A complex emotion

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How did you come to jazz? To this question, I often find myself scratching my head and typically settle on a vague answer only made more vague by an impulsively apologetic shrug. “Well, you know, it just happened”. There was never any kind of jazz-related music playing around the house and even my childhood piano lessons didn’t put the genre on my radar the whole time I took them. It wasn’t exactly frowned upon or disregarded by my circle of friends and relatives. It simply didn’t exist. The closest I ever got to an awareness of the music growing up was a scuffed compilation CD of Glenn Miller my parents had left sitting on a dusty bookshelf in the living room. How did it get there in the first place? I will never know. As I moved into my late teens, I picked out a Coltrane retrospective CD while shopping with my parents at a grocery store in my hometown in France. I remember it had the song Russian Lullaby on it, the last track. I had never heard anything played with so much intensity and fire, at that breakneck speed. And no amp or savvy production to give it a boost. What the heck is this, I thought. This beat is infectiously fast! Is this humanly possible? From here on out, I went on a Coltrane binge – mostly the late and supposedly less accessible recordings – that didn’t leave much room for any other jazz artist or other music style for a while. After wearing out Stellar Regions and the Live at the Village Vanguard sessions – which ripped apart any sense of metronomic stability – I worked my way back through the earlier records and slowly gravitated toward the more straight-up swinging jazz I had only had a glimpse of before at the time. That’s when Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue caught my attention. Low and behold, it had my new hero on it, blowing his heart out on every tune. So, it is possible to make a truly distinctive and individual statement  in the most collective setting one can think of, I mused. Thus began my sinuous initiation to this thing called jazz. Twenty years down the road and a new instrument to practice – the double bass – I’m still struggling to define the contours of the art form. There are times when I just can’t take the polyphonic quality of some of the music and  go into a jazz-free regimen for days, only playing rap, classical and what not,  or no music at all.  Jazz can be overwhelming as complex emotions are.

I guess that’s where I’m getting at with his post.

As much as I have denied it defensively for years, I came to realize that yes, jazz is complex.  But complexity is not a sanctuary for intellectuals or an elitist class of the Enlightened. Human emotions are complex. To me, when played sincerely, jazz is the epitome of a complex human emotion, one that ties the cerebral to the elemental seamlessly. At the risk of overstating the point, we all have something jazz inside us. Sure, the term originated under unfavorable auspices. As the BAM (Black American Movement) controversy made abundantly clear, the word jazz itself is morally problematic when we look at its racist and derogatory beginnings. It’s no wonder, then, that most jazz lovers and haters are still fairly opinionated about where to draw the line between jazz and non jazz, not realizing that this line has never been and will never be scored in indelible ink.

To me, the difficulty of defining the genre is a testament to its cultural importance, enduring appeal and vital energy. It will not be pigeonholed because it has change, difference and human interaction at its core. I’ve always been struck by the fact that in the early days of the nascent jazz idiom – predominantly in the music of New Orleans – performers often played over each other and rarely got a solo spot to shine. They all soloed together simultaneously,  so to speak. Yet it was the combination of individual talents that shaped and guided the overall sound of the band. In that way, people like Louis Armstrong  or Duke Ellington clearly deserve the jazz originators label that they usually get credit for. Their music served as a catalyst of the marriage of Black folk culture and European classical-inspired white America.

Ask your friends if they listen to any jazz and the handful of those who do will likely mention a couple of classics from the 60s but probably nothing past this golden age of the music. I understand that, that’s what I started listening to when I was first turned on to it. It’s probably harder to know where to look for jazz artists today as the music is stylistically more varied than it was sixty years ago, and paradoxically a lot more accessible, just a click away on social media or the Internet in general. Yet, in this day and age of hip hop, pop or other-infused jazz, even today’s up and coming artists always have some kind of connection to these foundational roots, however unconsciously buried they may seem to be. 

Since this is a place where I should recommend things, I’d like to share some of the relatively recent releases that I have been listening to over the last year or so. Inevitably, they reflect my personal inclination but hopefully also the diverse range of music that today’s  “jazz” artists are creating. Jazz alert: the styles range from the post-post-post (are there more?) bop vernacular to plain esoteric stuff. As guitarist Bill Frisell simply puts it on his recent solo album, Music Is, “music IS”.

