tembelek lantong: tour diary

Wow, the summer is flying by! I've tried to squeeze activities that are more "summer vacation"-like around my musical activities. I will say that after four semesters of full time teaching, it's great to be back in New York and playing with a variety of heavy cats. I think I'm a bit rusty, but it's slowly coming back, just in time to start full time teaching in the fall! Oh well......

I've had a few nice one-offs in the month of June. First, I flew to Rochester, in upstate New York, to play the famous Rochester Jazz Festival. I was accompanying a wonderful vocalist from Denmark named Sinne Eeg. We met at an educational camp in Denmark in January of 2009, and she called me for a duo tour later that year. This time we had Josh Ginsburg on bass and the talented Jochen Ruckert on drums. A quick rehearsal, and then two sold out shows at a huge church near downtown. I regretted as usual that it was only one gig, since we gelled so nicely.

Next, I took the train down to Baltimore to play with a young clarinetist and bass clarinetist named Todd Marcus. We played in an interesting venue called Caton Castle. I had been hearing about it for years, but I never played there. It's a great place to play, and the atmosphere is that of a classic jazz bar and soul food restaurant. The only problem is that it's in a very rough section of West Baltimore.( For those of you who watch "The Wire", which I just got into recently, it's basically in that neighborhood.)Still, the crowd was a real listening crowd, and they were very enthusiastic. The rhythm section was the great Baltimore based Warren Wolf on drums (you might know him as a vibes player) and Eric Wheeler, a young virtuoso bassist from Washington D.C.

We played mostly Marcus' original music and arrangements. In fact, the gig was really preparation for a recording, scheduled for a few days later in New Jersey. We recorded at Skyline Studio, one of my favorite places to record. Paul Wickliff is on of the best engineers in the biz, and he keeps the Steinway piano in great condition. The fact that we had played through all of the music on a gig made the studio time very smooth, and I'm anxious to hear the project once it's mixed and mastered.

A few days later, I went into the studio again with the aforementioned Josh Ginsburg. This wonderful bassist and composer , another Baltimore native, asked me to be a part of his debut CD. Josh and I have worked a lot together, with my trio and in other projects. I was surprised at the depth of his composing: he really found some unique textures and melodic ideas. Accompanying us was the fabulous Rudy Royston on drums and Eli Degibri on tenor saxophone and soprano saxophone. The date was another one day-er in the studio. It's always a challenge to cram everything into a day, but such is the nature of jazz recording budgets. Again, I look forward to hearing it when it's ready for consumption.

That weekend, I packed my wife and son in a car and we drove from Manhattan to Saratoga Springs, a three hour and change trip. I was to play one set with Jack DeJohnette at the Saratoga Jazz Festival. I've played at this festival a handful of times over the years, and I love it because I get to hear a lot of groups for free. This time was no exception: I got to hear guitarist Lionel Loueke's trio, bassist Ben Allison's band, Eliane Elias' Band, and Marcus Strickland(surprisingly playing alto saxophone instead of his usual tenor), all for free! The set with Jack went well, as predicted. After our European tour, it was nice to play for an American audience. This is one of those festivals where people can actually camp out near the stage for a few days and see all the acts for one price. Not a bad way to spend the weekend. It was cool also because my 18 month old son got to see his first jazz festival!

Finally, I had another one-off in San Remo, Italy with the Donald Edwards Quartet. Donald Edwards, originally from Baton Rouge, is another musician that I've been associated with for many years in various configurations. This band featured the great Moscovite Boris Kozlov on acoustic and electric bass and Philly's own Jaleel Shaw on alto saxophone. We played as one of three groups; each group featured a drummer's band. (The other bands were led by Eric Harland and Jamire Williams.)This outing was more of a collective; each player contributed original tunes. Edwards is a skilled composer, and his music was very challenging. It was nice to be in sunny San Remo for a short time. Unfortunately, the biggest problem with this gig was my and Shaw's travel routing; it took almost 5 days to enable us to do one 90 minute concert! We had very lengthy layovers in London. Sometimes for me, these kind of trips make the concert seem like an afterthought, because most of the time is spent in transit. Well, such is the life of a touring musician. I might gripe about it now, but I'll miss it when I'm knee-deep in teaching next semester........

Jochen Ruckert snacking before soundcheck

Josh Ginsburg and bass du jour

beautiful church that we played in with Sinne Eeg

Jochen and drum kit

Stained glass

Todd Marcus explaining music to bassist Eric Wheeler

Caton Castle 1

Caton Castle 2

Todd and I stopped at Wendy's on the way back to New York. Ugh.....

My room in San Remo

Room in San Remo 2

San Remo 1

San Remo 2

San Remo 3

San Remo 4

San Remo 5

San Remo 6

So, after my three whirling weeks in Europe in May, it was nice to be home to see my family and do some laundry. However, there was still traveling to be done: this time, Birmingham, England was the destination. I was asked to teach and perform at the Birmingham Conservatoire with drumming phenom Jeff Ballard. I was thrilled and honored to be thought of in the same company as Ballard, who is known for his work with Chick Corea, Joshua Redman, and Brad Mehldau. We were scheduled to do a four -day stint at the beginning of June; and so, I packed my bag once again, headed to JFK, and boarded the Virgin Atlantic flight to London Heathrow Airport. At least this time, I would be mostly in one place, although I would have one extra day in London; the extra stay-over made the airfare a lot less.

