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In May, we did a photo shoot with the very stylish Bill Phelps at the restaurant he helped design, Café Moto. I’ve always liked Bill’s Photos. They are very evocative and dreamy, and kind of moody. They seem to reflect and embrace deterioration and entropy and elevate decay to be appreciated as evidence of character strengths. It’s the reason why I like my new horn better without the lacquer: I can see the stains and the subtle shifts of rust that make it special, interesting and beautiful. It’s the reason I like the look of Clifton’s 1927 National Resonator. It looks like its stood the test of time.

I’d agree that our music is often dynamic, energetic and bright and yet still we have a moodiness and and inward looking nature that is reflected in the depth of the images that Bill captured. What do you think?

I put two photos up as part of our press kit. They are available in black and white and color and are high resolution .jpgs. Enjoy.

If you live in New York you’ll know that we’ve had an astonishing number of days in a row with precipitation. It’s getting like Seattle East over here. For the street musician these are hard times. On Monday we went out to the park even though the weather was truly on the edge. Luckily we were the only band out there that day and did very well. Yesterday, however, there was only a 30% of rain and it seemed like everyone was out and about. And looking desperate!

It seems the Central Park Conservancy has noticed how many more bands there are this year and is attempting to corral us all unto the poet’s walk, fountain, and band shell areas. We’ve been asked twice to leave our Columbus Statue spot and move closer to the Bandshell. Yesterday, I decided to set up on the promenade but there was a chamber orchestra in the band shell. No problem, I moved down to the fountain and set up where the blue vipers were playing a few years back. Over the course of three hours, five different bands asked us to move from our spot even though we were clearly set up and established before anyone else got there. I tried to be as courteous as possible and even moved the band to point in a different direction for a while so as to accommodate more different musicians. Ultimately, there were too many of us to not get in each other’s way.

Cooler heads and compromises did prevail. I also think these things go in waves. Perhaps the economy is so poor that regular gigs are drying up and more are taking to the streets. Eventually, only the most persistent and those that can generate the most income will be left and things will settle down a little bit.

I spoke with Clifton yesterday about the Joe’s Pub show that we did on Sunday night and his quote was, “We’ve finally gotten started.” It may take some time before we’re playing a majority of rooms that are as wonderful and as perfect for us as Joe’s but now that we’ve tasted that it’s a much more recognizable and possible goal.

What makes a room like Joe’s so good? The most important factor is the focus of attention always seems to be present. I’ve only played there a few times but each time, the fact that is a “Listening Room” makes a huge difference. Music lovers go there to listen to music and be entertained. It’s not a talky room. Everything about the experience for the audience (waitstaff, sound, lights etc…) allows them to pay attention to the stage well. And they do. Another factor is that they have professional grade facilities for the performers that make things easier and more comfortable. There is a dressing room with its own bathroom (simple, obvious things like this go a long way with me), there is a rehearsal room where you can hang out and actually go over stuff before the show. Each person on the staff came up to me to coordinate about the show. Jeff, our sound technician was so gracious and competent. Rachel, the lighting person, was fun and easy to relate to and did a great job. Evan, our stage manager was funny and warm. Jersey, the manager, was clearly in charge and running the whole operation but took the time to answer my questions.

When I was a kid I used to love to go to Yankee Stadium or any big arena. There is always that moment where you walk out from inside the hallways under the bleachers out into the stadium proper. Out of a narrow hallway you can see the sky and the thousands of people that are there, the lights, the field itself gets revealed in panorama and brightness. When we took the stage at Joe’s it was a little more modest but when we heard the cheering it was extra special because you were cheering for us! My goal was to fill the place and we did! There was not an empty seat in the place and when we were through with our show we knew that we had made an impact on you.

This is so core to who I am. It seems that my function here on the planet is to radiate all the blessings and talents that I’ve been given. I have felt up until the last four or five years that most of this radiation was taking place in a vacuum: meaning there hasn’t been any response that I could feel. Working hard and through falling on my face over and over, it seems that I’ve stumbled on a way to do this that actually elicits a response that makes me feel that the great amounts of energy that I’m expending is being well received and returned – a supercharged feedback loop that makes everyone smile and takes us all closer to ourselves. To have that mechanism so firmly established and working so well as it did at Joe’s Pub (and this is really the first time this has worked so well on the levels of performance, crowd response, promotions, ticket sales, every other actual real-world parameter) makes me want to agree with Clifton – We’ve Finally Gotten Started.

On Tuesday of this week we performed at the Guggenheim for the second time. It was a wonderful experience. They were celebrating their 50th anniversary and were hosting the 5th Avenue Museum Mile Festival. They had us set up just outside the museum underneath that big overhang above the gift shop. The acoustics were great. It was our own little amphitheater. I didn’t expect we’d have much of a crowd. They had said that we’d be right in front of the area where people would be exiting the museum and I had expected that it would just be flow through. Regardless, we consistently magnetized about a hundred people at a time right in front of the museum.

Clifton came up for the beginning of the show but then he had to scram to go do his Blue Man Group gig. Rob is away on vacation until our Joe’s Pub show as well so we had two of our favorites fill-ins to help out. “Alabama” Steve Lewis on guitar, harmonica, and back-up vocals and Cassidy Holden on the Bass. We’ve been working with both of these guys for such a long time now and they are really, really solid.

One of my favorite things happened on this show which tells me we are headed in the right direction. A very lovely, upper-east side kind of woman, obviously very cultured, asked one of my favorite questions, “What do you call this kind of music?” Right away I smiled because it means that we are doing something original for her. She was unable to pigeon-hole us into any category she had already established. We are not jazz, folk, dixie-land, trad jazz, country, rock, blues or any other label. I said that we are roots american music and she said something charming like, “Yes, I can definitely hear the roots in it.”

There were plenty of press folks shooting video and photos but so far only one of these people was kind enough to get in touch with us. Olia Saunders took some really bizarre and delicious photos that make our band seem so dreamy and psychedelic – in a very playful colorful way. I think Stefan will be really pleased with these pictures. And Olia, I think you should certainly be in contact with Stefan to work with the Gato Loco Coconino project as I think its a good fit! I like this picture of Steve’s shoes! Good eye!

We found out today that we have been invited to play at the Louis Armstrong House Museum out in Corona Queens. The performance isn’t until August 22nd but I though I’d post about it this evening as it did make me quite excited.

I remember when I took a few lessons with Eddie Henderson. He showed me a whole bunch of licks and patterns and each one was attributed to a certain artist or even a certain cut from a certain album. Eddie himself had studied with Freddie Hubbard who in turn had studied with Roy Eldridge. Eldridge was nuts for Coleman Hawkins and as a trumpet player at that time must have played alongside Louis Armstrong at least once or twice. The impression those lessons created in me was that I had joined a long lineage of trumpet artists. And in America, that always leads back to Louis Armstrong.

Here’s an excerpt from an email I received this afternoon:

The Louis Armstrong House is where the jazz great lived w. his wife Lucille for nearly 30 years. The House is perfectly preserved with their belongings and is a National Historic Landmark. We receive visitors from all over the world everyday. It’s an incredibly intimate and powerful space to work and perform; everyone who comes here tells us so. The Armstrongs added another lot in the last few months of Louis’s life and built a Japanese inspired garden. It is a beautiful, shady site in the summer and perfect for enjoying some live music.