Shelton Healy Nelson 3-6-2008

Played at 1510 8th Street in West Oakland this night, with Trevor Healy and Zac Nelson, a drummer from Sacramento who we met just a few months ago - Trevor & I went up there, met him and his friend Carson McWhirter at a studio up there across from a Safeway with a silver horse statue and recorded improvisations for 3 hours. Good stuff came of it. Zac's drumming style is aggresive, rhythmically solid and different from other drummers I play with - good times. Tonight as a trio we played three different roles, Trevor creating complex layers, Zac being the rhythmic base and me playing fast and loud on top - it felt good - I had gotten into a frustrated mood before leaving my place - a result of being cooped up at the job during the week after a nice few weeks without doing the 9-5 - but playing always helps. We had Jeremy of Sophisticuffs join us on our third improvisation - he played baritone saxophone and it was a welcome addition.

George Chen and Steve Santa Maria (Chen Santa Maria) played the 2nd set - drum machines, George on guitar through a few effects - sounded good in the space - thanks to them for playing!

Dragons 1976 Krakow 2-25-2008

Our last date of the tour was at Alchemia in Krakow. We left Wroclaw pretty early and drove south in Poland towards the foot hill country. On the way to Krakow we stopped in a small town that had a historical park - a 17th century polish farming village was preserved there. We met Marek there, the man who books the jazz at Alchemia and other places in Krakow. We had a great lunch ther e- I had zupa di pomodora and trout with almonds. Trout two times in a week - I'm hooked. We walked around the village and enjoyed the weather - it may have been in the high 50s and it was very sunny and the afternoon sunlight made everything that much better. We drove the last 20 kilometers to Krakow, I fell asleep just as we entered the city and then Ajemian woke me up to point out some of the very old buildings that line the river. Alchemia is a great cafe on the ground floor with the venue down in the basement - it seats alot of people and is definitely designed for listening - the building is very old and its reputed that the owners bought it for $100 when the neighborhood (the old jewish quarter) was not the place to be.
I took a walk around the area and returned around 6 o'clock to do a rehearsal - the two trios combined that night on two songs, India, and my song Atlantic. I wrote a complimentary bassline and created a harmony for the melody and we learned the form. This was the rare night where we didn't have dinner before the gig. One of the best things about the Polish crowd is that they show up when the concert is listed to start - well the only place where it didn't happen was in Warsaw. The concert started at 8:30 i think, Dragons played first - a god set, alot of energy for the crowd which was our largest of the tour. The light also played a set full of energy, and when I joined them on stage for Straight Up and Down it felt very good. We saved the double trio for the third set - the two songs probably ended up being about a half hour long total. This concert was recorded too - it'll probably be the best playing documented. We stayed at Alchemia the rest of the night and stayed at an apartment close by. I talked to the fellows of the Light about the possibility of doing more playing together in the future - maybe this fall.. I've got to work on my Polish!
I woke up pretty early the next morning to give my self some time to walk around this old city. My flight left at 14:00 and after a transfer in Munich we followed the sun all the way back to the west coast. It was cool to see the sun almost set while we were very far north and then rerise as we started heading south. A great trip - hopefully we'll be back soon.

Dragons 1976 Wroclaw 2-24-2008

We lobbied for some extra sleeping time so left Poznan a little later than expected, probably close to noon. We got in to Wroclaw without very much daylight left, we dropped off our instruments at Firlej, the club we were playing that night and then went to the Old town square of Wroclaw. It was similar to the square in Poznan, but the scale was larger - the building a little taller, the church more massive. I learned alter that night that Wroclaw was in Germany before and during WWII and most of it's buildings were not destroyed during the war. Especially one very large synagogue that we would see later in the night. We ate dinner at a nice restaurant that was modeled on the food and culture of Lwow, a city now in the Ukraine, but at one point in Poland, the borders being changed after wars obviously displacing people families and cities. Not something we think about much in the states. Firlej is a solid venue - a good size room with a large stage, though shorter ceilings. Our set started out a bit rough and it took us a good few songs before I felt comfortable with our playing. We recorded this concert as well - looking forward to hearing these recordings. I played two songs with the Light trio this night - In addition to playing Straight Up and Down we played India by John Coltrane. Every night we played with the Light we could hear them adding more energy to their playing - I would like to think that we influenced them in some ways. Once we were done we went to a bar that looked very old, and had a very catacomb like basement. By the time we made it back to the bed & breakfast we stayed at the caretaker had fallen asleep - we rang the bell many times but nothing. Ajemian had left the door to a balcony connected to his room open and we managed to push him up high enough to climb onto the second floor landing - the next morning the woman thanked us for not calling her boss! We didn't have that number to cal, so big thanks to squirrel.....

Dragons 1976 Poznan 2-23-2008

From Torun to Poznan, another short trip on two lane roads with lots of passing on the sides...got into Poznan early in the afternoon, had plenty of time to check into our rooms and walk around the old town square which was only a block away from the rooms. A beautiful day, it was probably fifty degrees - sunshine, a light breeze. We played that night at Estrada, a very nice jazz club in the format of a black box theatre. This night we also recorded the concert - they have a good assortment of microphones there and the acoustics of the space are on the dry side, good for live recording. We played the first set and played well - Ajemian played a particularly long solo in which he really got into a bass rubbing thing. But, during his solo the photographers phone rang - why is it always during the most quiet moments?

Audrey Chen was in town the same day as us and she played a concert not a block away at a cafe / club called Dragon. Small world. We tried to go after our set, but were not allowed in by the doorman, though she had told him to let us in during the set. Not sure where the miscommunication was, but it was there. After the concerts we all went to Lawrence's place where he had prepared for us a very delicious dinner featuring baked trout. We stayed there late into the night drinking big Heinekens and listening to his music collection.

Dragons 1976 Torun 2-22-08

The drive from Warsaw was about 3 or 4 hours. A two lane road most of the way, the style in Poland is to do a lot of passing of other cars - slower ones tend to even hug the shoulder to make it easier for others - especially drivers that still drive the older eastern european stock cars that are very small. When we arrived in Torun, we immediately went to the hotel and had some time to relax. A few hours later we went to where we played in the Old City - very old - and surrounded by the old castle walls as well. It was all very clean and by asking some people I learned that Torun is a university town - the source for its scrubbed appearance. The venue for the night was called - - and was originally served as a home to the duke form that area. A beautiful building - with nice high ceilings and ornate wall paper and chandeliers. ONe pretty amazing painting of a fellow killing a multi-headed creature with heads of snakes and body of a dog - I believe it was cerberus. The special part was the position in which he was holding one head and preparing to cut it off....the room we played in was a nice size, the height of the ceiling and amount of wood on the walls created a long echo, but one with a pleasing effect, as opposed to the sound made in concrete rooms. I think we played our best concert of the tour this night, in terms of music. The sound of the space allowed us to take our time with the music - I played a bit more sparsely to give more room to the echo, and Ajemian had a great shotgun solo - shotgun for the sound he was making by striking his strings and it bouncing off the walls. We played first, a long set with encore. the Light Trio played second, and I sat in with them for one song - Straight Up and Down, by Dolphy. While waiting to return to the stage after my set I laid down on the floor in a large room that acted as our green room - the sound of the building so good that I could clearly hear every note they played.