Author: zingblog

A Journey to the East, Part II

We got off the train in Innsbruck. The train station was very nice, slick and modern yet still welcoming. It was a few blocks walk to the hotel. We’d all gotten new luggage with wheels, which made it pretty easy. The lobby was sleek, classy and warm, all decorated in stone and wood. The hotel was pretty big relatively, maybe the tallest building in the city. We were all the way up top on the 14th floor. There was a balcony at the end of the hall and it was worth a look. Innsbruck is surrounded on all sides by mountains.

Our fist stop was Schloss Ambras, a castle in the hills on the edge of town and former seat of power of the Tyrolean Hapsburgs, notably the Archduke Ferdinand II, Emperors Maximillian I and later Leopold I. The first thing we did when we arrived we get some lunch. Since we were in Austria, it was the first of many wienerschnitzel, served here with potatoes and beer. Very yummy.

The castle itself, like most castles in the area was rebuilt several times, with much of what you see constructed in the 19th century atop older layers going back to the 16th century and parts going back hundreds of years before that. Schloss Ambras is notable for its collection of art and artifacts. One wing was full of paintings mostly of nobles (and their dogs). There was a fully preserved and/or restored chapel with magnificent paintings and carvings on all available surfaces.

Another hall contained a huge collection of arms and armor, with over 50 full suits of armor for foot and mounted combat, and armor for horses as well as humans. Apparently Leopold had a giant in his service at one time, because one suit of armor was for a man eight and a half feet tall! He died died around age 30 from complications of his giantism.

Another gallery, called the hall of wonders, contained all kinds of crazy artworks and artifacts. Sculptures carved out of red coral were really trendy for a while. Also 500 year old taxidermically stuffed exotic creatures including sharks and crocodiles.

By the time we got back to the hotel we were in need of refreshment, so we hung around the bar enjoying schnapps and Austrian beer. A little later we went out for dinner, again walking around and exploring the old town. The pattern in all these European cities is the same; since they’re so much older than anything in the States, predating the invention of the automobile, the new city has grown up around the old town, and it’s surprisingly well integrated. The old towns are all very charming, clean neat and safe, with shops and restaurants for locals and tourists alike. Everyone speaks English and is super helpful. It’s almost like a real-life Epcot.

We had a restaurant in mind, but when we got there we discovered it was closed until September. By this time it was getting late, so we ended up at the local Hard Rock Cafe. I was able to get an Austrian-style burger, with bacon and a fried egg on top of everything else.

…

The next day we explored the Alps. I’d never been there before and had really underestimated the scale and grandeur. I’ve had several friends who’ve been there in the winter and told me that’s the time to go. Obviously Innsbruck is famous for it’s Alpine skiing, so it’s on my bucket list.

We started again by walking thru the old town, one end of which was just a block from our hotel, and getting breakfast as a sidewalk café, cappuccino and croissants. From there we walked to the edge of town (it’s a small town) and caught a ride up the funicular railway into the hills. Funiculars are a big thing in Europe; basically halfway between a train and an elevator, it’s a pretty evolved technology. From there we took a gondola up the mountain and a second gondola up to the summit.

The views were spectacular. The clouds came and went with several opportunities for clear, long distance viewing. Just breathtaking. The mountains are wild and rocky, and you could look down into valleys where sheep and goats and cattle graze, and giant golden eagles circle lazily overhead, with the occasional lone cabin, and beyond that dense forest and beyond that even more mountains until forever. You really felt as if dragons might live on to this day somewhere in there.

We hiked around until we had our fill, and took the gondolas and funicular back down into town. Then it was back to the train station and on to Salzburg.

A Journey to the East, Part I

After months of planning and preparing, we took off on a Thursday night from JFK airport for our big trip to Europe. We arrived in Zürich, Switzerland the following morning. The plan was to work our way east via rail thru Innsbruck, Salzburg, Vienna and Budapest. I should point out that Jeannie handled all the research on logistics and the reservations, and deserves special thanks, especially cuz almost everything came off without a hitch and turned out awesome.

The flight itself was comfortable and uneventful. The movie was about superheroes that had lots of explosions but made no sense to me cuz I didn’t see the other 20 or so movies involved in the setup. Something something time travel and a do-over for the apocalypse. Since I’m six and half feet tall and have accumulated tons of air miles over the years I decided to splurge and go business class, and so I was actually able to stretch out a bit and get some sleep. Plus they had some really fine whiskey. When I woke up we were just coming off the ocean over France. Looking out the window you could see how the land usage patterns were different than the States. Much less rectangular, with lots of little villages dotting irregular patches of farmland and forrest like constellations. Eventually the terrain became more and more mountainous and soon it was time to land.

