But before that starts, let me update you on the end of the summer season:
On August 22nd, I returned from Dublin, Ireland, where I took part in a lovely concert at the National Concert Hall with actor/singer Mark McGann, British jazz singer Claire Martin, Conductor-extraordinaire John Wilson and The RTE Concert Orchestra. The show was a reprise of the John Lennon Songbook concert we did last summer in Liverpool with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. It’s really a lovely show-amazing songs of course, very emotional and powerful text. I hope we have a chance to do it again.

When I returned I began three quiet weeks at home with my family. We attended the Western Idaho Fair, which is just as you’d imagine it: Rollercoasters, tasty greasy food, cold draft beer, carnival rides and games, farm animals (my daughter milked a cow), and cotton candy, too. Good fun with a little nausea thrown in for good measure. I’ve been going to this fair since I was a kid (with a 16 year hiatus while I lived in New York City) and it’s still the same. Great people watching. Then we spent a few days sitting on a dock and swimming at Payette Lake in McCall Idaho, where we were visiting our friends who have a lakefront cabin. Very relaxing. Got a good tan and even waterskied a little.

Soon after that we visited LaJolla, California to celebrate my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday. Happy birthday, Virginia! Hung out at the beach and played some tennis. More tanning opportunities. Very relaxing. Then we were back to Boise for the beginning of the school year. Back to getting up 7am for all of us. Ouch.
I’m writing this on a plane as I fly home from Los Angeles, where I flew to attend the Emmy Awards. As previously mentioned, “This Life,” a song that I co-wrote and sang for the opening credits of a the FX Network’s hit TV show “Sons Of Anarchy” was nominated for an Emmy, and I figured I ought to show up, just for the absurd showbiz spectacle of it, you know? I was invited to ride to the event with my new friend Seth McFarlane, the creator/producer/actor of the show “The Family Guy” in his stretch limo. Seth’s a good man and funny as hell so it was a good time. When we arrived at the show, I stood back on the red carpet while Seth posed for the paparazzi and did interviews with all the tabloid entertainment shows. It was actually very nice to be an observant outsider in that world, some years after having been in the middle of that crazy scene. It always felt strange and foreign to me to be in that circus and it was educational and amusing to see it from another, rather anonymous, angle. During the awards at The Nokia Theater, I sat with my co-writers, Bob Thiele, Jr. and Dave Kushner and watched Carol Burnett, Katy Segal, Ted Danson and even my pal Seth give out the awards. When it came to our moment, as I always predicted it would happen, the legendary and brilliant composer and conductor John Williams kicked our butts and sent us packing. I figure it’s a win-win. I’m now and forever an Emmy Nominated songwriter and I can always say, “I remember when I lost that Emmy Award to John Williams…” Pretty good feather in my cap. Sadly, Mr. Williams was not in attendance, so I didn’t get to meet him or to challenge him to arm-wrestle me. I could could have whipped his ass in that category, I’m convinced.

Now we’re beginning our descent into the Boise airport. See you on the ground, and out on the road…

Ping Pong in Jena

I’m on a tour bus hurtling down the German Autobahn, headed from Wiesbaden to Fredrichshafen to play another show with my band. We’re on a short tour of outdoor festivals here and then we fly to Heathrow to do one show at the Snapes Maltings concert hall in Aldeburgh, a small village on the east coast of England. The Aldeburgh festival is primarily a classical music festival, but they’re slumming it with a Curtis Stigers concert this weekend. It’s a lovely place, a lovely hall. We played a classical festival last night in Wiesbaden, too: The Rheingau Musik Festival. It was a good show. The audience was more polite and careful than we’re used to, but we warmed them up. By the end of the show they were really into it. The night before we were in Jena, a town of 200,000 that was in the East before the wall came down. Great show, nearly 2000 people in the audience. We played a little ping pong backstage. The band and I were invited to an aftershow party with the Bergermeister (mayor) and some of the local business bigwigs. Carl Zeiss, the famous optics pioneer was from Jena and that’s a big business there. Talked politics with the mayor and the head of Jenoptics and drank too much wine. Good fun. We also had a return show in a little Circus-style tent venue in Kassel Germany called Kulturzelt. Once again they treated us to copious amounts of Pils (beer) and German sausages as we sat outside in the garden after the show. It beats working for a living…

