rehearsing on the floor

My dear friend Ayelet Rose Gottlieb is moving back to Israel in about a month after living in the States for about ten years. I will miss her terribly, but I know we’ll still see each other often as she’ll be coming back to New York on a regular basis. Still, we have to make a record before she goes as I have a musical project that wouldn’t be right without her beautiful voice singing on it.

Ever since I first discovered the Pirke Avot I’ve been enamored of it. A compilation of the select teachings of over 65 different rabbis, the Pirke Avot has been studied for centuries. Its wisdom is so relevant even in today’s world (I should say especially in today’s world!) and I’ve always wanted to put it to music…

…so here it is: The Pirke Avot Project, with the text in Hebrew and English, with Ayelet on vocals, Sean Conly on bass, Satoshi Takeishi on floor percussion, and Daphna Mor on recorders and nay (a Middle Eastern flute).

We had our first rehearsal yesterday, with Quinsin Nachoff filling in for Daphna on clarinet (we have a gig at Cornelia Street Cafe in Greenwich Village on Sunday May 17, and Daphna couldn’t be there). Being that Satoshi plays floor percussion, he showed up at my house, moved the drumset around (using part of it) and sat himself on the floor. I then realized that I only had one music stand for five people, and that I couldn’t get another one because it was in my apartment upstairs and we were getting the carpet replaced so I couldn’t get in, so we all sat on the basement floor (well, except for Quinsin – sitting on the floor with a clarinet would have been tough) and played.

I’m really excited about the gig and the recording! It’s been a bit rushed, if only because a) Ayelet’s moving two weeks earlier than I thought she was and b) I am such a big procrastinator when it comes to writing music, but it’s going to be really fun.

The first review of the new CD

The first review of my new CD, I Think I’ll Keep You, was written by Stuart Broomer and appears in the April issue of AllAboutJazz-New York and on the web at http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=32141

It’s so funny having a CD on a label that takes care of everything for you! Being the control freak that I am, I keep asking them, “what should I be doing?” and they, in the nicest way possible, tell me that they’ll take care of it and that I don’t have to worry about it. And  yet still I fidget, start feeling guilty/lazy/disorganized, like I’m supposed to be doing something (as if I didn’t have enough to do already!) but then Andrey reminds me to chill out and let them do what they say they’re going to do. And I remember that for about a week before I start getting antsy again. Something I need to work on, I guess…

Things continue to be busy. I have a gig at the Rhythm in the Kitchen music festival tonight, preceded by a panel discussion about the lives of musicians during “transitional times” such as these. Should be interesting! I’m looking forward to it.

Jelly

My dear father, Domenic Monaco (1948-2006) once gave my sister some dating advice by telling her a little story. He said:

“Look, you know what you want but sometimes you get a little confused. It’s like when I go to Dunkin’ Donuts. I know I want the jelly, but then I get there, and I see the cruller…and I see the Boston Creme…so I go up to the counter…and I order the cruller. And I eat the cruller, and something’s just not right. So then I go back up to the counter…and I order the Boston Creme. And something’s still not right. And then it hits me: all I really wanted was the jelly.”

Sister, Dad, and Me

I Love My Neighbors

I’m really lucky in that after years of searching, I have found home. Even though there is a lot of gentrification in my neighborhood (read: self-important yuppie scum moving in, behaving rudely, and causing the rents to go sky high) there is still plenty of old-school going on, lots of people who have lived in the neighborhood their entire lives, whose parents grew up here as well, and will stop you on the street to say hello and catch up.

Case in point: tonight there was a photo exhibit of the people that contribute to the rich history of the neighborhood. From 100-year-old Rose Fazio to the guy with the extensive tribute to the Titanic on the façade of his brownstone and my friends with whom I’ve shared many a glass of wine at the local bars, it was beautiful to see documentation of all of those I know and admire.

It still amazes me how my neighborhood can feel like a small town. Whenever something’s happening that’s of any significance, you can be sure to see most of the people you know. And tonight was no exception; lots of the locals were out.

Big John has a band called the Big Daddy Project, a rock band with whom I shared a bill when I was still playing with The Lascivious Biddies. (John called them “Beauty and the Beast” gigs even though the guys in the band are pretty good looking.) I’ll never forget the time we played in a mechanic’s garage! Because of all of the chemicals, no smoking was allowed as the place would’ve exploded. (literally!) The place was packed, and someone bought a keg and re-sold the beer, making the local mafia guy pretty upset as I guess we were infringing on his business or something.

Louie is my landlord. Along with having great neighbors, I live in a great house. We all get along wonderfully, and hang out on a regular basis.

