Summer Exhaustion

I've neglected to post anything here recently, in part because of the intensity of Spring semester, which was a fascinating and very productive time. Our residencies and concerts at Pitt were really wonderful, and it was a consistent pleasure to interact with our guests. In March, the grad composers' music was played in concert by Ensemble Linea, and I was really happy with their performance of my piece, 1996. The night of that performance, I went home after hanging with everyone and (somewhat hastily) finished another piece that got played recently, which I submitted to the ensemble about three minutes before the deadline. There was a draft of a seminar paper due in the middle of that same week, and though the day after the Linea residency was a significant mile marker, things didn't really let up until the very end of the semester (about a month later).

Solo - South Side Slopes 4/29

Despite the hustle and bustle of the semester (finishing/rehearsing pieces is only scratching the surface), I managed to do well with everything - I have a decent idea of what the next four years might look like in terms of my work at Pitt, and what I should do in other places to supplement it.

One thing that really hit me close to the end of the semester was the 20 or so pounds I've gained while living here in Pittsburgh. Compared to the other places I've lived, Pittsburgh hasn't been as conductive to getting out and moving around - many of its neighborhoods are isolated by hills - this along with the solitary nature of academia has presented a new physical challenge to me. I'm starting to get better about walking places, and also preparing more of my own (healthier) food. Without a doubt, extra time during the summer is helping with both of those things. Cooking had been a calming endeavor for me in the the last five years or so, and I'm glad to have more time for it now. I've also started playing with a local brass band that's been helping to keep me busy, especially in terms of getting to know more people in the Pittsburgh community. This is a really strange admission, but in many respects I'm aspiring to a time when I was nearly broke. In retrospect I definitely maintained a healthier physical routine living in NY and VT, and there's a part of that I've been missing.

Westmoreland Museum of Art - Greensburg, PA

Taking on this issue now is super important because of what this summer has brought on. Immediately after wrapping up classes (around April 27th), I launched into a mini-marathon of performances that were pretty enlightening and wonderful (That first week alone is deserving of another post), and I'm in the middle of a similar run now. Soon after these gigs I departed for NY to take a break on Long Island for a few days, and work on duo material with Steve (Blank Space #13 was at the Firehouse Space in Brooklyn on May 17th). After this I took a bus to Boston to visit family, and see the NEC graduation. Though Pittsburgh is a good place to live and study, I've started to proactively address some of the things that I need to get from other places, and Boston is still an incredibly important place for a multitude of reasons, a few of which I'll outline below:

1.) Shortly after I got to Boston in May, a few of us who took Lyle Davidson's counterpoint class got together to sing renaissance motets. For years during the semester, Lyle has met with interested students and alums of his classes on Sunday evenings to sight-sing polyphonic music. I had no idea how important this would become to me as I've moved on, but it was beautiful to reconnect with people who value those kinds of musical and community-oriented activities.

2.) Similarly, I played a duo set at Outpost 186 with Eric Stillwell. Eric is a trombonist, and like many others in Boston we have some similar references for creating a piece of improvised music. This was our first time playing together in that context. I really enjoyed this, and I feel good about returning to the city in the future to play more of the music that is at times extremely difficult to create at a high level in other places.

Jordan Hall before 2016 commencement

After a couple of days visiting with family, I went back up to town to go to the NEC graduation ceremony. The people that graduated this year were the last batch of folks that I got to know decently well, and I was definitely tearing up a bit when everything started. They also had a great group of people to whom they were giving honorary doctorates. Among these were Anthony Braxton, Bernie Worell, and Leonard Slatkin. Slatkin's graduation address was probably the best of those that I'd heard in previous years, and I loved seeing Braxton and Worrell receive degrees from the school. During the awarding of degrees, I watched all of the improvisers shake Braxton's hand before continuing across the stage to get their diploma, and he seemed completely enlightened by the whole thing.  When several of us went upstairs to congratulate him after the ceremony, we talked about how we enjoyed working on his music in our ensembles. His response to everyone was an enthusiastic proclamation: "You Are the Future of Music."    

Outpost 186 entryway

In having covered so much ground on this trip, my last days in Boston that month were filled with great anxiety over the hospitalization of my grandmother, who passed away on June 13th. She had been dealing with an illness she described to me and the rest of our family in previous weeks as a cold, and though she sounded better when being treated in the hospital (we spoke several times before I came back this way), tests and a later surgery revealed that she was terminally ill.