Last week I was in London for the BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall. I sang several classic numbers (Stepping Out With My Baby, Heather On The Hill, Our Love Is Here To Stay, Well Did You Evah? Etc…) from MGM musicals with The John Wilson Orchestra. It was amazing. Televised live and on radio, with several other singers including Baritone Sir Thomas Allen, and Seth MacFarlane, the creator and star of The Family Guy. It was an all-star orchestra, hand-picked by John Wilson, who has painstakingly re-constructed all the long-lost orchestral scores by transcribing them note for note from recordings. Even the rehearsals were inspiring. The violinists in the back row were section leaders in their own orchestras. Virtuostic playing. We had a lot of laughs (not only is Seth a very funny guy, but Sir Tom matched us joke for joke). You can see some of the RAH performances on You Tube. My family joined me for the whole lovely week in London. What a great way to make a living this is…

I’m home next week and then to Dublin for an August 21st performance of The John Lennon Songbook with John Wilson and the RTE Concert Orchestra, along with British jazz singer Clare Martin and actor/singer Mark McGann. We did the same show with the Liverpool Philharmonic last summer, and I loved it. Happy summer…

Sausages & Pils in Kassel

Copenhagen Skyline

Sitting in my hotel room in wonderful wonderful Copenhagen recuperating after three great nights at the Copenhagen Jazz House with my band. Over the three nights we played/previewed all the songs from my upcoming new release, which will be titled (you heard it here first!) “Lost In Dreams,” and it felt great to go out on a limb and play a bunch of new material. The audiences responded very enthusiastically to it all, which is a relief and very exciting. We’re here in Copenhagen for the jazz festival, which I can highly recommend if you ever get the chance to attend. The whole city becomes a big jazz concert for ten days. There are stages everywhere and nearly all the restaurants, bars and coffee houses feature live jazz at some point during the day or night. It’s amazing. Copenhagen is a jazz town, a music town. I’ve seen some friends while I’ve been here.  The great Danish bassist (and dear old friend of mine) Christian Mihn Doky and his lovely and charming wife Tanja caught a show and hung around for a drink or two, as did my friend from Idaho, Luke Studebaker, who’s visiting Copenhagen from Yale University, where he’s studying architecture. The band and I had a big thrill on the last night of the run when our friend and hero, the legendary jazz drummer Ed Thigpen walked into the green room before the show. We’ve known Ed for a few years now (he once even made us lunch at his apartment; I washed his dishes!) and he often comes out to hear what we’re up to. It’s a little daunting to have his presence in the audience, but ultimately very inspiring and flattering. We’re lucky to have become such good friends with one of the greatest drummers in the history of jazz. He’s just a lovely human being. We’ve got a couple days off here in Copenhagen and then we fly to London for four nights at Ronnie Scott’s in London July 15-18. Summertime and the livin’ is easy…

Backstage in Copenhagen with jazz legend Ed Thigpen

Here’s what I can tell you…
I’ll be back on the road performing soon. My first step back on the road is a small but important one: I’ll be doing an intimate acoustic show in Boise, Idaho, my hometown. The concert will take place on Saturday May 9th at the Fulton Street Theater in Boise, and all proceeds will benefit Boise Contemporary Theater, a great organization that’s feeling the pinch of these economic times, and therefore needs a hand. I’m happy and proud to lend that hand, along with local comedy/theater heroes The Fool Squad, and my friends Bill Coffey, Ned Evett and Steve Fulton (and more?). It’s going to be quite a party.

Click here to find out more and to buy tickets online.