If any of you out there reading this wants to share their story of how they encountered jazz and how they look upon the music, I’d be very happy to feature their story as a guest post on wellyouneedit. So, fire away.

Matt Brewer  Mythology

Brad Mehldau   Gabriel

Flash Pig Year of the Pig

Andrew Cyrille Quartet  The Declaration of Musical Independence

Bill Frisell  Thomas Morgan  Small Town

Craig Taborn   Daylight Ghosts

Eric Revis  Sing Me Some Cry

Glenn Zaleski    My Ideal

Mary Halvorson   Code Girl

The Bad Plus  Never Stop II

Mark Guiliana  Quartet   Jersey

Etc…

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Tim Hecker, Konoyo

Tim Hecker, Konoyo

By no means I am a knowledgeable expert on electronic music. In fact, I often think to myself I might have been missing out on important music in the last decade or so by disregarding the genre. Luckily, being a jazz nerd and musician, I am used to getting my ears pulled in the unlikeliest directions. And that’s exactly what happened when Tim Hecker’s new album Konoyo popped up on my radar. I’ve been sort of keeping track of the electronic music composer since I discovered his iconic Ravedeath album a couple of years ago. In many ways, this new opus is a confirmation of all the sonic qualities that have appealed to me in this music. A gritty soundscape of rough edges, full of fuzzy overtones, echoing blasts of seemingly abyss-born organisms, and most intriguingly, an orchestrated conflation of ancient traditional instruments and modern-day synthesizers.

Here again Hecker pulls off the difficult feat of making digitally processed music feel somewhat natural, and well, “acoustic”. His is an eerie world full of mystery and unidentifiable ghosts blasting in from the deep recesses of the ocean, earth, space, you name it. Whatever Hecker is looking for in his sonic excavations, there is certainly an elemental drive guiding the process, a sonic quest for music beyond music. Titles like “In Mother Earth phase mode” or “Death Valley” point to the deeper strata of our planet and whatever rumbling manifestations may inhabit them.

As on his previous offerings, Hecker seems to straddle an aesthetic divide that leaves the listener wondering what kind of musical world he or she can relate to. If you could imagine a symphony orchestra somehow performing on the ocean’s floor, you may be able to hear remnants of violin and brass sections oozing out through the murk. In fact, Hecker convened Gagaku musicians for this project, an ancient Japanese ensemble consisting of multiple flutes, drums and a pipe organ improvising to Hecker’s bandleader instructions and synthetic inputs. In contrast to the previous albums, the results seem a little more stark, as if all the multilayering process that defines the composer’s previous albums has been pared down to the elemental.

The opener “This Life” sets the tone for the ensuing variations around one major theme. On this faux-LAPD police siren choir, a skeletal melody surfaces and soon blends into a clangorous chorus of metallic drones and washes of synthetic static fading in and out. Every time anything remotely resembling a theme is offered, the composer undermines it, canceling any risk of singable catchiness.

On “Death Valley”, ancient Japan seems to drift by on a timeless American road trip gone wrong. Instruments feel like they literally drop from the sky against Hecker’s enveloping ether.

“Keyed Out” seems to have a kind of double bass tuned twenty octaves lower than its range and then explores a mesh of percussive strings, harp-like harmonics and reverberating flutes.

“Across to Onoyo” brings the album full circle. Here a whale song morphs into a sawmill-like ambiance in freeze mode. Of course, there is something ethereal and perhaps indulgingly dark at times about this music but repeated listens will always unlock new sounds to listen for and uncharted destinations to let the listener’s mind wander in.

There is something unpredictably poetic in how the tracks string together apparently unmatchable sound sources, as on “Mother earth phase”, where a cello drone naturally emerges from the preceding synthesizer buildup only to fade back into the abyss. Or consider this, the track called “Is a rose petal of the dying crimson light?”, arguably a good title for a song teetering on the edge of disappearance.