It was a pretty quick cab ride from the airport to the hotel, and so we checked in. Amazing that four people and our luggage fit into a Prius wagon. The hotel was really nice; we had a two-room suite with one room for Jeannie and me and the other for the girls. It was a European style hotel with only four floors or so and a handful of rooms on each floor. We were all tired from the flight so we took a bit of a nap, and then got up and went out to explore the neighborhood. I was expecting a thoroughly modern city, but we were staying in the old part of town. So it was a mix of new and old, with a charming and laid-back vibe, with hills and streetcars, much closer in tone to San Francisco than New York City. We walked past the university, which was up on a hill some nice views. Within a few blocks we got to the historic district which was mainly closed to vehicles, and full of 500 year old buildings and little town squares with fountains. We stopped for lunch, which was quiche and cheesecakes and cappuccinos, in a little outdoor café. Very lovely.

Our destination was a few blocks more: the Kunsthaus Zürich, one of the city’s art museums. I’m a big fan of Albrecht Dürer, and they supposedly had a big collection of his work there. Unfortunately it turned out that most of it was lithographs and because the paper is old and sensitive to light, that stuff is not on public display and I would have had to call ahead to arrange a viewing. Ah well. There was lots of other cool stuff including Mondrian, Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, alot of Dutch Masters from the Renaissance, and alot of paintings of chalets and mountains and cows by Swiss artists. Some interesting sculptures too. Lizzy said it reminded her of the Albright-Knox gallery in Buffalo, and it was of the same scope and scale. All in all very cool.

It was raining when we were done so we took an uber back to the hotel. We were a bit jet-lagged out so we took another nap. When we went out again it was time to look for dinner. At first we were thinking of getting fondu. The hotel restaurant was listed in the city guide as a great fondu place, but unfortunately it was closed because, you know, August in Europe. So we walked around the city to see what we could find.

At first we went down to the river, just a few blocks away, and followed that out the mouth of the lake, where there was a park where we watched the sunset. Quite beautiful. After that we headed back into the old downtown, where there were quite a few restaurants and cafés. We did find a fondu place but they couldn’t seat us for almost and hour, so instead we went to an Italian place nearby. The food was really excellent, and not very different from the Italian food you get in the States. With a nice bottle of wine it was just the thing.

Of course we had to stop in a shop and load up on chocolate.

…

We only had one day in Switzerland. So even though we’re all about clocks and chocolates and cheese, and were especially passionate about neutrality, next day were up bright and early to catch the train to Innsbruck, Austria.

The plan was to take trains each leg of the trip, and I must say it worked out great. The train stations are all right downtown, a short walk or cab ride from the hotels and all the interesting stuff. And there’s not alot of waiting around and standing in line like there is in an airport. So, quick and easy.

The train system was Austria Railjet. The trains are fast too: they get up to 200 km/hr. And they’re very smooth and comfortable compared to Amtrack, Metro North or the Long Island Railroad. Don’t even mention the New York City Subway.

Switzerland, Austria and Hungary are each smaller than New York State in both area and population, so everything is pretty close together. The total distance from Zürich to Budapest is about 1000 kilometers, about the same as from New York to Detroit. This first leg was the longest leg of the trip, about three hours.

And it was a spectacularly scenic leg of the trip. We could have paid extra to be in the observation car, but it was pretty amazing as it was. I’ve never been to the Alps before and had no idea what to expect. I’d compare them the the Sierras in California and Nevada in terms of height and scale. But they must be very new as far as mountains go; erosion has not had time to do much work. The peaks are very jagged, like rows of crooked teeth, with cliff and ravines everywhere. Add to that the fact that this place has been settled by humans for thousands and thousands of years, so the land was not blank like the mountains back home. Instead there were little villages in the crevices and less steep hillsides, and the odd house or church or ruins of a castle in the most improbable spots. Overall the effect was surreal.

We passed thru Liechtenstein on the way. When we were planning the trip we’d considered having lunch there just to say we did it, but there were no train stations in Liechtenstein. There was one on either side of the border in Switzerland and Austria. So then the plan became to head down to the bar car and have a toast. But the country came and went so fast we didn’t even have time for that. Ah well.