Going back quite a few years, she never embraced technology the way the rest of my family had. Without a computer, email, or social media, our sole way of communicating was by phone. Whenever I visited, I would show her pictures (like ones posted here), and try to explain further just exactly how I was getting by. In comparison, she was reserved about her own experiences, especially as she aged. She was however, curious (and I suspect anxious) to see that I was doing well, especially when traveling, and during my first year out here. It's impossible to sum up the impact of any such loss, but more than anything I've described earlier, this is making me realize some of the things I need to change for myself. Some of this is intensely personal, but everything else I've pointed out gives some basic clues.

Possibly as a result of the previous two months, I came down with an awful cold that really messed with me. I hadn't been sick at all for a few years, and bad congestion stuck with me until about a week ago. Since the summer months began, what started out as a conscious moment of -not- writing music has turned into an extended (but necessary) break. The fast pace of the year coupled with a lower level of physical activity has really caught up with me, and I'm just starting to feel like I'm outrunning it. That I have a steady schedule for the remainder of Summer is reassuring, but I'll certainly be glad when the semester starts. We all know that culturally speaking, 2016 hasn't been a great year, and it can be really difficult to  even just read the news at the beginning of every morning. Though things are picking up nicely for me, I'll be glad when more people return to town, and the weather cools down a bit. I'll follow up shortly with images from some of the great gigs that have happened this summer, but in the meantime, here's a picture from my return trip to PA, and some recent tracks. For anyone who's interested, I recently started an instagram account as well.

1st avenue & 10th street, Manhattan

New Tracks:






    

Origins & Histories – Full Circle Time Machine

12/2011 @ Weirdo Records

Full Circle Time Machine is my duo project with Tara Mueller that we’ve been working on now since February 2011. We didn’t begin work as a duo proper until the fall, but we had both been students at New England Conservatory for a few years. One of the Contemporary Improvisation teachers (Violist Tanya Kalmanovitch) had been holding these great duo sessions, where anyone could show up, throw their name in a hat, and play a duo with another person whose name was drawn next to yours. Tanya held three or four of these sessions over the long blistery winter that year, one of which was during a storm projected to be so severe they cancelled classes and barely ran any trains.

During one of these “Duo or Die” sessions, Tara and I were assigned to play together, and I remember really liking it. We sort of knew each other, and we had both taken a class on American experimental music performance the previous fall. I’d been prone to seeking out players who enjoyed that repertoire, and this just seemed like something that needed to be explored more. 

So, any time I’d see Tara after that, our duo experience or something related to Tanya’s initiative would come up. For the rest of the semester, we talked about how it would be nice to play together again, but our paths never crossed in a way to make it work. Then something awesome happened:

I’m not sure who pointed me towards the singer/songwriter Daniel Johnston, but I got really interested in his music that summer, and Tara and I had started to talk about forming the duo. After watching TheDevil and Daniel Johnston, I bought Chord Organ from eBay, and forming a chord organ/violin duo with Tara was almost all I could think about for the rest of the summer. When the summer was over, this didn’t take long. We met a couple times, and our repertoire of original music and our improvisational rapport built pretty quickly. We’d get together to play, then go get a beer or make flyers for our “concerts” (the first was in front of four people in a second floor ensemble room at NEC). Shortly after, we started to play on student composer’s concerts, and a few other things at school. One of our first off-campus shows was in December at Weirdo Records in Cambridge. We did two or three shows there before they closed in 2015.

By the spring semester of 2012, Full Circle Time Machine was one of the pillars of my creative existence (the other was Burr Van Nostrand’s Voyage in a White Building I). Tara and I got to do a community outreach residency at an elementary school in JP that winter, and she came down to New Haven to meet and rehearse with Burr before we played a concert of his music in April. Also in April that year was the Contemporary Improvisation Department’s Beckett Play, and it was the first of three times that we would play together in Jordan Hall. 

5/25/2012 @ Yes Oui Si Space

The first concert we both gave after finishing school in May took place a few days after our graduation, at Yes Oui Si Space (a relatively short-lived gallery space that closed that summer). One of the most significant things about this project has been that consistently, we’ve performed in places that either no longer exist (Yes Oui Si, Weirdo Records), that we can no longer access (Jordan Hall), or have been present during times that seemed like significant personal milestones, for one reason or another. 

