Five days

Its been quite a five days! My good friend Ian Hendrickson-Smith came to town for a visit and its always a good time when he comes to the city. He is such a warm guy and so generous in every way. He arrived very very early on Wednesday morning. We didn't do anything massively exicting, just hung out, caught up etc. We had a rehearsal that night with Sharon (piano), Jodi (bass) and Jesse (drums) for a gig we were doing on Thursday. I was a little nervous because Ian is such a wonderful musician and great player but as I mentioned a very warm and generous musician and I was at ease with the rehearsal. The gig the next night was a smashing success and the alto bari combo sounded great together. Ian and I really hooked up on a number of different levels but the blend was really cool. Unfortunately there weren't many people there but the ones that were there totally dug it and I thought the band sounded great. It was a lot of fun.

The next two nights featuring the night Crawlers, a band that I'm quite excited about. Funky organ music!! We were recording for an eventual release on Cellar Live which will hopefully come to fruition. As I type this I'm listening to some of the takes. Not thrilled about my own playing but I am listening to it less than a day after the stuff was recorded which can sometimes be very tough. The club was busy which was nice. We got about 65 to 70 people per night and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Its another fun week at the club this week. Coat Cooke Trio releasing their cd Up Down, Down Up which is on Cellar Live. Should be fun and then pianist Bruno Hubert and his trio do their part releasing the Cellar Live Christmas CD followed by 2 nights by the B3 Kings releasing the other half of the cd. A Cellar Live Christmas has gotten great reviews so far.