Becky is another friend who lives a few blocks away, and who I met through Louie. She was featured in the show as a long-time resident. She also makes beachglass jewelry, and is always a lot of fun to hang out with.

Drew DiCamillo and Jackie Weisberg. Drew plays bass in the Big Daddy Project and recently returned from living in Italy for the last two years (and boy did we miss him!)

Jackie’s photos took up half of the exhibit, and she took an amazing picture of Drew. Jackie will be posting the photos on her web site once the show is over, at www.jackieweisberg.com

Me posing for a photo with my friend Ricardo, who doesn’t live in the neighborhood, but used to own a building about a block away from where I live and he’s in construction. Ricardo is married to Beth, and together they are a really fantastic couple!

That’s just a small slice of the people I know. I’ve only known them for a couple of years, but already we’ve shared a ton of memories…

I’ve been “Simpsonized”

Here’s a new one that I wasn’t expecting: Andrey had me “Simpsonized”. Who would have thought?

Next to me is our cat, Gretta.

Sorry I haven’t been blogging lately; a lot has been going on. For starters, the new CD, I Think I’ll Keep You, is out in Japan. There’s also another CD by my group Playdate that’s coming out on the Posi-tone label in the spring. And the composer Joe Phillips’s masterpiece “Vipassana” (written for 25-piece jazz orchestra!) is being released on the innova label this year as well; I feel very lucky to have been a part of that project, as Joe’s music is just perfect.

But it is a belated-New-Year’s-resolution of mine to blog more, so I PROMISE there will be more to come very soon!

Fun in Staten Island!

What was supposed to be a quiet (well, as quiet as they can be) visit with my good pal Ernie Jackson turned into a bit of an adventure in Staten Island. It all started when Ernie needed breakfast, and on the way we stopped by Mandolin Bros., that famous mecca of guitar on Forest Avenue.

Ernie started with showing me the new Veillette Baritone Twelve-String:

We then moved into the room with all of the semi-hollow guitars:

And then I fell in love with a Gibson Howard Roberts:

On the way out, Ernie introduced me to Stan, the owner and a super-nice guy. Good-bye turned into hello when Stan wanted to show me a couple of amazing guitars, and that he did!

Long story short, a fifteen-minute jaunt turned into 90, and it was worth every second! (Though I did feel badly as by the time we left, it was time for lunch…) If you are a guitarist and you haven’t been to Mandolin Bros., you are missing out. Now I just need to get some more gigs so I can afford to take home a Howard Roberts or an L-5!

am4 NYS Tour – Niagara Falls

This is what happens when one tries to book a tour while also trying to get through comprehensive exams for a Master’s Degree: the gigs are far apart and involve a lot of driving.

Somehow when booking this tour I missed the fact that the concert in Niagara Falls was in the afternoon, and so there was a lot of driving between Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon. (There was also a lot of driving the day before – again, grad school consequences!)

Nonetheless, the concert went off without a hitch, and we had a great time. My good friend Jason Beaudreau teaches at Niagara County Community College, which is where the concert took place. After the concert it was off to the hotel, and then I raced off to teach a few guitar lessons; there were some kids in town who wanted a lesson. They were really good players, and it was nice to teach a bit on the road.

By the evening we were all wiped out, but especially me as I didn’t have a nap. After dinner, the guys went out while I slept until quite late the next morning.

Breakfast involved waffles and drinkable coffee.

And then…more driving…

am4 NYS Tour – Schenectady

It was kind of a schlep, but we made it to Schenectady NY with time to stop at our hotel on the way, and then hunted down a Panera Bread Bakery-Cafe. Panera Bread has really been a lifesaver, if, for no other reason, you can get salads and soups and sandwiches that are healthy and fresh. (I burned out on Wendy’s salads while touring ages ago!)

Dinner was in the dining hall, after our soundcheck. It brought plenty of memories back from my days at Rutgers University; I found it difficult not to automatically pile four glasses of orange juice on my tray. (This, by the way, kept me from getting a cold my entire freshman year, even with my crazy schedule that only allowed for 4 hours’ sleep a night.)

By now you may or may not have heard the stories of how bands do drugs in the green room before a show. Well, you’ll be happy to know that the am4 is not that sort of band: instead, there’s some serious yoga happening.

Fraser and Jason striking a pose

Union College has an amazing new performance center that we just loved! We played one intense set of a lot of new material. Not sure if it was recorded, but I’ll find out. (I think it may have been videotaped.)