Though Tara would return to NEC for a masters, I was finished. The next fall (a year after we started playing regularly), I moved to VT, but made it a point to work in Boston as much as possible. VT was incredibly beautiful and livable, but there were fewer musical opportunities during the time I lived there. So, we would get to play every 6 weeks or so, and by that time we were pretty close. Tara had been dating Andrew Chilcote for the same amount of time we’d been working as a duo, so to go to Boston, see them, and meet some of their friends I didn’t know was always wonderful. This has continued to be the case from an even greater distance.

One time this sense of community served an especially important function was in April 2013, surrounding the Boston Marathon bombing. I was in town for concerts by Andrew, our friend Eliza Kinney (both of whom asked me to write solos for their recitals that month), and a concert where Tara and I played Donald Miller Piece with the NEC Wind Ensemble. On Marathon Monday (a day before the Wind Ensemble performance) we were in a coffee shop next to the school. Around 2:30, I received a phone call from my father who told me that there had been explosions in Copley Square. We walked outside to see Huntington Ave full of EMS crews speeding towards Copley. When we made our way into the Jordan Hall building, we watched live coverage of the scene, and were made aware that public transportation would cease operation for several hours, and that NEC would close up at 6 pm that day.

The only business that remained open was a dive bar off of Huntington ave, so we took shelter there for several hours, drinking more than we should have, until the subway began to run around 9 or so. The next day, NEC re-opened and the concert went on as planned, with a sort of somber tone. It didn’t occur to me until much later, but now I’m realizing the importance being there with those people at that time. Had I been up in VT, my experience around the bombing could have been far more confounding or painful.   

This and more recent experiences are consistent reminders that Full Circle Time Machine was (and still is) some sort of connective tissue for me. We would go on to play one more concert in Jordan Hall in the next year, and Tara played the solo violin part when we brought Voyage to Pittsburgh in 2014.

With our friend Lou Goldford on Laptop in Bloomington, IN

Since Tara moved to Bloomington, IN for another bout of grad school, we’ve kept in touch, and managed to put together a 5-concert tour last spring (from Chicago to Pittsburgh). We organized it during a rough moment in my personal life, and after the last gig, Tara had to drive back to Bloomington (and I got on a bus to Boston). There’s something to be said for spending five days in the presence of people you have a genuine connection with after so much time away. I really hadn't felt that in tune with someone in a long time, and that we couldn’t continue our run for any time in the foreseeable future had an impact on me that I wasn’t prepared for. After we said goodbye, I spent the time before my departure in the Amtrak parking lot crying. In recounting the experience with another friend a few days later, I still couldn’t get into it without tearing up. Now I live in Pittsburgh, and a year after that experience, thinking about it still has the capability to make me emotional.

We'd been trying to figure out a way to play again for the last several months, and it finally happened here in Pittsburgh at the tail end of my break. Our original plan was for the end of March, but Andrew had an audition for the symphony here a few weeks earlier, so both of them were in Pittsburgh for two days en route to Miami. In anticipation of playing again, I bought a new chord organ,and we were able to do two shows. I'm completely thrilled with what we did given such short time. We got our original sound back, and like last year we both brought some new things to the table. We were amplified at our second show, and during one improvisation there was a prolonged moment where we each had two or three sustained activities going on (vocally and instrumentally). It was wild. 

Tara is relocating to Miami after May, and we're going to try to play a few things and do some recording before she leaves the midwest. My teacher suggested that we have a number of good quality recordings so we can apply for grants and residencies. Whatever happens, I'm confident that the relative security of our current situations will allow us to invest time and effort to assure that Full Circle Time Machine keeps growing.

Photos from Pittsburgh, March 2016. At Howler's, and Station P with Anna Azizzy & Eric Weidenhof

2016 Adventures

The spring semester is well underway, it's getting warmer outside, and Pitt's spring break is basically over. I'm having a slight bit of trouble getting back into paper-writing mode, but blogging always seems to help clear the brain.