Delirium

I just got back from a long, long trip to central Europe. It was an amazing time but it’s good to back home again. There’s alot to unpack, literally and figuratively, so it’ll take a few posts to get thru it all.

For now, rewinding a bit, the day before we left I saw Claypool Lennon Delirium at the Capital Theatre in Port Chester. The nucleus of the band is Les Claypool of Primus fame and Sean Lennon, son of John and Yoko, doing joyous psychedelic rock with a group rounded out by a keyboardist (synth, clav and mellotron) and an excellent drummer. Les and Sean split the lead vocals and the arrangements included lots of vocal harmonies and a good balance of melodies and jamming. They did mostly originals, but to give you an idea of their sound, the three covers they did were Astronomy Domine by Pink Floyd, In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson, and Tomorrow Never Knows by the Beatles, all of which they really made into their own.

I know Les Claypool best from his work with Primus, and of course the music for South Park, but I haven’t heard from him in a while. He’s a wildly creative bass player, and his style has evolved and matured alot to be less of a lead instrument taking up all the available space, and more fitting into to the groove in various ways, simultaneously anchoring and going beyond, but still sounding very much like him. Sean is a really good guitar player. He plays a Strat with a whammy bar and uses alot of tone and and phrasing bends in his solos, so I’d compare him to someone like David Gilmour. But he’s also capable of fast shredding riffs. He doesn’t use it like a metal guy though; he has in own thing going. In any event the two of them have great synergy and the whole show and the music was just fantastic.

Co-headlining with CLD was The Flaming Lips, who were not at the same level musically, although they opened with a rendition of Also Sprach Zarathustra, which was a promising start. The singer had an annoying habit of interrupting himself to demand the audience make more noise. Still they were fun and notable for their use of giant inflatable props, and they seemed to have something of a cult following.

Mind Your Language

We’re taking a trip to Europe later this summer for vacation. Last time I went to Europe was quite a few years back, when my cousin Tommy was studying for his PhD at Oxford. Jeannie and I visited him and went to London and around southern England, and to Paris via the Chunnel, which was pretty new at the time. Tons of fun.

This time we’re doing central Europe starting in Switzerland and working our way East thru Liechtenstein, Austria, and maybe Bavaria to Budapest, Hungary. There are several reasons for this itinerary. One is that Jeannie really likes mountains and has always wanted to see the Alps. Another is that it’s an interesting part of the world with lots of history. In particular the Szingers are from Hungary, and before that are of the ethnic enclave known as Transdanbian Schwabians, which means we came over from southern Germany and settled in Hungary sometime after the Battle of Vienna and before of Austro-Hungarian Empire, sometime in the 1700’s as far as we know. Apparently whole villages just packed up and travelled on rafts down the Danube. This is on my Dad’s side. On my Mum’s side — well Hungary has a long, rich and diverse culture, so there’s alot to trace back. Anyway, while Jeannie has been doing practical research on things like flights and hotels I’ve been taking a deep dive into the history of the region, to get a sense of context.

One really interesting part of it is the prehistory of the Magyars in the time the were an semi-nomadic Asiatic tribe of horsemen, and only migrated to (or invaded) Europe sometime around 1200 years ago (or 1600 if you count the Huns and Magyars as brother tribes, as the legends hold). All this stuff is really fascinating and try I’ll get to it in a future post, or perhaps make a concept album out of it. We won’t be going to Asia on this trip, but it’s important to help understand where the language is coming from.

For now the important thing is I’m trying to learn a bit of the languages we’ll encounter on our trip. I’m learning both German and Hungarian at the same time. I found an app called Duolingo which is very well designed and effective, based on daily practice of drilling lessons, much like learning a musical instrument and a repetoire of songs.

I feel like I have a pretty good aptitude for languages. I know at least twenty computer programming languages, I know a bunch of musical instruments and genres, and I’ve studied linguistics back in the day. As for human speech, I picked up a smattering of Spanish when I lived in California, and a bit of French before went there, but nothing approaching fluency. But of course it takes time and practice and repetition and most of all exposure. I’ve always admired people who speak multiple languages, but as an American, well we live in a huge country with mostly one language, and no regional media to speak of, so there’s not much everyday opportunity. Even at work all the foreign-born people speak their own language amongst themselves and don’t share very much. I learned “lak” means 100,000 in some parts of India.

I must say German is much easier to learn than Hungarian, at least at the level of using the training app. German mostly the same rules of grammar as English, and most of the words are single substitutions. Many of them are almost the same: Mann is man, Brot is bread, Wasser is water, and so on. Der Bär trinkt ein Bier. Just say it in English with a German accent and your halfway there. Only thing you gotta watch out for is there’s four different ways to say “The”.

