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.