A year ago, I had just arrived in Chicago to explore uncharted territory, and prepare for touring with Tara & Lou. That stretch has been more or less a constant theme for me (especially in terms of the blog), and that I'm now living in the place where we played our last (and will play our next) shows seems like a real significant matter. Since January, I haven't got to play out so much, and it has definitely had an effect on me. I have no doubts that the anticipation of our two shows (this Sat & Sun) here are contributing to my watered-down ability to focus at the moment, but this will be remedied soon.  

Gabi doing midi mock-ups in Philly

That said, 2016 has been a good year so far. Almost as soon as I flew back into Pittsburgh, I took a bus to Philly and drove up to Burlington with Gabi Shapiro. Gabi is a tenor player that I met in VT and did a lot of playing with. Since then, we've both left, but Galen (who I did some work with in VT this past summer) asked us to do horn tracks for an album he just finished. It's mostly his original music, and we had a blast getting the arrangements together. Driving up there, and spending a couple of days in our old little city was lovely. It wasn't freakishly cold, either. We both stayed at the Manhattan Drive house (Gabi used to live there), and I was struck by how rejuvenating it all felt. I guess it hadn't been that long, but there was something about that trip that really seemed like a breath of clean air, and it was the only time we could have made it back before summer. It was too short a trip, but maybe that was for the better.

Not more than a week after that, things at Pitt had gotten into full swing. There have been some unexpected challenges this semester, but from the beginning things were pretty well set in stone. There's a lot going on, and everything is moving at a pretty consistent pace. The Pitt Big Band was hurting for low brass and so I've been playing with them this semester, too. I'm enjoying that.

Early in the semester, the composers had a great reading session with Ekmeles, a NY-based vocal ensemble that came to give a concert at the Warhol Museum at the end of January. Tomas Cruz (a friend of mine from NEC) was singing with them that weekend, and we got to catch up a bit after the reading and concert. They were an awesome group, and a really fun bunch to hang with.

Pitt's campus from the bridge into Squirrel Hill

Shortly after this, Steve came out to Pittsburgh for a few days. It was great to see him, do some playing, and get to show him around. His visit also prompted me to move out of the house I had been living in. I've previously mentioned that one of my roommates there was a little bit of a nutcase, but it was unbelievable how erratic he became when Steve was here. Luckily, Steve is one of those people who can really dig into absurdity and find humor in it. We definitely got our laughs out at the bar down the street, and  he quickly convinced me that the best thing I could do for myself was move out of that place - He was absolutely right. I'll never forget the way thing unfolded those few days, and I feel lucky that getting out wasn't too much of an issue. Within three days of Steve leaving town, I found a place to move, and informed both my landlord and roommates that I'd be leaving within a week. It wasn't hard to pack up, and I don't regret getting out when I did.

Gabi in the Studio

Irene Monteverde & George Lewis

I'm living out in Greenfield, just south of the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, in a house that gets considerably more natural light. It got icy a few days after I moved and it was tough getting down the hill for a minute, but other than that its been great. I don't have any plans to move any time soon. There's a sun room that I do most of my work in these days. I love it. We need a new dining room table, but that's really the only thing missing.

Since the move, I had really been looking forward to break, though couple of weeks leading up to it were great. The Big Band had our first gig of the semester, and the George Lewis residency was a total blast. In addition to a handful of talks, Ben Barson and I played for him in a masterclass. It was incredible how each of his talks was completely different, and he had unique approaches to every presenter in the masterclass. The first concert was done in collaboration with Geri Allen and several other improvisors on the West Coast, through telematic technology that they'd been setting up at Pitt for months. I could go on and on about that concert and the whole week, but I'll refrain for now...

Ben Barson Shredding Bari

For two days after our last concert (New Morse Code at the Warhol), I didn't do much of anthing related to school, and I needed that. I made one last trip to my old place to grab some odds and ends I had left there, and the next day I met up with a couple of the composers for lunch, record shopping, and listening. On Wednesday a few of us met up in Harmony, an absolutely gorgeous little town about 40 minutes north of Pitt. We went to this neat coffee shop, and spent some time wandering around town before driving back. We were all blown away by the place, and I hope we can get back soon. Out of curiosity, I looked up ways to get out there without a car, and Greyhound (as much as I dislike it) stops there for $11 each way. Summer day trips are totally doable! I love little coffee shops, and I'm pretty sure Wunderbar in Harmony is in my top 5 (see list below).

