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