Rolldown July 2006

I've been busy here in Chicago for the past week plus. One group in particular that I've played with is the Jason Adasiewicz led Rolldown with Josh Berman, Jason Roebke & Frank Rosaly. last summer we recorded as a group at Electrical Studios, since then I think they've played a few dates, but it was good to be able to play together this week. The first date was at Elastic on thursday the 13th. The second was at the Hungry Brain three nights later. We only had a chance for one rehearsal and Jason brought some new tunes that were tricky & good. The music takes advantage of the instruments - with complicated parts in the vibes, harmonizations in the horns, and counterlines in the bass & drums. Jason's composition style is definitely in the jazz tradition, and he's open to free sections right alongside chord changes and everything in between. His pieces strongly influence the improvising sections. Both times we played the band felt very fluid playing together - the best thing about having the experience of playing with people for a couple of years is that you don't need a lot of rehearsal to get things together. At sunday at the Brain, the crowd was really a good size and were listening - we played a full hour set, but it didn't feel long at all. After us, a quartet of jamie branch, jason stein, jeb bishop and anton hatwich played - they're called block & tackle. Pieces by Branch, a trumpeter - repetitive lines, one piece in particular had some really subtle phasing going on which sounded real good. A good night in all at the Brain - I stayed late with Jason as the crowd trickled out slowly - we hung out with Dan and and Jeb Bishop right there at the end.

Back in Chicago, July 2006

Back in Chicago after a long hiatus, got into town on Friday the 7th to play with Dragons at Heaven over in Wicker Park. I had taken the bus down to St Louis to visit Jen & her folks, coming back the bus was a bit late - I got in town at about 10:15, but the show was supposed to start at 10. We were to play two sets, so Jason & Tim played as a duo for the first one. I got in just as they were finishing their last improvisation, after a short break we played our set to some of the Chicago people - as we played more folks showed up - it was a pretty good turnout. It is a different feeling, not living in Chicago and playing here - in a good way.
The next night I played at the Charleston with Josh Berman, Nate McBride and Frank Rosaly. Used to always have a good time when I would play tunes there, so wanted to do it again. A plus is that the Charleston is now a smoke-free bar, so you don't get bombarded by the typical Chicago smoke clouds. We played alot of tunes by Monk, some which I'd never played before. McBride is really on top of those charts, he's good friends with a certain someone who made a lot of transcriptions of Monk's music. That music is tough to pull off - we definitely had a good time playing, but it also re-enforced my respect for the music.
Next up was getting together with the 774th Street Quartet - myself on alto, Guillermo Gregorio on alto & clarinet, Keefe Jackson on tenor and bass clarinet, and Thomas Mejer from Switzerland on contrabass saxophone. Interesting how things work out - we got together as a quartet when Thomas was in town back in 2003 I think, part of the Lucerne / Chicago sister city exchange (which is mainly kept going by Lucerne's government). Last spring we recorded the music we brought to the group (each of us two pieces) as George Hansen resurrected his label Bloody Murder and wanted to put out a recording by us. Now a year later the CD is finished so on this occasion that I'm in town Thomas came from Lucerne and we played at Deadwax records up on Lincoln Ave on Sunday afternoon, Live on Air at WNUR in Evanston and on Tuesday night at Elastic. It was fun to play that music again - each of us our very different in our approach to writing music and improvising, and balancing the different personalities is good times.
The show at Elastic went well, a good turnout including some people that I knew that didn't normally come when I would play concerts back when I lived here. Again, a good thing about visiting. In some ways, it's difficult visiting here because there are so many friends and people I'd like to talk to and catch up with - I'd also like to see other people play, but I'll be pretty busy while I'm here - I'm hoping to catch up with everyone in good time. Good thing I'm not here for just a weekend.
The other thing that I did here in my first 5 days back was play at Myopic with Steve Hess and Toby Summerfield - they on drums & guitar respectively, me with saxophone & computer. It was good to play - I haven't done live electronics in more than a month now - I felt kind of rusty. Got it get it together for a couple of Grey Ghost shows this week and a solo set the next weekend. Playing with Steve & Toby was a good match though - they share a good sense of pace & timing.

A blur of a finish for the Dragons tour

Sorry, the last week or so of the Dragons tour went by quickly, quickly. After playing in Charlotte we played Greenville, Columbia, Nashville and Lexington before heading back up to Chicago. After the Carolina dates, our final three days had a good amount of driving added up which made us a little claustrophobic, but nothing too terrible. A blow-out in Kentucky on the way to a clinic at Morehead State put us about an hour behind schedule, but all was forgiven and we made it to everywhere we needed to make it to.
Playing in Columbia was a good time - two shows in two nights, one at the Whig and another at the Hunter-Gatherer.
Folks liked us enough to come to both shows, Ross Taylor took care of us in his special way, getting us food at the most opportune time and finding a hat for me after my hair started really fro-ing up in the humid southern regions...not that I have anything against a fro, I just don't know if it fits me that well...The Whig is an underground bar across from the State Capitol of South Carolina (and of course the Confederate flag which was recently re-moved from the Capitol dome, but is still prominently displayed on the Capitol grounds). The hunter-gatherer is on the other side of the Capitol, maybe two blocks away, we saw fireworks outside of the floor to ceiling windows at the front of the bar before we started playing.
A seven hour drive the next day got us to Deanna Varagona's place in Nashville, she took us by a cookout before the show which was at a gallery called the Ruby Green. She played the first set solo, with accompaniment by pre-recorded tapes. A large fan kept us cool that night while we were playing (relatively) but was no match for the Big Ass Fan at the new Mecca Dance space in Lexington where we played the next night. Wish I could give a link to the Big Ass Fan company, the thing was gi-normous, though still the heat of Kentucky in July took over....
We played two sets in Lexington to an appreciative crowd thanks to Ross Compton.
Finally got a relief from the heat on the way back to Chicago after a few rainstorms on the 4th of July. The tour ended up well and we're looking forward to the next one.

Dragons 1976 Charlotte 6-28-2006

Down to the south during June, not the hottest of months but the possibility is there for some true heat. Driving in the Benz with no AC....we had driven through rain for about 4 days and it finally stopped, so we were able to dry out the car that had built up some moisture. Got into Charlotte NC on wednesday the 28th - our friend Brent Bagwell set up a show at the Evening Muse, a nice venue in an up&coming neighborhood in Charlotte. Brent's a good guy - saxophonist playing tenor & baritone, we've done shows with him before down here and we played a bill together up in Chicago once - Dragons & his group Eastern Seaboard. For this night there were three groups - his Project Bluebird, a project witha bassist and a doubler on cello & violin. All improvised in a loose melodic style with each of the three building from what they heard each other do previously. We played the middle set & the crowd that came were good listeners, though the energy level wasn't really that high - maybe we could've done more...maybe not. Afterwards we hit a diner in Charlotte for late night snacks before heading out to Brent's place, which he's actually moving from in just a week. He's been living about 45 minutes outside of Charlotte on alarge piece of land with a turkey farm on it, a river nearby, lots of woods and fields with cows being the primaray population. We finished the night off with a glass of scotch and got a goo dnight sleep in the quiet north carlolina countryside.