Now I have to get organized for the rest of the semester, and figure out what Summer is going to look like. I'd be thrilled if I can spend time on the east coast, but I can't plan much until things start to wind down here. Getting back into the grind these next few days is going to be a small uphill battle, but it was worth it to take some time and get my head together.

Five Little Places (most with coffee) that I really really love, in no particular order:

Kuro Kuma - Manhattan

Chubby Muffin - Burlington, VT

   

                                      

                                           Nutty Steph's - Middlesex, VT

                                       

 

Wunderbar - Harmony, PA

              New Recordings!

                                        

                                    

2015 wrap-up

As 2015 draws to a close, I think I'll remember it (along with 2014) as a pretty pivotal time. It was incredibly trying and difficult - some of the things that had previously put me in a state of alert (like the time I freaked out and decided to apply to grad school) are the things I acted on this year, which have completely altered my course, ultimately changing where and how I live. I don't think I realized the impact that all of this would have on me, and looking back, it's still incredibly strange.

The first semester at Pitt is over, and I feel good about it. Being a student in a university program is a huge contrast to my previous training, and I'm still adjusting to even the smallest differences. It has been rewarding, but has a completely different character. Having to acclimate to this is made easier by the other folks in the incoming class, who are extremely thoughtful and supportive people. After this past semester and the holiday break, Pittsburgh feels like home, and I'm looking forward to returning.

Eric Weidenhof - one of my newest and most loved collaborators

I'll also remember this year as one largely in transit. While I haven't ever toured extensively, I spent less than 2 months worth of time in Astoria before moving to Pittsburgh in August. I started the year with family in MA, then flew to the midwest to look at schools. Most of March was spent touring (at first with Tara & Lou), and I made two additional trips to Pittsburgh between April and June (the second time to sign a lease). By that time, I was essentially free of living in one place, and stayed with family when I didn't have any musical commitments.

Steve playing piano on Long Island over
Thanksgiving Break

July turned into a month-long trip to VT, which was undoubtably the brightest part of the year - the pictures in previous posts provide some photographic evidence of this! I'll always love VT and the kindness of the people that live there. One highlight (among many) came on a night off, sitting around the Manhattan Drive living room with maybe four others. We listened to two or three records straight through (including Thelonious Monk, and the Beach Boys). Halfway through Pet Sounds, one of the people in the room finishes their dinner, looks up, and says "Music is so good!" 

a therapy dog on the Pitt campus

Since moving to Pittsburgh, I've made trips to both Boston and NY. I'm sure I'll spend the next year continuing to adjust to my new home base - I've already decided I'll probably live on my own when my current lease expires, and I'd like to spend at least part of the summer away from PA. I get an itch for the road sometimes during the semester, and I'm figuring out how to satisfy that while staying on top of these new commitments. Next semester is looking like a full one within the university alone, and I couldn't ask for much more.

Cheers to 2016 !

Cathedral of Learning

w/ Mike Prentky and Lyle Davidson in Boston

w/ Jaimie Branch and Stephen Haynes at SPECTACLE in Hartford, CT

w/ Lou and Tara in Bloomington, IN

366 Manhattan Drive, Burlington, VT

w/ Anna Azizzy Rosati and Dan Malinsky in Pittsburgh

Comp Seminar Final - Anna Elder, Lu-Han Li, and Eric Moe 

Summer in VT pt. 2

 

VERMONT JOY PARADE

After my first week up here, with all its serenity (plus a little bit of chaos), it became clear that the best thing for me to do was stay in VT as long as possible before the 25th. Though there was a gap in my gig calendar after 7/4, I managed to patch it up a bit and staying here made more sense. This past weekend's Adirondack adventure made everything a little sweeter, too.

On the way up here, I got an email that one of our first gigs was dropped because we were playing the same city the night before. This was sort of a bummer (the money would have been ok), but other things have come up that certainly balance this out. We ended up taking a gig in Burlington that was really fun, and it didn't matter to anyone that we had another one a few days later. I guess this is an issue that a lot of different people and places fuss over. I don't think our other venue was any sort of competitive force, either, but after getting feedback about this on social media, I do realize that it can present issue.

After our first string of gigs, I spent a few days just shedding trombone and trying to relax. Maybe I mentioned this, but I feel so much better about my playing than I did at the start of the year, and having the time to stay in one place and really work stuff out has done nothing but help. I've also managed to get out and see more nature this summer. My hosts at the beginning of the month have known each other for years and we spent a couple days out on Lake Champlain having a great time.

