I stepped off the plane last Tuesday, looking forward to a week in Berlin – to playing with my old friend drummer Andrea Marcelli, and going to my favorite ice cream parlor; and I got sick immediately. I think the air on the planes is worse than ever. I am sure I got sick on my American Airlines flight. I was fine at takeoff. Anyway, I got worse as the week progressed, and although I did get to play a nice session with Andrea, by the day of the gig I was in no condition to do anything but lie in bed. Last Friday I went to the doctor, and today the antibiotics are finally kicking in and I am a little more myself. So hopefully the next ten days of gigs in Ireland, Innsbruck and Koln will go smoothly. I will keep you posted.
Since there’s nothing very exciting to discuss this week (the color of my phlegm being my main focus recently), I’ll tell you about a nice gig I went to about a week ago. Mike Garson played at the Blue Note for the after hours show a couple of Saturdays ago. Jazz fans may know Mike as a great West coast jazz pianist with a remarkable virtuosity and scary harmonic inventiveness. (There’s a link on my site to a duo we did at his studio a couple of years ago.) Rock devotees will know him as the long-time pianist for David Bowie. It was a pleasure to hear Mike in a piano trio context playing with a great rhythm section – Ratzo Harris and Billy Mintz! Mike and Billy’s friendship goes back to their teenage years when they played Bar Mitzvahs together. Mike asked Billy to suggest a bassist and Billy asked me and the only logical person was Ratzo. Who else in New York could keep up with these monsters? It was a true pleasure to hear them playing mostly standards but in a decidely non-standard way.
During the first set, a colleague of Mike’s from Bowie’s touring band, Gail Ann Dorsey, sang a stunning version of Alfie with the band. Everything about her singing was spot on – pitch and tone of course, but most importantly phrasing. I have never heard a better jazz singer live. Her intuition was flawless. She had a perfect sense of when to be true to the melody, and when to play with it without ruining it. So many singers miss that delicate balance.
(I had arrived at the club early enough to hear a couple of songs from the club’s headliner earlier that evening. For me, Gail’s singing further highlighted the tragedy of the incompetent Steve Tyrell singing to a packed house of (mostly) brainwashed spectators. Here’s a guy who doesn’t even sound like a wedding band singer. He sounds like the amateur family friend who insists on sitting in with the wedding band. Compare that with the exquisite musicianship on stage that night after hours. Something is really dysfuntional in the music industry.)
During the second set, Mike invited me to sit in. He said it was the least he could do since he’d borrowed my rhythm section for his gig. After a rather uptempo If I Were a Bell (I’d just had a cup of coffee to keep me up through the late night show and what I knew would be a hang after), Mike joined me and we played some duo. It was really fun. Watching his thunderous chops, I almost forgot there was an audience out there. It was such a kick trying to keep up with him.
Afterwards the four of us grabbed a bite and by the time I got home it was 6AM. Felt like the old days.