mexico
-
only four days?
jazzatlan
el
convite - mexico city
jazzatlan
pablo/gabriel/agustin
hotel
jazzatlan
mexico
city
pablo/muna
el convite
agustin/zinco
agustin
el
convite
mexico
city
sound
check @ DIM
hotel
room d.f.
lucky
star
had some good gigs with maggie and stan (com voce). flew to baltimore
and played at an die music - nice turnout. ate a lot of pizza, hung
out with maggie, stan, chris maresh and kyle thompson. next day
drove to new york to play up in white plains, kyle using my gretsch
set. the set sounded great! first time on a gig with it. next day
55 bar for the early set. for some reason the 55 has no liquor license
these days so everyone would go next door to kettle of fish to drink
on the breaks. it was so much fun playing with chris and kyle. they
both sounded wonderful. Steven Barber was in town and Chris, Klye,
Adrian (kyle's wife) and I had a couple of beers at the Corner Bistro.
Steven came to the gig at the 55 and he was really gracious. What
a nice person. back to brooklyn and up at 5am to catch the 7am chinatown
bus to boston. how many more weeks of this? got some gigs this week
that will be fun: john fremgen with mitch watkins at the elephant
room, sao paulo's with joao, and trio with steve schwelling. there
is a memorial for doug hall on sunday. i can't believe he's gone.
then next week going to mexico to play with agustin bernal and gabriel
puentes. that will be a lot of fun.
fdr
drive
baltimore
stan, kyle, chris baltimore
chris, kyle white plains
white plains
brooklyn 5am
55 bar
Not
much
to report. Been sick, been traveling, been teaching. Not sure how
much longer Berklee will need my services. Been in New York about
a week, played with some friends and heard Peter Bernstein at Smoke
with Jimmy Cobb. Peter Bernstein! Wow, he's getting even better.
So happening. Going to Baltimore next week to play with Com Voce
and that will be fun. Going to Mexico 2 weeks after that to play
with Agustin Bernal and Gabriel Puentes and that will be fun as
well. But cannot wait for Berklee to end and the mass transit to
end as well. Can't wait. About 4-5 more weeks of this.
Listening to Kurt Rosenwinkel's new recording and it's amazing.
Listening to Jonathan Kriesberg's trio recording and it's great,
too. Brad Shepik, Dave Allen, Ben Monder, Steve Cardenas... so many
great guitarists. Also been checking out Holdsworth's jazz CD with
"How Deep is the Ocean" and I love that. Scofield, Grant
Green, Wes, Benson...jazz guitar is getting a bit crowded.
Flight is only about a half hour late tonight. It'll be good to
be home—finally. Got some work done in Brooklyn but not enough.
This flu won't seem to let go.
Played a nice concert at Berklee with Rick Peckham, Marcello Pellitierri,
Bruno Raberg and Jim Odgren. They all sounded wonderful and it was
really great to play with Rick Peckham again. It's been too long.
Somehow I get the feeling that that was the last concert I'll ever
do at Berklee.
snarly
you know, i feel like i'm back in my whining mode. things are actually
really great. i've got a job (for the time being), get to play from
time to time, got a wonderful wife, a car that runs, an amp and
guitar (maybe more than one of each) that function, I get to listen
to joe henderson, wes montgomery, sco, all these great players,
all the time, i get to play with donny mccaslin, eric halvorson,
don falzone, alexis cuadrado, people like that. as far as i know
my main health complaints are teeth that need fixing, a cold, GERD,
and somewhat high blood pressure (from all the coffee), nothing
major. i've got a gig today. this particular plane might be on time.
stuff like that. life is good. but, still, i feel like the people
who read this enjoy my rants so I'm going to include the next part
anyway, even though I should probably leave it out. but it was kind
of a tough commute.
yesterday it started
okay. not great but doable. i had made it through the first week
at berklee although i felt a cold coming on about 1pm on the second
marathon day of teaching. yep, definitely a cold. packed bag, made
it to logan by 5:30, plane's on time, boarding, my guitar stowed
up above, aisle seat, settled in then: ta da! "well, folks,
got some bad news for you. there is no good news this time."
uh, oh. ground stop delay at both logan and jfk. 2 hours later,
still at logan, the flight attendant leaning over me saying "sir,
do you want to get off in this plane and back into the godforsaken
shithole of a town called boston - we're not going to hold your
connecting flight in New York and you being on the plane reminds
us how bad we really are." why, thanks for asking, miss, but
i believe i'll just mosey, as they say in texas, on to new york
and sleep in a bed rather than in the airport, as idyllic as it
may be. by the way, can I get cab fare, a voucher, an apology, anything,
for what promises to be an odyssey into the first circle of the
inferno. "i don't believe so, sir. how about you just hunker
down in your seat and I'll try to hit you with the garbage bag every
time I walk by?" (insert big flight attendent fake smile here.)
well, okay, if that's all you have, I'll take it. in the end I put
up a huge stink and was vindicated with an $8 breakfast voucher.
take that, jetblue! I'll show you who's boss around here. touche!
got to jfk @ 10:15 pm about 2 1/2 hours late, 1 1/2 hours after
my flight, on time for once, had departed for austin. I took the
subway to brooklyn arriving 1am, slept until 4:30am, back on subway
arriving jfk 6:45am, back on plane to austin about 8am. this is
the life. that voucher got me a clif bar and a coffee. touche! now
in exit row trying to avoid human contact.
gig today with alex coke, duo, way down south, right after rush
hour so have to give myself 1.5 hours to get there. small rodent
still gnawing my insides not helped by daytime cold reliever that
causes anxiety, stomach distress, freezing cold feet, dry skin,
nausea but on the bright side - disorientation. I can almost hallucinate
that i'm back in galveston with my wife, walking on the beach in
the warm summer sunshine. Almost...there...almost....Nope, isn't
working. More cold pills might do it. Hey, I've got Vicodin in my
bag for the teeth thing!!!!! Naw, would never be able to play the
gig. This cold crap may possibly tiredness as well although averaging
4 hours a night for the last 4 nights might contribute. More like
really tired but still have the jitters. What about that for a nickname?