Mama

Duke

This continued before and after our show at Galen's parent's house in Ticonderoga. Their property is right on Lake George, and we managed to have good luck with the weather surrounding our gig there, which was a total blast. I slept on the Vermont Joy Parade tour bus, which has been parked there for 2 years. It was good to hear the Whippoorwills, which brought back vivid memories of my childhood camping adventures in the Myles Standish State Forest in Plymouth. Leaving Ticonderoga was bittersweet, but I'll probably spend a couple days there between our upcoming gigs, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the place again.

I returned to Burlington and was able to spend four nights in an empty apartment below Becca Mack's place on N.Winooski Ave. It's just about fully renovated, and they weren't doing any work on it last week. We would get together during the day sometimes and work out Balagan rep. It's great to be in a situation with musical neighbors, and something I miss about this place a whole lot.  

Sam on the VT-NY ferry

Last Friday I visited the Manhattan Drive house (where I was staying when I wrote the last post), and Sam told me that he was going to visit his parents in the Adirondacks this weekend - his birthday is on Wednesday. On Saturday, a whole bunch of us went out to Elizabethtown, where we spent the better part of two days between the river and the grill. It was great to get to know him and his family a bit better - they just bought their house and have only been living there for about 3 weeks. It's a big white house with a pretty neat history. Yesterday morning, we met one of the guys that's been working on it for years, and they keep uncovering old pictures and documents laying out the history of the place. This whole thing turned out to be a great weekend getaway that we weren't really planning on. We got back yesterday around 8. The Adirondack region is a neat place, ferry ride and all. Before we left I spent a few minutes yesterday blasting out arpeggios towards the mountain on the other side of the road. The echo there is pretty long, and it's a good way to check on your intonation.

Playing music with Emily on Sam's patio

In the next 10 days before I leave, there are 6 gigs - the last two are with Balagan. I'll be going to Boston on Columbus Day weekend to play with them at HONK, but I'm glad to reunite with them here. Tonight is a hit at radiobean with Mal Maiz, a really fun Latin band that has a weekly slot. I wasn't planning on playing with them, but I'm glad they wanted me to join up with them. I feel pretty good about how all of this turned out, and I'll definitely be sort of sad to leave VT. With everything that's happened in the last three years, I can't think of a better way to start a new chapter .

Sunset at Battery Park

Retracing Steps, Connecting Dots, etc etc etc

Two entries - one old, one new:


5/30/15 Pittsburgh, PA

Ok - 2 months and no post. Sad, but that's how it usually goes on this here thing...

Murray Ave in Squirrel Hill

Anyway, I'm delightfully revisiting Crazy Mocha (in Sq. Hill, Pittsburgh), where FULL CIRCLE TIME MACHINE found ourselves a couple of months ago on our way to second gig in Swissvale. In April, I was offered funding to pursue the Ph.D @ Pitt, and I've visited the city twice since that time (most recently to sign for an apartment here, and play another show on 6/4). Mark (my eccentric bible-thumping yet uber-liberal future roommate) says that the baristas at Crazy Mocha have particularly visible followings that you can notice when their shifts end, and a new crew of people come in while the others leave. It was quiet here before, but it's much busier today (partially due to the 80 degree weather and scattered storms, I'm sure).

After leaving PA in March, I stayed in Boston for a week, playing a solo set at the Green Room before heading up to VT for a duo, with Anthony Santor and some other things. It was during this time that I started really questioning the value of living in one place if I wasn't going to be working towards a degree. After applying to the Doc programs, I created a schedule that kept my head above the water, and also rendered looking for full-time work in NY completely pointless. Being on the road has trying moments, but I'd felt so many emotional highs from it, and I was getting along better than I had been (not having to worry about rent and whatnot). With this in mind, I booked a couple of dates in Pittsburgh for mid-April, and was starting to plan a summer itinerary.