To be honest, I found myself drifting out several times at first – this is not your average I’m going to have this song stuck in my head all day kind of music – but I guess it’s the point of good ambient electronic music. When you’re about to give up, something unusual and heartwarming draws you back in.

Tim Hecker, Konoyo (Kranky, 2018)

ON TRANSCRIBING JAZZ AND THE REWARDS REVEALED THEREIN

There are many lessons to learn from transcribing your favorite jazz musicians. It turns out that I’ve been on a saxophone transcribing binge lately, which I hope will not go away too soon. Or better still, I hope it will effectively become part of my day-to-day practice routine if I can put in the time and energy.

As any musician knows, jazz is a lifelong apprenticeship in many ways. You’ve got to learn the trade through hard work and patience and that’s that. Instrumentally speaking, it’s always been about intent listening, copying the masters, and incorporating whatever exciting or relatable stuff into one’s creative imagination. Your most insightful theory books on bebop harmony or modal language, however valuable they may be, have nothing on delving into someone’s creative mind and going through the spur-of-the moment process.

Now, I have to admit, the task has always seemed daunting to me, and the whole notation process so unforgivingly tedious. Time is tight, there’s so much stuff to practice, so many things that need work, errands to run, groceries to pick up, hell, a life to live, why bother to break down Coltrane’s solo on, say “Body and Soul”. Sure, it’s unbelievably searing, beautiful and just absolutely fantastic but you’re never going to sound like him. But here’s the flip side that hit me like a ton of bricks recently. Deep listening is worthwhile, and the consequences are profound.

You have to hear the music first, to absorb it thoroughly into you brain and body so that it becomes your natural pulse. And then, you write it down if you want to keep it on file for later use. You might want to go back to it later on, and that’s where notating the notes comes in. But other than that, it’s the hearing that matters. When you start being able to sing a phrase and internalize it so much that it feels like you created it in the first place, the rewards are pretty amazing. Before you even come to that point when you want to break it down and analyze the heck out of it, you want to hear the thinking, the vibe, the intuitive process, you want to feel and breathe as one with the improviser. To achieve that, you have to listen hard, very intently, over and over again.

As a bass player, transcribing 40 seconds of a saxophone solo makes life very challenging but worth living! It pushes you way out of your comfort zone and forces you to reach the limits of your own physicality. Of course, the immediate payoff is that you build your chops, get around this cumbersome instrument more easily and develop your articulation in a very exhilarating setting. For a few seconds, you play the trumpet like Miles Davis, piano like Thelonious Monk, and saxophone like John Coltrane. Except, you’re doing that on bass, not the easiest instrument for big intervallic jumps and fast runs. Delivery, hand speed, left and right arm coordination, intonation, rhythmic foundation, time feel, all of these are brought into sharp focus and any sloppy move will get you thrown off track in no time. It’s an ordeal to get it right.

Over the last few days, I’ve been trying to cop Coltrane’s opening statement/solo on “Resolution”, from the classic A Love Supreme record. What the hell has gotten into me? Why not pick a bass solo? There are so many inventive bass players these days to get ideas from. Well, the title is self-explanatory. I wanted to get “inside” that resolution. As an atheist, Trane’s love anthem to God has always moved me profoundly. That deceptively simple line, stated three times after Garrison’s rumbling double stop bass intro, has such an uplifting power it can get you out of your chair on the crappiest day.

Try to nail a saxophone phrase on upright bass without stumbling and see how that feels. I dare you. Before you know it, your hands are racing around the bass and tendinitis is just around the corner if you don’t hold your horses. Believe me, my sporadic morning jogs are a joke compared to the sweat I’m burning off on this. It took me about 10 hours of intense listening and practice to figure out Trane’s phrase right after the opening statement. Another 5 hours to be able to play it through, and that’s still a little choppy. About four seconds of music and countless hours of deep listening later and I’m still debating what fingering works best for that line. To my credit, I’m not using any phone app or transcription computer software that can slow down a piece of music for analytical purposes. So I plug in the headphones and listen, pause, go back, play, pause, listen, over and over again. And I haven’t written one note down yet.

