We’ve been on the road for two days and it feels like a week. We’ve already done three gigs. For obvious reasons I haven’t had time to do any blogging.
Wednesday night we played at Dizzy’s in San Diego which is always a nice place to play. The vibe is great and we had a good turnout, thanks in part to the stunning voice of our guest vocalist, Coral Macfarland Thuet, who sat in on a few tunes, including Billy’s composition, Destiny.
One of the things that makes the tough aspects of the road bearable is the warm hospitality of people like Coral and Max. Coral made us an amazing, healthy and fresh Mexican meal when we arrived Wednesday afternoon, jetlagged and exhausted from the early morning flight. After a brief nap and shower we were ready to face our first audience.
Thursday we did a midday concert at Palomar College. They have a beautiful Falcone piano. Billy’s old friend Gunnar Biggs teaches there now. He brought a score of Billy’s from 20 years ago. There were no written notes, just instructions such as to play very intensely and, “don’t be afraid to die.”
Last night we played at Joseph’s, which is a venue that Jeff Gauthier booked for us last minute when the Club Tropical summarily cancelled his Cryptonight series. We had a great audience with a couple of noticeable exceptions. After the gig I announced that the price of the CD would vary depending on how well behaved that particular audience member had been during the performance. I gave several away to our good friends, and set the price at $25 for two rather loud and clueless blondes (nothing against blondes who are not loud and clueless).
The nice thing about the Joseph’s gig was that we had a decent crowd even though the venue was changed at the last minute. Jeff did a good job of getting the word out. It was almost a who’s who of LA jazz. Several writers were there: Kirk Silsbee, Greg Burk and Chris J. Williams; as well as the pianist Mike Melvoine and my old friend Zev Feldman who works for Concord Records now. It was also great to see Dottie Grossman whom faithful bloggers (all 2 of you again) may remember from last year’s tour.
Okay, now that I’m somewhat caught up, I’ve got to drive to Aliso Viejo now. We are getting a video of this performance and I will try to post it, as Richard Nixon would have said, “at some point in time.” Also time to think about getting the camera out.
And speaking of Nixon, you guys are
tanned, rested and ready!