First Post! 01/14/2012
Crazy week of music! Thursday, my great friend Wayne Salzmann came through Chicago with guitar god Eric Johnson. He texted me around noon: "EJ wants to know if you want to sit in on Mr PC and a another tune with a chart." Ummm, you can't say no to that. 4 hours later I was trudging through 6 inches of snow and taking the L down to the House of Blues to rock the Hammond B3. In between, I made lasagna for my family to eat this weekend and vacuumed the apartment with Nathaniel (my 4 year old). Nathaniel can be SO cool about helping with household stuff...sometimes. : ) All the parents out there know. He got the dustbuster, and got all the corners as we went around the apartment. When we were done, he dropped the dustbuster on the floor and walked away. Me: "Hey dude, that's not where this gets put away." N: "I don't know where it goes." Me: "Sure you do, you got it out...in the pantry." N: "I can't put it back on the thing." Me: "I'll help you...come pick it up and bring it over there with me. Let's put our stuff away now. This is the last thing we have to do." And you know, he picked it up and brought it with me to the pantry, and sure enough he couldn't fit it on the wall charger (it's tricky). He'll get it...with some deep breaths. Just like I got us to put away our stuff together...deep breaths. Nathaniel and I went outside a few times that day in the snow. He was born in Austin, so he hasn't seen more than a dusting of snow until now. When it was really coming down and everything was covered in 4-6 inches, he said, "Daddy, it's Christmas!" : ) We made a snowman and named him Frosty. Friday morning, Nathaniel wanted to go outside and check on him. N: "Frosty! You're alive! I knew you would make it. I love you, Frosty." We tried to put olive eyes, carrot nose, and an apple slice mouth, but Frosty had turned to ice and the overnight snow was too dry. Lesson learned: put your snowman accessories on when the snow is wet and fluffy. Playing with Eric Johnson was fun...reading a chart was risky, but I pulled it off. The crowd was awesome. I remember this life...rocking out with hundreds of people having a great time in the audience. Kudu, Bomb Squad, Samadhi...in my mind, I can go back to Wally's funk nights with Charles Haynes, Adam Deitch, Sam Kinninger, and all the monstrous cats who mentored me in the ways of groove. I went to my own personal mountaintop in that life -- opened for the Black Eyed Peas with Kudu for thousands of people with fancy lighting, etc., played with the Bomb Squad at the Montreal Jazz Fest mainstage Saturday night, a sea of people, and the roar of the crowd actually created a wind that I could feel onstage. It is an incredible rush. But with that life also comes endless travel, hours of hurry-up-and-wait-around, and the financial anxiety of irregular paychecks. For those and other reasons (e.g., being home with my family, staying out of unhealthy lifestyles, etc.) I chose the path I'm on. New England Conservatory called it "Artist-Teacher-Scholar," which is an impossibly ambitious reality to maintain. For me, it's about balancing -- really it is juggling, which is tricky. Sometimes balls get dropped. But this is my life...husband, father, performer, university professor, dissertation researcher, faculty director, making recordings, composing/arranging, etc., etc. Thank God for my wife Eleanor Gray, who hangs in there with me through it all, and sustains our family and household when I'm not home. Today I'm in New York to play with Mika Yoshida, Eddie Gomez, Marcus Gilmore, and my Dad at a club called Drom. We're playing jazzy arrangements of Bach, an original composition of mine, Berstein, Monk...it's a mash-up...it won't be perfect...I will experience some anxiety...but it will be pretty darn good...there will be honest communication...and I will do it with enthusiasm, love, and the intention of offering something of value. |