What I think I’m doing though is that I’m tuning into the idea, the intention, the pulse, the drive, the rhythm, the tone, the feeling. The soul. In other words, I’m slowly starting to speak Coltrane’s language, much like I learned to write and speak English. I heard it, liked it, and decided to learn it. Ultimately, the goal is not to break out your Coltrane phrase on your next gig to impress your peers– though it may come up unwittingly – but to channel your influences beyond the natural parameters of your instrument. I doubt I will ever get through the entire Trane solo without impairing my chest and hands permanently but attempting and somehow managing to get a few bars down satisfies my soul beyond words. It’s not just about bass. It’s not just about virtuosity. It’s about expanding your creative horizons by incorporating something apparently impervious to imitation. To use a linguistic analogy, it feels like you’re piecing together a sentence in a language you don’t master yet. When does the sentence begin? When does it end? Is there an ascending or descending pattern in the tone? What kind of verbal process is used here? Do we have a relative clause that links disparate ideas together with well-placed commas, a kind of question and answer phrasing or do we hear a linear movement propelled by one powerful phrasal verb? How does the discourse (the melody) lay in the rhythm? It’s a tighly cohesive band. Everything is organically and beautifully integrated. Stunning. As I fumble my way through Coltrane’s “Resolution”, a melodic line based on an open-ended Eb minor scale, I discovered, I’m exploring a variety of fingerings I didn’t think were possible on the bass. Here’s another reward right there. I get to explore new territory on the fingerboard. Whether or not I will ever use those fingerings again in my own playing is unclear. It will probably depend on how many more hours of diligent practice will be needed for them to feel natural or make sense for one particular song that requires fast and clean execution. But beyond all that, what started off as an ear training exercise has become a more noble endeavor. I’m blowing fragments of a saxophone improvisation by one if not the greatest creator on the instrument, but I’m doing it by pushing air through weathered wood with my fingers.

The greatest lesson – or more accurately the most compelling reminder – I get from this workout is that to play fast successfully, you have to slow everything way down in your mind and body, be able to hear the punctuation, adjust your heartbeat to a snail’s pace, catch your breath in the little silences and imagine you have all the time in the world. For lack of a greater purpose, that’s enough to make my day.

 

The eternal John Coltrane quartet on Resolution

 

PS: My shot at Trane’s opening statement will probably appear on my Low Spectrum Instagram page when I have 40 seconds of listenable bass music together. Check back soon if you’re curious.

Fairly Wired – Skitter (video version)

The holiday season is just around the corner and I’m so glad I can share our new video with you all and give you something musical. I’m also very thankful that we have supportive friends helping out and throwing their creative talents into our band. Thank you my friends. You know who you are. Check out the video and share it if you like it!

 

The Bad Plus, New Morning,Paris, October 16th

To say that The Bad Plus has consistently defied expectations since its inception back in the 2000s is an understatement. When I heard that pianist Ethan Iverson was throwing in the towel for other equally exciting musical adventures, I have to admit my heart sank. Hell, the teenagerish fan in me thought that the world was really coming to an end (is it?) and it would all go downhill from there! The simultaneous news that Orrin Evans was stepping in somewhat alleviated the shock though. After all, I knew Reid and Orrin (may I call you by your first names guys?) go back a long time and had played beautifully together back in the day, particularly in Orrin’s band in the late 90s. And I knew that this momentous replacement would not dent my fandom in any major way. What I didn’t know is how much this change was the best thing that could ever happen to this band at this point of their trajectory.

I’ve seen The Bad Plus over a dozen times in the Paris area, in rainy open-air festivals, dim-lit jazz clubs, and nice venues like the New Morning, and never once have I felt that they were resting on their laurels. Sure, I am a biased fan but given how many times I’ve checked them out, my statistics are pretty reliable.

