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Bonjour de Paris...
I’m going to miss seeing him there, playing pool in the bar of a Hilton hotel. At least I think it was a Hilton. I probably wasn’t the best role model!
Chers Amis,
Over this past few weeks Leslie and I logged a few miles crossing a few borders and playing music together with our friends. Almost like that Willie Nelson song! Just today we returned from a Funky Ella concert at the Munster Jazz Festival in France. Leslie had a few hours to get herself together before going to play a concert tonight here in Paris. Prior to leaving for Munster, Funky Ella was a part of a jazz cruise which began in Marseille and took us to Gibraltar, and Funchal on the island of Madeira, Portugal. Later we were in Spain in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, and also in Cadiz and in Barcelona. The trip also included stops in Morocco in Agadir and Casablanca. Once we returned to Paris we had a couple of days to rehearse with a new drummer for the Munster gig and then we hit the road again. The great thing about a cruise is that your room stays the same day in and day out so there is no packing and unpacking and no taxis, airports or train stations. With my propensity to be a homebody, this was a huge plus for me. This was Leslie and my third jazz cruise and it was easily the most labor intensive, at least for me. Being a headliner, Leslie would probably say that they were all labor intensive. On the days that we worked there was not much time left for anything else which, of course, is why it’s called work! But still we had some days off and we did get to see most of the places that we wanted to see. The concerts were both rewarding and challenging at the same time. They ran the gamut from playing a late afternoon set poolside to playing two nightly shows in the theatre and finally to playing a late night show in a room that was called “The Dome”. “The Dome” was normally a disco but for purposes of the cruise it was set up like a jazz club. Between the three venues I played five concerts over the course of the cruise and Leslie was featured two nights in the theatre. Once with Funky Ella and again as part of a concert with pianist Philippe Duchemin’s trio. She also did two nights as the featured performer for the late night sets in “The Dome”. All of the musicians (there were around forty) were mixed and matched for the poolside concerts, and groups were formed for the late night sets which were mostly themed concerts such as “a trumpet summit” or “saxophone mania” etc. The challenge was mostly due to some equipment problems and problems with the rented acoustic bass. At one point Peter Giron, our longtime bassist and friend, played part of a set on a bass with only two functioning strings. Anyway, we were able to weather those storms and get ourselves ready for the next show. Beyond that we had a great time hanging with friends, seeing new things and enjoying great sunny weather which in springtime is hard to come by in Paris. We probably had the most enjoyable time in Cadiz, Spain. Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands was probably second most enjoyable stop for us. Peter’s wife Nicole, who joined us on the cruise, liked Cadiz so much that she was ready to move there for retirement!
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