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.