After the performance, we had to high-tail it back to the hotel which was about 90 minutes closer to Niagara Falls, the next stop on our tour. It’s a LOT of driving, to be sure, but still not as bad as the one time I had to drive with a band from McKinney TX to Nashville TN within 24 hours…that was just plain ridiculous.

am4 NYS Tour – Rochester

Jeff is the master packer of the van.

We drove in from a delightful time in Ithaca, only to land in Super-Jazz-Mecca in Rochester NY! Filled with more vinyl than I’ve ever seen in one place on the East Coast, The Bop Shop is equal parts fun, treasure, and adventure. Tom Kohn and his compatriots are of the highest quality and can show you the way, be it jazz, blues, folk – lots of goodness. We had lots of fun looking at all of the CDs and LPs in the store.

Fraser checking out some of the tunes at the Bop Shop

One of the perks that comes with playing at the Bop Shop Atrium is the hospitality. Donna and Robert Iannapollo, jazz fans and all-around incredible people, prepared the most delicious gourmet spread for us (Donna is a professional chef) which included:

Parsnip/Carrot Soup with homemade parsnip chips and chives

Smoked Salmon Risotto with fresh dill

Green Tea Mousse with Sake-marinated dried cherries

After that, it was back to the Bop Shop to play our gig for a small but enthusiastic crowd who you just knew were big supporters of the jazz community in Rochester. The concert was recorded, and we had a great time. We even sold our first concert t-shirt on the road!

It was an early-morning wake-up call the next morning for a clinic/concert at Penfield High School, where Music Director Jim Doser is doing an incredible job with these kids. Our first stop was his Music Business class, where the group of 24 students had done research on all of us and came prepared with fifteen questions, all of which were so thought-provoking that we were only able to get through ten of them in 45 minutes!

After that, we gave a concert in the school’s gym, which was really fun. (Have we ever played in a gymnasium before? I think this was a first.) The entire music department showed up, and were an attentive and polite crowd. We had a blast.

Then, it was off to Schenectady…

Touring New York State with the am4 – Ithaca

Greetings from Ithaca, NY! Today is day two of the am4’s tour of New York State, made possible by the New York State Music Fund.

After getting up at 5:30 a.m. yesterday, I picked up the members of the band and drove for about 5 hours (give or take, with traffic) to Ithaca, NY, a gorgeous little town in upstate New York. We gave a performance to the students in Miles Brown’s jazz improv class at Cornell University, then discussed the compositional process and played a few tunes with the class. Miles is an old friend of ours from New York City who is currently getting his doctorate at Eastman College of Music as well as running the entire jazz department at Cornell (!) so it was great to see him after so many years.

It’s funny to think about how we’re all getting older. When we were playing together, Jeff, Jason, and I realized that we hadn’t played a gig with Fraser since 2005, which was when our last tour happened. So much has gone on between then and now for me (losing my dad to pancreatic cancer, going to grad school, leaving the jazz-turned-pop-insanity-girl group I played in for so many years and sacrificed so much for) that it’s worth mentioning. Kind of crazy how life works.

We had the night off last night, so we went back to our hotel, relaxed for a while, and then went out for a beer before heading over to the famous Moosewood Restaurant for an incredible meal.

Jason and I both love the Moosewood cookbooks – we each have several of them in our homes – so it was exciting for us to find the restaurant where it all began!

Colleen was our server. She was energetic and sweet, and loved her job. It’s always nice to meet someone who loves what she does and gives it 150%. The world would be such a different place if everyone could find that!

So, we had an incredible meal, and an equally enjoyable experience at Moosewood Restaurant. Jeff and Jason ordered the stuffed peppers; Fraser and I had the spinach lasagna. Everything was fresh and healthy, which was great because it is SO easy to eat lousy, greasy food on the road!

This morning I met up with Brian Dozoretz for breakfast. He’s the guy who recorded the second am4 CD, and now lives in Ithaca and teaches at Ithaca College. Brian is another person I haven’t seen in several years, probably since we did that last am4 recording in December 2005!

We’ll be back in Ithaca on Friday, but today it’s off to Rochester, to play at the Bop Shop. This is a gig I booked well over a year ago, and have been looking forward to since then. Tom Kohn, the owner of Bop Shop, is a great guy, and I’m looking forward to meeting him in person after speaking to him for the last 13 months on the phone!

OK, the guys are back from their breakfast so I guess it’s bye bye for now as we have to get in the van and drive!

I must say, being on the road with Jeff, Jason, and Fraser is SO easy. We all get along great, have similar ideas about touring, and no one is on the prowl for vices (drugs, chicks) so we’re in good shape.