Macerata

Ciao, Tutti,

A ridiculous amount of stuff happened since the last story I wrote, which was about Siena and Rome, I believe. This includes the teaching lessons I have been giving, which have all been continuing to go tremendously well. The teacher told me that parents were coming during the parent-teacher conferences to say that the kids really like the American who comes in on Wednesdays. That would be me. So, in short, things are going well, the kids are expecting and behaving for me, and the teacher asks to keep some of the homemade games I create. They did say something about the "magic backpack" (zaino magico) that I bring everything in, one day a game I made up, that time before I brought a pot and silverware, once I brought my laptop to watch Space Jam on, once I brought my frame drum, and so on. Things go very well in the classroom, and I'm trying to save some of my souvenirs, like the drawings they make for me or the games I make for them, to put in my scrapbook once this amazing adventure comes to its inevitable ending.


The band: Rob on sax, Greg on guitar, Simone on drums, Piero on bass. Piero and Simone are both Florence natives, which is why the band is called "New York-Italian Connection."

What I want to spend most of my time talking about today was the trip to Macerata for a gig on Sunday. Macerata is a small city outside of Florence, sort of like Prato, and we had the gig all to ourselves, in that the other band wouldn't be there at all so we would play the whole time. It would be a nice an easy gig since I didn't have to pay for a cab to move the vibes since we would be taking Antonio Vanni's (the head of the NYU in Florence Jazz Program) car.

Actually, just about none of that was true, yet that's what I thought was going on until Saturday night (ah, don't you love Italian organization?). In actuality, Macerata is about 3 and a half hours of driving outside of Florence, about the distance of Rome, and nearly on the Adriatic coast, close to the city of Ancona. We were to meet the other band there and, after our set, we would have a jam session and stay the night, leaving early the next morning to see which classes we could make it in time for. We were set to leave at 11:00 to cross the beautiful Appenini mountains which meander down the center of Italy. The gig was to pay incredibly well, even paying for a farmhouse for us to spend the night in.

So I was just about completely wrong. But these things happen.

It's all still a blur in my mind, everything that happened, and I'm still exhausted from it. I didn't sleep well the night before and I slept only 3 hours on Sunday night, so I'm a little worn out, but all in all it was a blast. The gig was actually in a smaller town 20 minutes or so outside of Macerata whose name I don't remember, but we did stop in Macerata for half an hour of exploration, though the exploration only took fifteen minutes. The town was small. There was a nice outdoor market, though, and I bought a big dice (dado) with hinges and five little dice inside, perfect for playing Yahtzee. I figured there would be no Macerata playing cards since there was really nothing to take a picture of, but I did want something to commemorate the moment. The countryside was the real beauty out there, nothing but dazzlingly green farmland with a backdrop of the Appeninis. There were a few snow-capped peaks, and I got that urge I had in Crete to just drive towards the mountains with no real plan, just to get closer. Antonio really needed to clean hi car, which is my excuse for not getting any pictures from the road. Mi dispiace (I'm sorry).


The Market

So this was basically the best gig we have played all year, which makes the trip gratifying. There is a nice feeling when everything clicks, the kind of feeling that makes it understandable why I never need to drink coffee. It was energetic in the small cafe we played in, and there was no room even to move in the audience; one would need to plan far in advance if he needed to make a trip to the bathroom. Something clicked, and we played our two sets and killed it. There's not much more to say than that. We were brought in from 3 and a half hours away and we gave them the best we could give. Everyone in the room was happy. This usually doesn't happen in real life! But the power of music is so great... it brought meaning to the phrase "contagious energy." I can't do it justice with words. You would have needed to be there to understand.

This is the place we played:



They turned it right-side up when we got there for the sound check.

Now, besides us playing great and having a wonderful time, there were a couple of special things about this concert. First of all, one of Antonio's great friends, Samuel, who had the connections to get us this gig, was celebrating his 28th birthday. He sat in on some rock tunes on drums. Playing is not his specialty, the business end is, but we all had a great time playing Led Zeppelin tunes. Antonio came up and sang "Dazed and Confused" during this part of the jam session and I played piano, and it still puts a smile on my face to think of everyone in the room knowing everyone else and everyone just letting go and doing what's fun rather than what makes sense because fun is what makes sense. This is what it looked like when Antonio was singing:



The other interesting thing was that the best drummer in Italy, according to Antonio, was in the house and joined the jam session. Now, having said that, I completely forget the poor guy's name. My mind wasn't in a great place, but I do seem to have a good memory of Machiavelli's "The Prince," the reading I brought with me and did in the car when the road wasn't to windy. Anyway, Italians have a habit of exaggerating things, though he was quite a good drummer with a keen ear for making a piece move forward and bringing the best out of the soloist. I only heard him for one piece since I had to load up the vibes which had broken a string. Here is a picture of the three Italians who had the most impact on this show:


From left to right: Antonio Vanni, the director of the NYU in Florence Jazz Program; Best-Drummer-In-Italy-Whose-Name-I-Forget; Samuel, now 28 years old.