Mattress Factory - North Side, Pittsburgh

Two days before I came out for those April shows, I got the word I'd been waiting on - funding from Pitt, which I accepted immediately. Those few days in Pittsburgh were almost euphoric. Under some conditions, getting on a bus for 8 hours each way to play a couple of door gigs might have felt puny - I did have one moment of soft doubt when the local bus I took to get to the first gig went over the Monongahela River and I realized I'd missed my stop. But, doing this trip more or less on a whim and knowing I'd be moving there gave me a good feeling. It's also worth noting that the people who ran the shows, hosted me, and hung out with us were incredibly generous and beautiful. A few days before all of this unfolded, I had a conversation with the NEC EM folks, who encouraged all of the questions I was asking myself. In VT, I had a similar conversation with my father over the phone. I rarely talk about this sort of stuff so openly with my family, but it seemed important at the time. I was ready to leave Queens and be on the road for months before either moving to Brooklyn or Chicago. I could see myself in Chicago, and my visit there was certainly part of this whole thing.

Anyway, I'm certainly glad that Pitt is happening, but I was equally looking forward to working on what could have been if it wasn't going to this year. During my visit to VT, I started to look at spending time there over the summer, and I'll be going back next month for a few weeks. this takes me up to the end of July. On 7/25, my cousin Amy is getting married in NH, and my lease here in Squirrel Hill starts in August. It's good that there's a big family gathering right before I leave the east coast. It's not too often that we all find ourselves in the same place.

Mothers Day 2015 in Plymouth

With this larger move in mind, I spent 3 weeks in Massachusetts following the PA gigs. Matt Gilbert (one of my best friends from home) found his dream job in Florida, and planned a going away party with his fiancee Mark. They got engaged a day before the party, and I knew I had to see them before their move. Following this, I found the place I just leased here, and spent a bunch of time with my grandparents, and some of my younger cousins who were on school break.

On a sadder note, one of our Great Aunts, Evelyn, passed of sudden illness while I was home. She was 94, and previously in very good health. It's never easy to see someone go, but that I happened to be home when the service took place somehow made it a bit easier to come to terms with. After the service, we all went to the cemetery where my great grandmother and a bunch of other relatives are buried. It's in West Roxbury, but I'd never been there. Later, my cousin Sandra and I went over to the Harpoon Brewery in South Boston, and I played a solo set that night at a house concert in JP. Rarely do I experience single days that are this packed or wide-ranging, and I found all of this strangely fulfilling.

The next day happened to be Mother's Day, so I got on a train to Somerville to meet up with my brother Jeremy and our cousins - we drove back to Nana's, and found that they had made plans to get lunch in Plymouth. This turned out to be pretty fun, but we didn't lunch there. I suspect anyone actually eating there that day had made reservations weeks in advance. This didn't stop us from trying to find a place with less than a 2-hour wait. We did manage to get out to the jetty though, and ended up eating about 5 hours after we intended back at the house in Middleboro.

Eric's Record Cutting Room

A few days later I went back to NY to pack up my belongings in Astoria. This was not hard (physically or emotionally), and only took a couple of hours. I ended up having to get one more box for all of my winter clothes, and somehow managed to fit most of my books in this gnarly brown suitcase with wheels that I've had for a few years. I'll probably move the stuff to PA right when my lease starts, and it won't be too much of a pain. I managed to get a bed here within a day of arrival (at the insistence of my roommate, who repeatedly asks if I need any more furniture besides what's already there). The guy is bit of a worrywart, but that wore off by the end of the week. The house itself is on the end of a private terrace, and is super nice. All this is probably helped by the fact that most of these places are owner-occupied, and that our landlord lives less than 10 yards from our door.

I've been in Swissvale since Thursday hanging out with Eric Rann, watching him make tiny records, and helping out with a show there. These last few days have been super quiet, and it'll be nice to have a bit less chaos to deal with now that everything is secured for the fall and beyond.

1/3 1/3 1/3 - trio with Anna Azizzy & Dan Malinsky
@ Mr. Roboto Project 6/4/15

6/30/15 Burlington, VT

I managed to stay in Pittsburgh to play the show with Anna Azizzy Rosati and Dan Malinsky as planned, and I'm super glad I didn't leave earlier for a couple reasons. The show turned out really great, and being in town for a few more days was well worth it (for my wallet and my brain). I spent some time in the Strip District at Liz Bloom's place, and Dan hosted me for a couple of days leading up to our show. The venue was right by his house in Bloomfield. Bloomfield is a working class neighborhood with little hills, narrow streets, and plain two or three story houses. It's a bit quieter than Squirrel Hill, but also more urban, with far less space (if any at all) between individual houses.