After that I’ll fly across the Atlantic to London to sit in with my friend and hero, the Basher, the Impossible Bird, the Jesus of Cool himself, Mr. Nick Lowe, at his May 18 concert at Royal Albert Hall! I’m as thrilled as a little boy on Christmas morning about this one.

The next day I’ll put my guitar and sax in a hired car and drive south to Burgess Hill, a small village north of Brighton, England, to do a one-night-only solo acoustic concert. I’ll be playing many of my old songs that I don’t get a chance to play with my jazz group, and some songs that will be new to you. I’ve recently discovered that my friend Ned Evett will coincidentally be in England at the time and will join me, which of course makes it a decidely NON-SOLO show, but who’s counting?. Ned is an internationally acclaimed fretless guitarist who happens to also be from Boise, and he will wow you, mesmerise you, and the height of his hair will astound you. It’s the 8th Wonder of the World, Ned’s hair.

I’ve got a show in New Jersey in early June, a two week stand at the Algonquin in New York City (June 9-20); I’ll be at the Toronto Jazz Festival on July 4th and then back to the UK and Europe in July and August. The autumn will bring full and proper tours of the UK and Germany, to promote and celebrate a new album release. Busy year ahead!

I’ll see you soon! Check out some of the new features on my website as well all my tourdates!

thanks, as always, for your continuing support!
Curtis

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 in North Carolina.

I did some shows without my band as well.  I sang in Dublin with the RTE Concert Orchestra.  I performed in a concert of John Lennon songs with The Liverpool Philharmonic and jazz singer Claire Martin and actor/singer Mark McGann.  I appeared in Berlin in an open-air orchestral concert with trumpet star Til Bronner, The New York Voices and superstar baritone, Thomas Quastoff.  I sang a song at an all-star 75th birthday concert for Quincy Jones at the Montreux Jazz Festival, rubbing elbows with Chaka Khan, Al Jarreau, James Moody, Mick Hucknall, Nana Mouskouri, Herbie Hancock, Petula Clark, Billy Cobham, Lee Ritenour, Joe Sample, Toots Thielemans, and more.

At home in Idaho I did my best to be a good citizen.  I played at a fundraiser for a great environmental group called the Idaho Conservation League, with my good friends and collaborators, Bill Coffey and Ned Evett.  I produced and performed a solo acoustic concert to benefit The Ada County Democrats and raised over $20,000 to fund their Get Out The Vote initiative.  We even managed to send an Idaho Democrat to Congress, for the first time in decades.  And, for the third year in a row, I co-produced The Xtreme Holiday Xtravaganza, a rollicking, anything-goes holiday variety show with an all-star cast of Idaho’s finest musicians, comedians and dancers, all to raise funds for Interfaith Sanctuary, a Boise shelter for the homeless.  We raised nearly $20,000 and boosted awareness and volunteer support for the shelter.

Then I slept.  And slept.

When I awoke I got back to work on my next record.  I’ve been writing songs, working on arrangements and planning the recording.  I expect the new album will be out by early Autumn.  (OK, I’ve been doing a lot of skiing, too.)

…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 is…). I think we prefer Soho! The food’s cheaper and it’s little less posh. We’re not posh… Nice hotel, though. The Millennium in Sloane Street. Give it a try.

Then we spent a few nights at the Blue Note in Milan. It’s a really gorgeous, big club. Great food, surprisingly responsive audiences. Because of the language barrier, I expected them to go more for the swingers and up-tempo numbers. Instead they went for the ballads, the more romantic the better. It was a gas… a very nice return to Italy after being away for over a decade.

