It's 1:00am I'm sitting in the vocal booth at Brooklyn Recording in NYC, after three long and deeply rewarding days of recording with my band and our friend and recording engineer Josiah Gluck. We recorded 13 tunes in three days. It's hard to say whether they'll all make it to my new record, but I'd be hard-pressed to choose which one(s) to lose at this moment. The boys in the band (Drummer Keith Hall, Pianist Matthew Fries, Bassist Cliff Schmitt and Trumpeter/Arranger/co-Producer John Sneider) played with fire and subtlety, and without fear, and the songs all came ... Read more »
The ski season is over and I’m ready to re-enter the real world. Between trips up and down the snowy mountains I’ve been writing songs and coming up with ideas for great tunes to cover, and I’m preparing to head into the studio with my band at the end April. My new album will likely be recorded, mixed and mastered by the end of May and ready for the the shops by September (are there any record shops left out there?). I’m not ready to tell you exactly what will be on the album, but for those ... Read more »
I had quite a year on the road in 2008. My band (Matt Fries, Keith Hall, Cliff Schmitt and John Sneider) and I performed at Hampton Court Palace (Henry the VIII's summer palace) with British jazz royalty: Dame Cleo Laine and Sir John Dankworth. We did two concert hall and festival tours of Germany. We also played in Paris, Vienna, Norway, Denmark and Northern Ireland. We returned to three legendary jazz clubs: London's Ronnie Scott's, The Copenhagen Jazz House, and The Blue Note in New York City. In the US we played Annapolis, Boston, Boise, Hartford, Vail, Denver and several dates ... Read more »
I’m sitting in Sea-Tac airport on a five hour layover on my way to Copenhagen, so I thought I’d get caught up with y’all… …it’s been an interesting winter so far. I’ve spent a fair bit of time at home with my family, doing some skiing and relaxing. The trio and I did spend a week performing in London at the “new improved” Pizza on the Park. It seemed a lot like the old one, but we had some lovely audiences and it was interesting spending some time in Knightsbridge, rather than Soho (where the other jazz club ... Read more »
OK, I'm finally going to start this thing up... I've been meaning to do it for ages but the rigors of being on the road, managing a career and being a dad has kept me busy. Excuses excuses... So begins Notes From The Road... Well... I'm in Denmark. With my band. The band: pianist Matthew Fries, drummer Keith Hall and bassist Phil Palombi. We've been playing together for a long time, a few years at least, and Denmark rates up there pretty high in our esteem and admiration. We had a terrific show at Musikhuset in Arhus on Saturday (Nov 12). We ... Read more »