We started playing at 7 and didn't stop until 12:30, though the actual set was over many hours before that and I had to pack up the vibes (Rob suggested brilliantly that I put my shoelace in the place of the broken string, which worked until our set was over). The other band brought their horns and joined the jam, as did a flamboyant and talented young Italian saxophone multi-instrumentalist. It was a ridiculous amount of music in that hot and crowded room. Actually, everything about this gig was ridiculous. This is what the jam session looked like:



The ridiculosity was not over yet, though, since then we had to find our way to our casa colonica in the middle of the farmland in the middle of the night with an entirely drunk group of drivers (people were disappointed that I hadn't taken advantage of the free drinks they were offering besides fresh water. I'm not saying this just because I want to impress you, family of mine, but because it's true). Anyone who knows the definition of "casa colonica" must think I'm insane, but I do not joke at all. We were actually provided with a 10-room farmhouse all to ourselves, about the size of the house the family will be staying in when we go to the beach this summer. We followed Samuel to this place in the middle of nowhere to the point where we thought we were completely lost, but then there we were and at 1:30 we had plans to leave at 9:00 the next morning, giving us time for our classes and everyone else time to get to the polls for the Italian election. I got a room to myself and went to bed at 3:00.

This is what the house looked like in the morning when we could see:


(Actually, "casa colonica" means farmhouse, which was behind the house we stayed in)

And this is the view of the countryside that came with the house:



So, as to all things, there were some downsides, and one of them is me trying to stay awake right now as I write this. I got to bed at 3:00 for a combination of reasons including figuring out the shower, making the bed, getting ready, finishing a piece I had started writing in the car on the way, etc. I did not wake up at 8:30 like everyone else. I was up bright and early at 6:00 because it was already light out and quite cold. I needed my overcoat on top of my blanket to keep warm. An hour later when it was obvious I wasn't going to go back to sleep, I simply got ready to go and finished "The Prince." This would not have been that big of a deal had it not been for two big factors: 1) The night before I hadn't slept well either because I woke up in the middle of the night with a song idea. Worth it, but that makes two nights in a row without much sleep. I tried to sleep on the ride back, but the road was too curvy and my stomach started to hurt, so I just closed my eyes and listened to headphones. I got about 20 minutes of sleep once the road straitened out. 2) There was also not much food. The one shortcoming of the gig was that we didn't get to have dinner. They fed us all sorts of appetizers, which were very good but not filling at all. Lunch passed as we were in the mountains (both Sunday on Monday), though on Sunday we stopped to get small panini, which were delicious but about 6 times too small. So basically in between Saturday night at 9:00 pm and Monday at 4:00 pm all I had to eat was:

1) Bowl of cereal
2) Small but delicious panino
3) Assorted appetizers
4) A piece of chocolate with coffee in the center (no, not mocha, but real coffee!)

By the time I actually had something to eat I had forgotten how to eat it.

In addition to being exhausted and hungry, I had also forgotten to pack my toothbrush, so my mouth tasted horrible. But even when you combine all this, I've felt worse before, and because the gig was so much fun it was worth it. This whole exhaustion and physical wear and tear just adds to the story for me, though I'm still recovering, as you can see. I did have early classes today, and no time to get rest afterward because of class registration. But I took a nap after that and now I feel a little better. No teaching tomorrow, so I get to sleep in, and I think tomorrow will be good. It better. I have a big paper to get serious work done on and a film score to write.

This is a good segue into the Music Announcements

Good news on Guest Artist: I no longer have to count how many mysteries I have to solve about the piece, but only hoe many things to write. That number is 2. And I already know what those 2 things are going to sound like. The thing is finally nearing completion!

Here are the shows where this piece of music is going to be played. A more complete description can be found on the last post.

1) June 28: Inspiration's Anniversary at the Bluesix Acoustic Room in San Francisco
2) August 17: My last concert as a teenage band leader at the Jazz School in Berkeley
3) September 25: 20th Birthday celebration at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City

The only new announcement I can think of at the moment is that at the gig in Macerata-sort-of someone asked if we could play a show at a jazz festival on April 25, bringing the concert count for that weekend to 2. It seems pretty cool, though I don't know much about it. You have to ask Rob, the band's spokesman because he can speak the best Italian.

And, once again, if you think all the concerts with Guest Artist will be the same, you could not be more wrong. I've got so many ideas for projects in my head right now that it will be an easy thing to give each concert, each with its own meaningful date, a different and meaningful existence.

I will be in Germany next weekend to celebrate passover with Shira and Billy. Let me know if I left anything off the blog that I should post before I go, or if there's anything I should do or say while I'm there. Ciao!