Touring 2

So, the tour continues. I am thinking today about the appeal of playing standards. Sometimes the appeal is that the song material is so known, so common--something that we've been playing since we first began playing music--that we can free-associate through the piece of music. The form becomes transparent and the ideas that you bring to playing on the song become the subject, more than the melody or chord changes of the tune. This can never be 100 percent the case, there is always something particular to the individual song that makes it "that" song, but it's almost true. You have these moments where you are playing on the song and you can play any note or any chord change, and then you can zoom back into the tune and pick up on some detail of the melody that is romantic or bluesy or whatever feeling that part of the song means to you. Melodic details tie you back into the original song and all of the associations that you have with it. Sometimes those associations are to someone else's performance of the tune. For example, when I heard Herbie Hancock play Stablemates, it made me understand that tune for the first time in a new way. When I play that tune now, I never consciously imitate Herbie's playing (well, almost never) but somehow his playing has informed my sense of that song ever since I heard it. We've been playing Confirmation, a favorite of Tim's, and that takes me back to my years coming up in Cleveland playing with the older hard bop players there. Again, it doesn't sound like I am playing the way I played back then but some of the memories of those times and the feeling of that music clings to the song. Sometimes our associations with standards are even older. I was listening to a Jobim record before the tour started and I noticed that one of his songs reminded me a little of "I'm Through with Love." That song was one that I've played with singers (a great singer and old friend Lisa Michel reintroduced me to the tune) over the years, but whenever I hear it I think of the first time I heard that song, when I was about 7 watching Alfalfa sing it on reruns of an old TV show, the Little Rascals (aka "Our Gang"). When we talked about it, Gene mentioned a plane ride and long conversation he had with Darla (or more exactly, the actress who played Darla, the hot 7 year old that Alfalfa was always pursuing). So there you have it. We play "I'm Through with Love" and channel Jobim, Alfalfa and Darla. (Not to mention certain more obvious physical parallels to Spanky, but I'm not gonna go there.)

One great thing about touring is the old friends you meet. I toured Japan, as I said in the last installment, every summer for three years in the mid-90s. Now the NYSQ is on it's 3rd tour, and many of the places that we play are places that I played 15 years ago. The club we played last night is one of the highlights. Layla in Himeji (about 40 minutes from Osaka) is a small jazz club that holds about 50 people when filled to capacity. We've been coming there so long, and the people are such memorable and eccentric characters, that every time we return feels like a homecoming. The Master is an unflappable ageless guy (he looks exactly the same as the first day I met him 15 years ago and he chalks up his youthfulness to a steady stream of beer drinking) and all the customers/guests are familiar to us from many gigs and after-gig parties ("uchiage" in Japanese). Tobi-chan is the hostess, and again, when I see her I am reminded of the first time I met her--she was just back from living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, decked out in hip hop gear, a fledgling rapper. Nowadays, she is looking great (if less bling bling-ish) and working as a massage therapist. There is a cast of characters that includes a crazy drummer named Jack (for Jack DeJohnette), students, too young to remember the old gigs but happy to hang, in shy or boisterous fashion, and fans who travel hours to get to the gig and spend the night in a hotel in the area. As always, screaming their enthusiasm, we play beyond ourselves for them and have a great time, recharging our batteries. So, we salute everyone at Layla and thank them for their continual support and good vibes. Kampai!