Hungarian is completely different. As I mentioned before the Magyars came relatively recently to Europe, so it’s one of the few European languages that’s not part of the Indo-European language group. It’s related only to Finnish, Latvian and maybe some tribal languages deep in the steppes of Asia. Hence the reading up on the history. It’ helps that I’ve been listening to Hungarian all my life. Everyone in my family spoke it growing up and I still remember some words and phrases from when I was a kid. But even though I have an ear for sound I’m far from fluent.

Like I said, everything is really completely different. The grammar, the sentence structure, the pronunciation, the spelling and writing, the roots of all the words, the sound and rhythm, a few loan words from French and English aside, just everything. I’ve gotten far enough now to appreciate the logic of it, and to begin to be able to understand it on it’s own terms. But translating from English to Hungarian or vice versa is alot more work than German. You have turn the sentence inside-out, and often a single word in Hungarian translates to a whole phrase in English, and usually there’s more than one possible way to translate a word, phrase or whole sentence. Often there’s not a one-to-one mapping of a word. Shades of meanings and different ways of splitting up a field of related concepts.

All this has got me thinking about my own language on a whole ‘nother level. It reminds me of studying English in second grade or so, when the focus as on grammar, spelling and vocabulary. I’m also thinking alot about how concepts map to words and how language is such a powerful and flexible tool. And like I said, the way words and thoughts map from one language to another.

It’s also really interesting to see yourself get better at something in a short time. Sentences that were impenetrable to me a month ago then became something I could pick thru and understand, and then on to something I just recognize and know. This is the way I practice music too. There’s usually some very specific thing to learn like a song or a new pattern, and a larger background of deeper skill, understanding and proficiency.

So I’ve been studying two languages every day for a couple months now. So I’ve gotten past the barest beginning part and starting to get into the real depth. Turning the corner to building vocabulary. I’m sure I’ll be nowhere near fluent, cuz holding a real conversation is a whole ‘nuther level. But hopefully I’ll be able read and hear and understand a bit, and communicate when necessary. Maybe someday I’ll be able to read more of their poetry.

Rock Out

In other news my rock band G Force has broken up. Before you get too upset I can tell you that by the last few gigs it was becoming a real drag. The music wasn’t happening and the crowds weren’t digging it. The musicians in the group had pretty much decided our other singer was not really all that great, especially when it came to harmonies, and her habit of acting like she was in charge was not especially tolerable. The last thing she said to me, at the end of the last gig, was “I can’t stay and help break down the equipment cuz I have to get up and go the beach tomorrow”. When I called her out on this, she up and quit. Too bad. We didn’t always agree on things but it was an interesting dynamic and a fun ride.

The last gig was with my friend Steve on drums rather than our regular drummer, and this was a real shot in the arm. Vinny, Ken and I had already been discussing doing a reboot, essentially leaving to form a new group, but I wanted to wait until the rest of our July gigs were over. Now those gigs are cancelled and we’re deciding how to move ahead. Steve is into being our regular drummer so it looks like we have the core of a group. We’ll certainly do material that’s more fun and interesting to us, but at this point it’s pretty wide-open. I’d like to get another vocalist besides myself, so that probably means holding auditions once we’re ready, unless somebody knows someone at it comes together that way.

Weather Report

This has been the hottest July I can remember. It was super hot in Niagara Falls on the 4th, and I feel like it’s pretty much been 90 every day, except a couple that had torrential rain. The last two days have hit 100. Man that’s hot. We’ve had the air conditioning running day and night for three days straight.

We went to the beach this morning, which was a good way to beat the heat. Swimming in the ocean was refreshing; the water was probably 30 degrees colder than the air. We went to the beach a few weeks ago and the air was much cooler, probably 75 or 80, and the water felt about as cold in comparison.

I skipped mowing the lawn this weekend cuz if you’re not swimming it’s not very pleasant to be outside for more than a few minutes and probably not good good for you to be out an hour or more. Tomorrow is supposed to get back to normal.

By coincidence I’ve been reading alot lately about the trends in peak oil and climate change, and I’m wondering if there’s an over/under out there for how long it will before Miami and Brooklyn go the way of New Orleans a few years back.