"Jitters." "El Groucho" is more appropriate.
"Snarly" Think I'll do some actual work at this point.
immutable
commute
oh yeah, back on the 7am flight to jfk. wheeeee. the holiday is
over - almost. going to ny to do a recording with don falzone, eric
halvorson and donny mccaslin and to do a gig at the 55 with com
voce. spent the christmas break traveling, doing some nice gigs
and going to the dentist. i'm getting so much gold in my mouth that
i'm worth more dead than alive. just like jimmy stewart in "it's
a wonderful life." guess i'm at the end of the movie now but
instead of running through bellows falls i'm running through the
airport screaming at the stores: "hello, austin java, hello
longhorns store, hello ABIA sponsored bookstore, hello pancho's
you old shithole you - how are the breakfast tacos today!"
the dentist sees me coming and just jumps for joy. you know it's
not good when in the middle of my second 5 hour session in the chair
the dentist and hygenist are whispering over me "oh, my, that
doesn't look good." i guess that back around the turn of the
century when i got my fillings dentistry just wasn't as evolved
and every tooth that has a filling, and there are a lot, need crowns.
gold crowns - which seem to cost more than a small car. root canals.
gum grafting. i'm going to need to do a lot more gigs. speaking
of gigs, had a wonderful gig last friday with eli haslanger at the
elephant room. john fremgen, angelo lambesis, eli, and the wonderful
drummer j.j. johnson. man, jj sounds really freaking good. also
had a really nice trio gig with steve schwelling at central market
and some fun trio and quartet gigs with joao vargas and kevin witt.
last night played with joao and kevin at the elephant and mitch
butler made it back from north carolina just in time to do the gig.
That was so much fun.
So, made it to brooklyn--eventually. Spencer had to take the freaking
Belt and there was of course a traffic jam on the long overpass
from the verrazano to the brooklyn bridges. I know you don't want
to bang up your car, Spenser, but come on! After an interminable
drive, finally there. Hour later rehearsing with Don (masta-don),
Donny (mega-don), and Eric (no nicknames for me and Eric).
eric at rehearsal
We
had a day off in which I graded online assignments and had dinner
with Bruce Hall and Dave Scott and Sarah (don't know her last name)
at a really good Mexican place in Sunset Park. Thursday and Friday
we recorded at Erics/Diego's studio in Sunset Park. You can see
how excited the Dons were on the playback.
megadon & mastadon
okay, no more stupid don names
On
Saturday I graded yet another batch of online assigments, bless
them - every one, and then went to hear Alexis Cuadrado at Smalls
with his band. Had a magic moment listening to Mitch sing "lately"
to a lady in a fur coat. Real fur. I didn't know women still wore
them. Mitch looking into her eyes and singing "I've had a neckful
of kisses" while wearing a funny hat, his violin slung over
his back, sitting at the bottom of the Smalls steps. Then they had
a nice duet on "The Way You Look Tonight" but Mitch had
to take the bridge. They sounded amazing - really beautiful. I'm
talking about Alexis and crew here, not the Mitch/fur lady duet
although I must admit Mitch sings pretty well! My plan was to go
hear Adam Rogers at the Jazz Gallery afterwards but I was just too
burnt and I F-trained it back to Brooklyn. Sunday I had a really
nice gig at the 55 bar with Maggie and Stan from Com Voce and with
Alexis and Rogerio (nice drummer). Alexis was nice enought to give
me a ride back to Brooklyn. Oh yeah. Now I'm on the Lucky Star halfway
to Boston, ready to dive back into teaching. Kind of like a beautiful
swan dive off the top of a tall building. Actually, considering
my Fung Wah-ness, more like a belly flop off a tall building into
the street. The Fung has increased it's prices to $20 for a trip
to Boston. Whoa! I woke up in Brooklyn at 5am feeling like a small
rodent, perhaps a marsupial, was slowly gnawing it's way out of
my stomach. That feeling hasn't changed much in the 7 or 8 hours
since then and I've got a long way to go before the day is over.
I start teaching tomorrow but a lot more assignments to grade and
miles to go. It's 20°F in both Brooklyn and Boston and I just
want to be in Texas. Now back in Boston and the first thing I see
on Mass. ave is a pool of frozen vomit. Why is there so much vomit
on the streets of Boston? It's cold as, well, as a frozen pool of
vomit. Yahoo tells me it's 25° and feels like 15. Students are
back. Gotta listen to a few hundred mp3s now.
brad and alexis at smalls
55 bar last night
alexis driving us down 7th ave manhattan back to brooklyn
uh, rain? sleet? nasty weather anyway
