My maps are not as artsy as they could be. My writing is not systematic. I don’t think I am “interdisciplinary” anything. All these pursuits are very distinct in my case, and for a long time, I kept my artsy side hidden, because I realized most people, for reasons that I am not going to get into right now, prefer to pigeonhole you. This bias makes ChatGPT jump to lazy conclusions, like a student who didn’t study enough and tries to fill pages with nonsense. The last time I thought about interdisciplinarity, I wanted to create a geospatial dataset of fictional travel pathways from literary works (I still call dibs on this idea, by the way - you heard it here first).
Backing up a little: Queen of Bohemia Productions is the name of the music label under which I have been producing jazz and contemporary classical records of mostly original music composed by my partner, vibraphonist Eldad Tarmu. As the techie, I am also in charge of all of our websites and social media presence. The name is not my idea, it is Eldad’s, inspired by the first record we produced, in 2007, a chamber jazz project titled Songs for the Queen of Bohemia.
Initially, our label logo was the dancing silhouette in the middle of the cover. The album art was designed by Romanian web developer Cristian Ezri using photos by Ovidiu Micșa, both based in Timișoara, Romania, where Eldad ran the Jazz Department of a private university. I have subsequently replaced the logo with a another dancing silhouette, this time inspired by a tarocchi card from a set that belonged to my paternal grandparents.
A second project we released, in 2008, was Farewell St. George, available on Eldad’s Bandcamp. St. George Street is a street in Los Angeles in the vicinity of which both Eldad and the jazz guitarist Chuck Jennings used to live in their former lives. Most of the compositions are originals. The cover art is mine, using photographs taken by Chuck. We released it for streaming at the end of 2022.
If Eldad’s collaboration with the Timisoara Philharmonic resulted in a chamber jazz project featuring a string quartet, his graduate studies for a Master of Arts in Classical Compositions and a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Jazz Performance at Stony Brook University resulted also in a contemporary classical project with a woodwind quintet: Stained Glass Stories. The photo we used for the cover was found by Eldad after long searches for just the right image. It belongs to Brian, a photographer based in the UK, who kindly permitted us to use it.
In 2023, our label released Eldad’s first fully original jazz CD: Tarmu Jazz Quartet.
For this project, I created multicamera music videos shot during the recording, in our studio, which I recently named The Jazz Cottage. The drummer, Cengiz Baysal, of the Turkish rock band Duman fame, and a friend of Eldad for decades, was also the recording engineer of this project. His drum kit was installed in my kitchen. I like saying that was the best use of kitchen real estate in The Jazz Cottage. Not that my cooking skills are lacking, mind you… The cover photo was one of the many taken with my beloved Sony camera on the patio of The Stone House, a restaurant in Warren, New Jersey, where Eldad’s jazz ensemble used to be the house band.
Our latest project is a tribute to jazz great Horace Silver. This time, our label initiated an international radio promotional campaign. In addition to many radio stations in the USA, where Mike Hurzon ensured the promotion, the album was picked up by Radio France Musique, Radio Jazz Suisse, GRK Belgium, as well as jazz radios in Canada and Romania. The cover art is largely my concept. The engraved letters are done through digital manipulation - no vibraphone bars were harmed in the process…
Thank you for listening - to be continued.
Heirlooms & Keepsakes is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.