On the upside we’re generating enough solar power to cover our excessive air conditioning usage. Since we got solar it’s got me thinking about electricity in a whole new way. We now have virtually unlimited free power, at least within the context of running a household, and if our power demands ever increase we can just slap a few more panels up on the roof. Meanwhile gas is sure to get up to 5 or 10 bucks a gallon eventually. So I’m thinking the next car I buy is going to be a plug-in hybrid, and hopefully every car after that. I don’t know if anyone makes a good PIH SUV but with luck I have a few years left in my current car so there’s time to find out.

Global Jukebox in the Classroom

Just before my trip we completed a a major round of work on The Global Jukebox. We’re adding an education portal; we now have a working prototype. You can see it at:

http://dev.theglobaljukebox.org

Just scroll down to the bottom of the landing page to find the entry point.

We’ve been partnering with a group called City Lore to create this section for use as a classroom tool in the New York City Public Schools. We created an experience where students can search for the musical roots by listening to the music of different cultures, then create and share a playlist of songs from cultures associated with people in their family tree. We demoed it the other day with City Lore for a group of teachers doing a day of professional development. It went quite well; they were keenly interest in the app and the Jukebox as a whole, and afterwards was an interesting and productive discussion. This was the culmination of a long period of planning and work, and it’s good that it paid off. must say also that it’s been a long while since I gave a demo and it’d lots of fun.

As part of the project we’ve added a visual designer to the team to skin the portal and reskin the site. Her name is Alona and she’s doing great work and I finally got to meet here F2F at the demo. The next phase of the project for me will be integrating her comps into the actual software, while Martin will be focused on backend integration. Hopefully we’ll be pretty much there in the next few weeks, to give us some time for testing and tweaks before the start of the school year.

July Gigs

July is gonna be a busy month for gigging out.

Haven Street, the jazz group is playing at:

Thursday July 18 – The Barn at Quaker Hill Country Club, Pawling

I must say the last few jazz gigs have been really good and they keep getting better. My new song Wolf Whisper is coming along, and Gary brought in a really cool new song last week. The venues and audiences have been really warm and receptive too.

Meanwhile the rock group G-Force has three gigs coming up:

Saturday July 13 – Barney McNabbs, Tucakahoe
Friday Jul 19 – Boulevard Bar, Queens
Saturday Jul 27 – Man Overboard, City Island

Barney Mcnabbs is a place we know and is fun to play. For this gig we’re having my friend Steve sit in on drums since our regular drummer can’t make it. For the gig in Queens we have Jay sitting in on bass since our regular bassist Ken can’t make it. Steve and Jay are both excellent musicians. For Man Overboard we’re back to our regular line up. We played that place a while back and they liked us even thought that gig we weren’t at our our best musically, with two sub players and a brand new drummer.

I’m hoping for some good gigs; it’ll give us all a positive energy boost. Our last few gigs have been spotty, with a couple rained out and a couple playing to mostly empty rooms, the aforementioned disaster, and a couple decent gigs including the last one at Victors, which is one of our favorite places to play and always has a good crowd.

Why aren’t we winning over crowds everywhere we go? That’s a good question. Having sub players slows down our ability to to work new songs into the set. Maybe our choice of material has something to do with it. It also hinders us in drilling down to focus and get the songs really tight. If you’re gonna do tunes everyone knows you really gotta kick ass at it. Ah well. Kenny and Vinny remain excellent and lift up the level of the whole thing.

In any event we’ve been working hard and it’s bound to come together at some point. So as I say I’m hoping for some magic and it just might happen one of these nights.

Jazz at the Lodge and Rockin’ in the Street

Once again there’s so much going on. I bought a new guitar recently and have been getting to know it. Working on recording a new song Sun of the Son; up to the bass part now. The annual origami convention is coming up and I been working on designing new models, and I diagrammed my Flying Fish. Been jamming a ton of new work on the Global Jukebox. I got a new radiator for my Mustang, and washed and waxed it too. Been planning a trip to Europe and learning two new languages, and while I’m at researching Hungarian linguistics, mythology and ancient history. And of course my my day job: just finished a major milestone, now back in bug fixing mode. And there’s been lots and lots of rain. So there’s lots of things to write about for this blog, if I could, uh, find the time.

For tonight the topic is music. The Haven Street Jazz gig last Saturday night at the Elks Lodge in Ossining went really well. It turns out there’s a pretty cool little scene there, a concert series called Jazz at the Lodge. The guy who runs it is named John Codman, and he’s an Elk and huge jazz fan. He’s put together a room in the back with tables like a little jazz club, and has local jazz groups like ours come in and play. Up front they have a bar and food. He’s promoting it and selling tickets and making it into a thing. All in all it’s very cool and groovy and he made us feel very welcome.

