EBS SPACE

Last night we did our TV show on EBS Space. This is a great thing for Korean jazz musicians--it's a TV show that appears once or twice a week on the public TV channel and they have a fairly steady diet of jazz concerts. It's interesting: the band members (Shin Dong Jin, Kenji Omae and Chul Hoon Lee) had all been on this show, Kenji has played perhaps a dozen times on TV in the last several years, whereas I have been on TV only two or three times in the last 20 years. I played twice on BET, the black entertainment channel, when they had the BET on Jazz series and that's pretty much it. So for me, it was a little difficult to get the sense of being filmed out of my head and just relax and play music. I've done a lot of radio broadcasts and the feeling is a little bit similar (although nowadays I am pretty comfortable with those). At key moments, you tend to find yourself outside of yourself watching what's going on, instead of being inside, letting the music direct itself. There's a subtle difference. On great playing nights, I feel like I am a conduit for the music to flow through, but I also feel connected to the music. Last night, it was a little more like watching yourself walk across a tightrope wondering when you are going to fall off -- a distracted sort of feeling. Still, part of being experienced is knowing that even if it doesn't feel exactly like how you want it to feel, it's still going to be good, so I am hoping for the best.

How's that for a ringing self endorsement? Well, there wouldn't be any point in reading  this if all I did was talk about how killing I am. Which I meant to mention, by the way. I mean the killing part.

Anyway, you can check it out if you wish: EBS Space. Google it in a week or so and there I'll be: BURNING!