Greetings Friends…

“Oh the days dwindle down, to a precious few….September, November!” to quote that beautiful lyric by Maxwell Anderson…Sad to the see the summer go, I had a many good adventures with many great players around the world, many friends and family visits — and here are some…

Last I wrote was in June… having just returned from New Zealand w stops in Honolulu— Back on the mainland we headed to NY State we played the Saratoga / Freihofer’s Festival in the afternoon and moved onto a lovely venue in East Meredith NY for the evening… 2 very different experiences as Saratoga was outside under a tent, lovely crowd — (folks basically camp out there for the weekend to hear all the acts) and onto the Kortwright Center, small church venue in East Meredith, intimate with Norman Rockwell surroundings outside. Miro Sprague and Dave Picchi played great— within 2 weeks, I saw 2 black bears in the area, which is pretty thrilling (from a distance but not THAT far!)

I spent some great time in the Pioneer Valley after that and saw many friends in the area loving the beautiful summer! Cookouts, river hangs, fire flies…

Back to NYC home turf— we had a wonderful concert with Paterson University Big Band — then back on a plane to Melbourne. Bird’s Basement is a ‘sister’ club of Birdland in NYC and a really lovely club. I had met pianist/composer/accordionist Joe Chindamo a few years back at another fest there, and we reunited for this week at Bird’d Basement with fabulous Melbourne rhythm section; guitarist Geoff Hughes, bassist Sam Anning, and drummer Danny Fischer. We had a ball… and I look forward to going back.

Back in NYC I was on jury duty for almost 3 weeks… a necessary civil duty which I learned much from—
In between I was able to get the San Jose Fest gig ‘in’ … My band Larry Koonse and Jeff Johnson played great— and we had a lovely couple days there, also getting to hang w friends Roy & Eileen and great singer Kenny Washington.

Just finished a sweet little gig in Waynesboro PA with guitarist Paul Bollenback, Ed Howard, Eric Alexander and drummer Jerome Jennings— a very swinging band and lovely crowd there. Thanks go out to our hosts Andrew and Sally.

Now enjoying some family time on the Jersey Shore watching birds, beautiful surf and breezes as it’s finally
cooled off— A huge colony of purple martins were hanging around, fascinating to watch! And the gulls last night — thousands of them, feasting in the air on some kind of insects. Since I’m a birder, this is heaven to me!

Also visited our dear friend Vicki at the Merion Inn in Cape May, and really loved hearing and sitting in with pianist Dean Schneider.

More family coming up in Minneapolis, then back to work— Jazz Alley in Seattle, one of our favorite places with wonderful band; Miro Sprague, Jeff Johnson and Todd Strait.

First we’ll make a stop in Port Angeles WA for a little concert and masterclass —

Thank you for checking in, we hope to see you out there somewhere.