I wasn't nervous about our show and I think I ate enough that day, but I definitely had some strange feelings leading up to our set (at about 10pm). It felt like I might not have been able to produce a single sound. But somehow when we started playing, things just moved. It helped maybe that our audience all got on the floor around us, and kept completely still. We knew we wanted to stretch out, and managed a 25-minute set that I had no major issues with. This is becoming more common since the tour in March, and I'm back to playing a lot of brass in front of people again. I've got a ways to go, and will probably get back to taking semi-regular lessons when I move, but I feel more confident with a horn than I did before I gave it a rest over the winter.

Sam & Carrie's gear @ Blank Space Series #4

That gig in PA was the first of three that week - the second was the concert series that Emily Praetorius & I are doing. This one was in Carroll Gardens, BK, at Nick Pauly's place. I stayed there for a few days when I got back. It was a great place to have a house concert, and we had a lot of fun. I hadn't really seen that part of Brooklyn before, and I experienced what many people think of when they think of NY - spending higher-than-usual amounts of money. I found the cheap food spots by the time I left, but having to make a trip up to Astoria one day and then over to Morningside looked something like $45 easily vanishing from my wallet.

The day after our house concert, I took the Metro North up to New Haven to play in a concert called Spectacle - a dream gathering of 15 improvisers put together by Joe Morris and cornetist Stephen Haynes. They run a series at Real Art Ways in Hartford, where each month they meet with a master improviser to give a concert. This year's Spectacle was their second end-of-season concert featuring improvisers from various generations. Some of the performers came from NY, others from Boston, and some were CT locals. Aside from some of the Boston folks, every performer was new to me. They set us up in different combinations before we all came together for a group piece led by Joe at the end of the night. Sam Lisabeth, Jaimie Branch, and I drove back to NY together, listening to Weezer and talking about Steve Lacy (among other things). That whole day was a great and unique experience that I'll remember vividly, and it made me just a little sad to be leaving.

With Junko Fujiwara & Allan Chase at Real Art Ways in Hartford

I left NY maybe a few days earlier than expected, but after leaving Nick's house, I didn't want to bounce around to different places too much (here in VT it's a lot easier). I stayed with Jonah for two days in Sunset Park, and then I was en route to Boston. The night before I took off I went to see Anthony Coleman play a concert in the LES, and I was glad to see his swift recovery from hip replacement surgery. I spent the next ten days in Massachusetts going between my grandparents house, and my brothers house in JP. Sick Puppy happened to coincide with my time in MA, so I ended up going to a few of those concerts. Lou Goldford and Kevin Zhang were also around that week, so I was able to meet up with them. Lou and I drank a giant pot of coffee at this Mediterranean place near Central Square, and Kevin hadn't been in Boston since we finished NEC in 2010. It was fun to muse about everything that has changed there since he left, and point out some of the great things that haven't.

@ Shelburne Museum 

The next day was Father's day, so I caught the train down to East Bridgewater, catching up with my sister who was also visiting home that day. It was nice to get to spend a few days at home before coming up here to VT, but I have to say that this is the most relaxed I've felt in a while. I've been here for a week, and after a series of back-to-back gigs with this New Orleans-y cover band, I found that I've been able to finally maintain my high range through an entire gig (it only took 13 years...).

Emily playing Bob Belcher's posthorn

We've got another weekend string coming up, and I've been staying with various people in my old neighborhood. Currently, I'm at Emily DiPaola's old place, where I spent some time last summer during JazzFest. Though she left town before her epic bike trip over the winter, there are lots of familiar folks here, and she's also visiting VT this month. We went to the Shelburne Museum a few days ago - I'd never been there before, and it's now officially one of my favorite places on the planet. A couple days later a few of us around the house decided to go to Rockpoint, a secluded cove on the lake that's about a 15 minute walk through the woods down crazy rocks. We spent a few hours there before heading back to the house. We had our second gig that night, and it was nice to be able to walk there from this house.

I'm not totally sure when I'll be heading back to MA, but this is definitely a productive time that I've been enjoying the hell out of. The importance of having genuine conversations and exchanges with people is reaffirmed more than anything else when I'm up here, and because of the time we live in (with its progress and perils alike), this means more than anything.  

Balloon from I-89S near Waterbury, VT