So, my girlfriend and I made it to our seats in the 3^rd or 4^th row about an hour early, fidgeting with an anticipation that can hardly be described. If my memory is right, the trio started out with a song called Seams, which closes the album Never Stop II. And right away, it all felt familiar and oddly new at the same time. This slow-burner has a sparse melody sitting over a beautiful chord progression, the perfect opener for the seamlessly constructed set that followed. A rubato theme stumbles forward with bass and drums providing contrapuntal foil. It wasn’t the easiest choice to kick off the concert but they made it happen. Geez, these guys can build drama from scratch. I can’t remember the exact sequence of songs that followed, but I know they pretty much covered the new album, with a couple of olds songs mixed in for yours truly’s pleasure. Reid Anderson’s emceeing in French added a humorous tone that spoke to the fun they all seem to have in playing this complex and unique music. On this old favorite of mine composed by drummer Dave King, Keep The Bugs Off your Glass And The Bears Off Your Ass (great title)- Reid soloed extensively and powerfully, making every note matter in Charlie Hadenesque fashion. As Orrin laid out, Dave punctuated his bandmate’s phrases with sizzling enthusiasm and a few vocalized “ha ha”(not sure how to transcribe this) before Orrin reentered to take the tune out.

Finding a replacement for a leaderless trio of this caliber has to be one of the most challenging things to do. This ideal replacement speaks to the musicians’ deep commitment to pursuing their art against ominous odds. It’s amazing to hear that this living organism withstood such a dramatic storm without a scratch. Musically at least. As much as I loved Iverson’s idiosyncratic style, Orrin brings something new and invigorating to the table without altering the essence of what this music is about. It was particularly moving to hear the pianist take on these old quirky Bad Plus songs, injecting his soulful groove-powered lines and still making it sound like The Bad Plus. You could hear the reverence for music he embraced as a listener a long time ago. He probably never would have thought that he would be part of the story many years down the road. The joy, the exhilaration was all palpable, the musicians sneaking smiles at one another, reveling in their newfound chemistry that yet seems to have been there forever. King’s arms flew around the drums in his signature octopus style but never overplayed. On the heaviest tunes, they all have each other’s back, dialed in, making sure that if they’re loud, the others are too. Astounding. By the time they got into Wolf Out, I could have howled my head off if it wasn’t for my natural timidity. As always, the trio shares composition credits equally, as demonstrated by Reid’s announcements between songs. Watching and hearing a band so dialed in to each other, so respectful of each other’s contributions to art in the moment is very uplifting. Reid Anderson’s Trace and Hurricane Birds were magnificent and showcased one more time his versatility as both a great bassist and composer. When the band came back onstage for the encore, they chose Everywhere You Turn off their 2003 album These Are The Vistas. Looking back and ahead to the future. One of the things I have loved from the get-go with this band is the joyful melancholia that radiates from the tunes. To me, it always feels like a comforting balm that says “it’s okay, we’re screwed, but, listen, we’re are going to be okay”. It’s not a bad feeling.

The Bad Plus has a new album out, Never Stop II.  Get it now. And go hear them live whereever they are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Merely this, and nothing more

Ghosts, by nature, are hard fellows to get hold of. Their presence can be haunting and pervasive but good luck catching up with them over coffee. They seem to be here and not here at the same time. A revered musician among his peers, pianist Craig Taborn has played on so many recordings by himself and other jazz/avant jazz musicians that the “ghost” moniker some of his friends sometimes refer to him as seems to be a bit of an overstatement. The man keeps a low profile and doesn’t seem so much interested in cranking out albums for self-promotion’s sake as in experimenting with various musical settings that fit his eclectic aesthetic inclinations. So when Taborn does put an album out, you’d better catch the ghost while he’s around because the music is likely to deliver on and defy your expectations.

