ajchen.com

A few months ago, we had a tornado touch down in in our neighborhood, uprooting many trees that had been standing for decades and even centuries. I’m glad some of them survived – they look beautiful after snowfall.

Berkshire pork tenderloin katsu with daikon radish and ponzu sauce.

You know a meal is good when you’re a few bites in and already thinking about your next visit. The grated daikon radish mixed in with the ponzu sauce serves as a refreshing alternative to the goopy bbq-like paste they serve with most other katsu dishes. The pork cutlet itself is juicy, flavorful and slightly fatty. Highly recommended.

Katsuhama 55
43-45 W. 55th Street
New York, NY 10019
katsuhama.com

A few years ago, Johan, Jeff and I started a project called NHTVSN. It was a two-part company that consisted of a graphic tshirt line and an online video ‘zine. The idea was to use the videos as an avenue to gain publicity for the tshirt line; when we had started, very few online publications like this existed. We also wanted to use NHTVSN as a springboard to give some of our creative friends a bigger audience. Jeff had gone to school for filmmaking and was excited to apply his skills in a new and creative way. Although these were all great ambitions, our primary goal was for NHTVSN to become an easy moneymaker. At the time of its launch, the streetwear market was exploding: boutiques were opening in both big cities and small towns seemingly every week, stores couldn’t seem to buy enough product to supply their customers, and the economy was stronger than ever. Because we wanted to protect 3sixteen’s brand integrity, we felt compelled to start a diffusion line that would still be graphically executed at a level we were happy with, but would also allow us to work with bigger accounts that we didn’t want to give 3sixteen to.

The first season did pretty well – we sold the tees to some of our existing 3sixteen retailers and also opened up some bigger chain stores with the line. It wasn’t a huge release but showed a lot of promise. The videos were received with open arms; because Youtube had horrible encoding at the time, we chose to host them ourselves and resultingly brought the entire website to a grinding halt a day after launching it. 6 months later, we wanted to interview some people on the east coast for our second issue but Jeff wasn’t able to contribute due to scheduling conflicts. And that’s when we met Kellen Dengler.

Seemingly out of nowhere, we received an email from a recent film school graduate who was moving to NYC to pursue a career; he wanted to know if we had any 3sixteen internships available that might fit his skillset. We checked out his work and liked what we saw, so I met with him in person to chat further – it became clear that his talents would apply perfectly to our NHTVSN video series. We completed our second issue with Kellen filming and directing the series, and to this day, I’m really proud of the way everything turned out. Since then, Kellen has progressed onto some amazing things; I could sit here and list all the people he’s filmed with, but it’s probably easier to take a look at his portfolio.

We closed up shop with NHTVSN after our second season; we found that it demanded too much time and attention for us to be able to turn it into something profitable at the time.  The recession certainly had a major hand in its failure – a quick look at our retailer list will tell you that many of the accounts that bought NHTVSN are no longer in business.  Despite this, we couldn’t be more thankful for the friendship that we formed with Kellen through the process. He’s a very busy man but has always made time for us to work on additional projects for both 3sixteen and later, Self Edge.

Since refocusing fully on 3sixteen these past few years, I found myself missing the storytelling that we got to do through the NHTVSN project. After much brainstorming, we started work six months ago on a new initiative with Kellen entitled Singularities, and we’re finally nearing completion. The trailer is above, and we plan to launch the entire series of videos in early 2011. You can visit the dedicated website for more information on the project: 3sixteen.com/singularities

Two weeks ago, a few friends and I headed to the Village Vanguard to see the Robert Glasper Trio. This was my first time knowingly seeing him live; I say this because L brought me to see Mos Def at the Blue Note almost two years ago, and there was a fantastic jazz band backing him. Only after discovering Glasper’s music early this year did I put two and two together and realize that he led that very band. In fact, when I met him after the show last week, I brought this irony to his attention but it came out more awkwardly than I had rehearsed in my mind. Oh well.

The show did not disappoint; although I was hoping to see Glasper’s electrifying drummer, Chris ‘Daddy’ Dave, his replacement – Jamire Williams – was phenomenal. Glasper played quite a few songs from his last two albums and threw in a few covers as well. Interspersed throughout the set were his trademark interludes that vamped off old samples any hip hop fan would recognize. I enjoyed the first set so much that I, along with one friend, decided to stay for the second set without thinking twice.

Last photo taken by John Rogers (johnrogersnyc.com) – I wasn’t sitting close enough to get a shot like this.

It’s hard to pinpoint how my love for jazz began, but in a previous post I’ve attributed some of it to my affinity for hip hop and the samples that I’ve discovered along the way. It’s a complex genre, as my friend Victor says – listening to jazz takes work. Over the years, I found that my personal preferences lean towards ’60s Blue Note hard bop; all the artists and albums I love the most seem to come from that era. Most modern jazz doesn’t really do it for me, and yet I latched onto Glasper’s music almost instantaneously. To me  - and many others, I’m sure – he makes jazz accessible without watering it down. I feel like I could play his music for friends who have no interest in jazz and it would intrigue them.

I attribute some of this accessibility to his hip hop sensibilities: he’s not only backed Mos Def, but has toured with Bilal (a classmate and longtime friend of his) and has worked with Q-Tip, Slum Village, Jay-Z, Common and many more. He’s a true jazz pianist through and through, but you can catch smatterings of his love for hip hop in the songs he plays – from the drum beats to the quick nods to famous jazz samples that he’ll throw in. In fact, he’s so firmly entrenched in the worlds of both jazz and hip hop that his newest album, “Double Booked,” features songs from both his jazz band (The Robert Glasper Trio) and his neo-soul/hip hop band (The Robert Glasper Experiment). The album concept dictates that his two bands are booked on the same night, which is a little peek into the way his two loves are constantly pulling at him.

“Most people, if they have different bands, they do separate albums. But I felt I’d be making more of a statement if I put it all on one joint. This is what I’m dealing with. It’s not like I play jazz but I also play hip-hop now and then. I’m in it, for real, both sides of the spectrum. That’s my life. A lot of people go in stages; they might focus on trio for a long time, then they change or whatever. My thing is both, all the time.”

The night we went to see him, the Trio played a rousing interpretation of Herbie Hancock’s “I Have a Dream”  sped up to a Dilla-esque beat. I recognized the tune instantly, but their version gave an incredible classic new life. NPR and WBGO/88.3 had a live stream of the band’s set the night before which I tracked down, and upon listening to it I realized that they played it then as well. I’ve included it below for your enjoyment. The song I’m referring to is the third one, but the entire set is killer.

Jazz doesn’t have to be something that’s lofty and inaccessible, and Robert Glasper is changing perceptions of the musical genre with every show that he plays. That night, I saw young kids in the audience sitting next to 70 year olds in Christmas sweaters bobbing their heads to the infectious beats. I’m glad to have gotten the opportunity to see him live again.

Coffee Foundry Bolivian / Bagels on the Square everything bagel

If we were to ever leave NYC, I think the hand-rolled bagels would be high on the list of things I’d miss most. It’s all in the water.