Greetings!

Last left off in May; we had a wonderful week at Birdland with Bruce Barth, Ed Howard, and Adam Cruz. Every night was different and felt great, what a band! And if you happened to be there — thank you for helping make it a very special week. Some other favorite moments there… William Blake singing back-up with me on a couple songs (fun!) and the wonderful Steve Kuhn playing “My Foolish Heart” with me….

Blues Alley continues to be great fun, an intimate yet funky venue with heart & soul. Along with Steve Cardenas, Ed and Adam– we cruised through that weekend with great crowds. Got to play a sweet house concert in Bethesda MD on the way back… thanks to our hosts there!

Onto Montreal, Ottawa, Rochester, and Saratoga Festivals for some of our last concerts with Newport Group…. I enjoyed every one of these great festivals and getting to see the country-side along the way was also beautiful !

Back to Pioneer Valley, we played in the sweet, sweet town of Shelburne Falls MA; a fundraiser for our friends Mike and Tony’s new restaurant “Ma Vida Loca” — Ed, Adam and guitarist Bob Mann and I had a great time with a wonderful crowd of folks.

Off to northern California; Walnut Creek and Filoli… another great band consisting of drummer Jeff Hamilton, Jeff Johnson, Rod, Bruce and I– we had 2 very fun nights of music and more great crowds and friends. Thanks to all who made those such fun.

Back to the East Coast and to Marblehead MA– for Gene’s last hoorah in his jazz series of 35 years– congratulations Gene! And we played a sweet, private event at Cornelia St Cafe (one of our favorite little places in the Village) after that– thanks to our hosts there as well.

Onto the Newport Jazz Festival; unfortunately the weather wasn’t cooperating all that well, but it’s amazing how little that seems to matter when attentive people are in the audience counting on you! There they were, under the tent trying to keep dry… so were we, and we warmed it up! It was a very nice day of music with Anat, Randy, Clarence, Larry, Peter and Mark– hope we get to play together again down the road and also big thanks to Danny and George AND Sam!!! for putting it all together.

I got to go to Hawaii for 2 weeks in August… one of my sisters lives there along with my niece 🙂 so, it’s a real joy to see them and be in that beautiful place. We played 2 sold-out concerts at the Atherton Hawaii Public Radio Studio… along with Rod and bassist Bruce Hamada- always a treat!

Right back at it when I returned home; to a sweet town outside of Buffalo NY; at the Lewiston Jazz Festival– what a cool event! They close the main street and thousands of folks turn up– Had a great band with me; Bruce, Steve C, Ed and Adam… we played a good, long set and then, on the very last note of the encore — the power went out! It was quite funny really– ironically, the years before the Electric Company there had been sponsoring the event … but not this time! We thank our sweet hostess Carol for inviting us.

I had never been on the coast of Maine (“down east”) but was invited to play a wonderful little venue called gWatson in Stonington. It’s an art studio run by host Ron… and as a bonus an ice cream shop serving delicious lobster rolls next door!! It was extremely enjoyable to be there, with a fantastic crowd. Thank you Ron and all who made that possible.

The fall is now upon us… and we’re off for The Signature Jazz Cruise at the end of September, starting in Monaco and ending up in Rome. I’ll tell you all about it in the next round of notes.

I hope to see you all out there somewhere, some good and new music is coming from us– And don’t forget to pick up your copy of “Yuletide Hideaway”… it’s just around the corner. Please log onto tour dates often, new pictures and postings there and on facebook.

And always– thank you for your support of the music!

Love, Karrin