Then home for Christmas and New Years. Did a lot of skiing and went to a lot of holiday parties. I’m still hung over…

On January 13 we played a set in NYC at the International Association of Jazz Educators’ annual conference. It’s basically THE yearly jazz music biz convention in the world. It’s always a lot of fun. We all saw some old friends, made some new ones, and heard a lot of music, nearly all of it good. And we had a nice show of our own. The fine jazz singer and all-around good felluh (and saxophonist!) Kevin Mahogany introduced us, which was a nice surprise and honor. Thanks Kevin. He’ll be out on the road soon with Red Holloway, and he’ll be playing sax again, after years of leaving it at home. While in New York we headed up to Albany for a concert at WAMC, who will broadcast the concert soon. Check out their website for details: http://www.wamc.org…

Now, Keith Hall (drums) is touring Eastern Europe and Russia (keithhallmusic.com), and Matthew Fries (piano) and Phil Palombi (bass) are playing regular (and irregular!) gigs around NYC… (matthewfries.com & philpalombi.com)

Next up: Copenhagen for a televised tribute concert to the late Danish bass genius Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. I’ll sing one of his compositions and host the show. Some amazing musicians will be along for the ride, including Tootie Heath, Ed Thigpen, Tania Maria, Tain Watts, Chris Potter and Minh Doky and many more. It will air in Denmark in February.

Then, I’m off to London for most of February to appear on a BBC TV series called Just The Two Of Us… Stay tuned for more info about that. It should be a laugh, hopefully not at my expense…

Until next time…
Curtis

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 played the smaller hall (300-ish) and it was lovely. Great crowd, sold out. That’s always nice. Nothing like a full house. Afterward, we signed CDs and said hello in the lobby. Met some folks, saw some old friends. Arhus is a very very very fine hus… afer the show our friend Ilsa, the promoter, took us out for some BBQ, Arhus-style. Nothing like a big steak right before bed… We also re-established our love affair with Danish Christmas Beer. It’s a national tradition/specialty. Many of the breweries roll out a special beer just for the month or two leading up to the holidays. We’ve been drinking a lot of the Tuborg, we have…

The next morning we walked with our bags to the train station and piled onto a train headed for dear old Copenhagen. Copenhagen is a beautiful town with friendly good-looking people and lively intelligent audiences. This city has always been great to me. I started coming here to play in 1992. Through the years I’ve played here with the Doky Brothers and Randy Brecker, with Hanne Boel and George Whitty and Clarence Penn. In the last couple years I’ve made a home at The Jazz House. This place is fantastic, one of the finest jazz clubs in the world. I’ve seen some amazing concerts at Jazz House, including a mindblowing evening back in the late nineties with Kenny Garrett, Pat Metheny, Brian Blade etc… it was in July during the Copenhagen Jazz Festival… and at the end of the night, George Benson sat in and sang and played the crowd into a froth! Very memorable… This past summer the Jazz House produced my concert at the new Copenhagen Opera House, a huge, lovely, very modern theater on the Harbor, just across from the Amelienborg, the palace. It was a sold out show and one the high points of my career. Madeleine Peyroux opened the show (…soon after she went missing and her UK record company hired a private detective to find her… She was back in New York, apparently didn’t want to do any more promotion in Europe. Sounds like a publicity stunt to me… but who am I to say? You didn’t expect controversy in my first edition, did you?)

We just played our second of three nights at Jazz House (Nov 13-14-15) and again the shows have been sold out. Amazing audiences with a good sense of humor. The guys have really been playing great. It seems we’re settling into the music from the latest album finally. It’s feeling like it ours and it’s growing nicely. Looking forward to the 3rd night. We’ve been eating well here too… Morten from the Jazz House is our good-time guru and he always treats us right. Christmas beer again. Ho Ho Ho, baby!!! Tomorrow we head to Odense for a night at Dexter (Nov 16), a jazz club I’ve never played. Looking forward to it… Back on the train! Then Keith and Phil head back home to the US and Matthew and I go on to Belfast for a TV show called the Kelly Show. I’ve appeared on the show a couple times before. It’s sort of like the Tonight Show of Ireland and Gerry Kelly is a good fellow, smart and funny and I always have a good experience. Usually there’s a nice little drink-up afterward… Ah, the Irish, always so civilized…

Then home for a couple weeks for Thanksgiving and hopefully some skiing and then London and Milan in December.

More about that later… until then,

Cheers

Curtis