The planning of this little excursion was actually two years in the making, thanks to the efforts of two English gentlemen: Jeremy Price, who is the head honcho of the Birmingham Conservatoire, and Tony Dudley-Evans, who is a promoter in the region, and also curates the great Cheltenham Jazz Festival. I knew Dudley-Evans from when I played in Birmingham for the first time with clarinetist Don Byron years ago. Dudley-Evans booked my quartet at Cheltenham in 2003, which was a blast. I met trombonist Jeremy Price at a week-long clinic in Denmark, where Ballard was also an instructor. Price and Dudley-Evans thought that Ballard and I would make a good teaching combination.

The theme of the week was "improvising interactively". The focus was somewhat on the rhythm sections; Price asked Ballard and I to talk about how to play while listening to others in the band. I thought this was a great idea, and this sort of theme always leads to other themes and tangents. So, with this in mind, it wasn't hard to come up with things to say. The first day in Birmingham, after a bus ride from Heathrow to Birmingham, checking in to my hotel and getting a long nap, I headed over to the school for a masterclass. I was alone on this one, due to Ballard's flight being delayed in Lisbon. (He was on a gig with Joe Lovano.) Right away, I was impressed by the attentiveness and humility of the students. And the overall musical level was pretty high. Clearly, most of these students already had a good feel for jazz, and could play well over basic tunes. I played with the students and answered questions; it was pretty smooth and it got us off to a positive start.

One thing that was interesting about the week was hearing so many different English accents; the students were from all over the U.K. At times, it was actually hard to decipher, but eventually, my ear adjusted. And I started to think my own accent sounded weird (I'm not sure if I have a distinguishable accent. Most people can't tell where I grew up, past the United States. I grew up in Columbia, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore, while my Mom and Dad were from East Orange, New Jersey and Brooklyn, New York, respectively. But I think if I lived in England, I would probably, much like Madonna, end up sounding British after a while.)

Jeff Ballard finally arrived the next morning, and so he ran the morning masterclass, while I merely played piano. After only playing one tune with Ballard, I lamented that over the years we had not played together much(we did play with Mark Turner once and then he subbed in my organ trio at the Cork Jazz Festival years earlier). Ballard is one of the most musical jazz drummers out there; he plays very organically, and has great control over dynamics and sound. He's always listening and reacting; it's a very pure approach. It can be unpredictable, but in a good way, because Ballard always has an open mind as to what can happen next in the music.

Ballard is a natural teacher as well. He has a lot to say and is very passionate about the music. He knows the history and also knows about world rhythms and different genres. He's also aware of the harmony and the melody. The students were very receptive to Ballard's comments and ideas.
Jeremy Price was trying to make sure that as many of the student as possible got the chance to play with Ballard and yours truly. I think it can be meaningful for students to get a memorable musical moment with very advanced players. Hopefully, it will be a sort of "A-HA!" moment in a player's development. I know I've had a lot of those moments over the years...

Ballard and I rotated listening and playing with the small ensembles later in the day (and more over the next few days). The plan was to narrow down the ensembles that would get to perform on the final concert. There were six ensembles, but only three spots. I actually thought that everyone should get to play, but that probably would have taken up too much time.(We ended up with four ensembles in the end.) Again, there were a lot of talented, hard working students, but we were able to narrow it down based on the ability of each group to play together in a mature, musical fashion.

One night, after some spicy Thai food and Thai beer(well, there was no spice in the beer), we headed over to an Irish bar called The Spotted Dog, in a neighborhood called Digbeth. There was a pretty intense jam session, which was organized by a saxophonist named Michael Fletcher and a jazz enthusiast (and actor) named Miriam Edwards. (Fletcher and Edwards are also involved with something called Rhubarb Radio; I ended up doing an interview for their show at the end of the week.)The bar was packed to the gills. Ballard and I played trio with a local bassist. The level of enthusiam was quite high, from the musicians sitting in as well as the listeners.

The final day of teaching, we selected which groups would perform. Some of the groups had their own originals, while others learned some arrangements that I had made up on the spot. It was shaping up to be a satisfying concert. Before the show, I went back to my hotel to change clothes; unfortunately, the mechanism on my hotel room door ceased to function! Hotel employees were forced to drill into the side of the wall in order for me to enter the room and get my concert attire. I cut it close, but I was able to shower, change, and still make the concert on time.

After the concert, there was another jam session at a little bar next to the hotel called The Yardbird, which was another fun hang; I sat in on drums and keyboard, and I jammed a bit on the melodica as well. I was impressed at the vibrant nature of the Birmingham scene. Some of the students remarked that Birmingham as a jazz city doesn't get the proper attention, since it is so close to London. I suppose it would be like comparing New York City to Baltimore, in terms of size and music scene. And much like New York, London is so expensive to live that it can prove daunting for young musicians to try and move there to seek their fortunes. Still, many of the young players in Birmingham were ambitious, and I hoped that they were inspired and gratified by the week's lectures and musical interactions.

I had two extra days in the U.K.; on Friday, Fletcher and Edwards showed me around Birmingham a bit, and we returned to the Spotted Dog for a quiet evening of getting hammered on beer and Irish whiskey. The next morning, I took a train to London, and a friend of mine, who I previously knew only from Facebook, offered to show me around Hyde Park. It was a leisurely end to my British excursion, and I anticipated a return visit in the hopefully near future.