The gig itself went quite well. The set list was:

Bye-Ya (T. Monk)
Buzzy Blue (J. Szinger)
Un Gato Gordo (R. Paganello)
Fever Dream (J. Militscher)
Nana’s Song G. (Bruce)
Lift Off (J. Szinger)
Close the Distance (G. Bruce)
Oleo (S. Rollins)

D-Bop (G. Bruce)
Mobility (J. Szinger)
Samba Astor (G. Bruce)
West Coast Blues (W. Montgomery)
King’s Hex (J. Szinger)
A Minor Event (G. Bruce)
All the Things You Are (J. Kern)

A couple of the songs sped up a bit, and there were a few minor clams, but overall the band was really on and having fun, and the audience was digging it. In particular I played a really good solo on West Coast Blues. I also have been woodshedding Lift Off, which is a real mofo to play at tempo (I know, I wrote it), which paid off in the melody being good and tight.

My next gig is with the rock band G Force, at the St Teresa’s Street Fair in the Bronx, this Thursday. For this gig our regular bass player Ken couldn’t make it, so we had to get a sub. For our last gig we were also sans Ken, so Vinny our guitarist played bass, and we brought in his friend Eddie on guitar. Vinny is a good bassist but not at Ken’s level, and Eddy is good but didn’t really know the tunes. Between having two subs and Adrian still learning the set on the drums, it was not our best gig. Which was too bad too cuz it was a nice venue, a bar on City Island with an octopus motif. One of the drunks there really loved the saxophone.

After that I had to insist we can’t do gigs anymore with two subs, at least not until Adrian can hold it together if there’s someone else who doesn’t know what’s going on. So this time we got my friend Jay from the jazz group to sit in on bass. We did a rehearsal last night and went really well. I’d never really heard Jay on electric bass doing rock, but he’s just great. And he memorized 30 songs in a week and a half. We were all very impressed. So all systems go for the Fest.

Unfortunately it’s an outdoor gig and it looks like it may be rained out. Ah well, we have two gigs coming up after that on June 28 and 29. So stay tuned for more.

Nice Weather If You’re a Duck

Spring progresses, the dude abides. It’s been unusually cold and rainy the last few weeks. Haven’t had 24 hours without rain since sometime last month. It’s pouring down again right now. We had one nice day last weekend and I did manage to get some yardwork in and take the Mustang for a drive. I ordered a new battery for my lawnmower and a mini chainsaw on a stick to take care of some high branches from a neighbor’s tree that’s been been growing into our yard. I also marked out the territory to expand my patio. Yesterday the guy came to hook up the transfer box for a generator to our house electric. This was the last piece of the solar power project. Glad to have that done with so we can move on to other things.

Michelle’s had a birthday. Rather than doing a big sweet sixteen party like her sister, she opted for Jeannie and I taking her for an evening out with a few friends. It’s interesting to see her interacting with her school friends. I hadn’t met them before but they seem like very nice kids, smart and sharp and fun. Plotting their takeover of the robotics team next fall. Now she’s taking her AP exams and Lizzy is already done with school and home for the summer. My how the time flies.

We had a jazz gig last weekend at the Green Growler in Croton. It’s a fun and cozy venue and the people there are into this kind of music. We had a couple guests sit in for a few standards at the end of each set. Ben on trumpet and Lisa on flute, friends of the drummer and the guitarist. Musically the band keeps getting better. I have some video clips which I’ll post soon. Gina from the rock band came out to see us, which I appreciate. She and Jeannie were talking loudly the whole time right in front of the camcorder. Ah well, we have another jazz gig coming up in a few weeks. Nice that the group is gigging out.

We had a gig with the rock band a couple weeks ago too. This was our first gig with the new drummer Adrian, and the first gig with my new keyboard. Unfortunately, it was a large place and not alot of people turned out. Also we’ve been adding more dance tunes lately and I think this place was more of a rock crowd. Gonna hafta swing back in that direction for the next batch of new songs. And since the drummer was still learning the set we had problems with tempos and with dead time between songs. On the plus side the new keyboard has lots of great sounds and I’m learning my way around it. Ah well, no time for adding new material just yet. We’ve been drilling on the fundamentals so the next show should be stronger. Coming this Saturday at Victor’s in Hawthorne, which a place we know well. Should be a good time.