One would be hard pressed to define the basic characteristics of ghost music. ( And now the Ghostbusters theme is stuck in your head, I’m sorry!) On his recent quartet release Daylight Ghosts, Mr Taborn displays his penchant for ethereal yet deeply grounded music. The composer/improviser is arguably one the few voices in jazz who can successfully bridge the gaps between such polar opposites as underground Detroit techno, contemporary classical music, Midwest punk rock, Sun Ra and free jazz, without the listener realizing immediately that those influences are actually there. As on his previous albums, the composer favors the transient spaces where the music seems poised to go in one direction and ends up going the other way. His deep involvement in intricate rhythms, shifting time signatures and heavy intoxicating grooves is all in evidence here. For this endeavor he convened a fitting cast of like-minded friends featuring Chris Speed on tenor saxophone and clarinet, Chris Lightcap on double bass and electric bass and Dave King on drums and electronic percussion. This modern jazz album has all the makings of a spacious ECM record straddling the worlds of classical modern music and contemporary chamber-like jazz. Taborn’s voice is particularly strong as a compositional presence, his piano playing often geared toward arranging the music at key transitional spots and setting heavy left hand bass grooves to shift gears between the sections of a song. The 9 tracks flow together in one seamless suite of through-composed themes, free-form blowing and recurrent patterns picked up by each instrument at various spots. With such titles as “Abandoned Reminder” , “The Great Silence” or “Phantom Ratio”, this is the work of a major jazz composer who strives and successfully assembles apparently disconnected elements into one cohesive piece of music. The opener The Shining One sets the tone of the album. Speed states the serpentine theme once, Lightcap steps right in to provide a contrapuntal groove and Taborn builds on the thematic material before Speed reenters and states a longer version of the theme in unison with Taborn.  And then they all move into collective improvisation. This process pervades the album and works well as it gives a creative opportunity for the musicians to steer their instruments from their usually prescribed roles. Bass and drums have no monopoly over timekeeping and the beautifully crafted melodies segue organically into improvised sections where the collective whole is greater than the sum of its parts. On the title track “Daylight Ghosts“, Taborn locks into a 5/4 meter groove that he maintains throughout the last section of the song while a new theme surges on top and carries the song through. Evidently, Taborn enjoys this compositional idea as it occurs repeatedly here as well as on his much recommended trio albums, especially Chants (with Thomas Morgan and Gerald Cleaver, 2013, ECM) “The Great Silence” has Speed fluttering around on clarinet like something out of Prokoviev while the others come in and keep things simmering and sparse under the surface.

Nothing gets too intense on this album as ghosts are not the boisterous type. However, the subdued intensity is there, lurking in those melodic fragments and beautiful silences. “Ancient” starts off with a short bass solo leading into a collective cat-and-mouse chase, finally building into a techno-like anthem gone off-kilter. “Subtle Living Equations” is a feature for Taborn’s beautiful harmonies floating in an enveloping ether. “Phantom Ratio” brings the album full circle, Speed intoning a brooding chant as if coaxing over the other musicians, ghosts in their own right. Taborn obliges with a techno-ish groove on a spooky synthesizer, later joined in by King and Lightcap complementing the rhythmic foundation with unexpected counterpoint.

It is unlikely that this quartet will ever perform this music on stage. After all, you can’t just call ghosts and expect them come right in. But be sure to get this album and another favorite of mine, Chants on which the song “Speak The Name” has been driving me crazy for months and I can’t seem to fully understand why it is so good.

Craig Taborn, Daylight Ghosts,  2017, ECM

Craig Taborn   Piano, Electronics

Chris Speed   Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet

Chris Light   Double Bass, Bass Guitar

Dave King    Drums, Electronic Percussion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where it’s happening

 

I woke up this morning (sure, around noon but I work nights, you know) and remembered a recent conversation with friends, which gives me a chance to drop a long overdue post on wellyouneedit. Ok, asked recently by longtime New Yorkers where to go hear some jazz in the Big Apple, I mentioned a few places, clubs and bars I’d heard of as well as the more hallowed historical venues. Ironically, I’ve never actually checked them out myself as I live in Paris, which also has its own jazz “scene”. So Smalls, Mezzrow, Fat Cat and the like are all pretty much good-sounding music fantasies in my mind, occasionally glimpsed on Youtube when nerding out on today’s musicians improvising after hours. To most people, including those who will half-heartedly admit they like “some jazz”, the music is mostly a defunct museum of long deceased people. Which is an interesting oddity as there are a lot more jazz musicians today worldwide than there were back in the golden age of jazz. The reasons they mostly fall off the radar of the cultural media are complex and difficult to pinpoint and I don’t want to get involved in this discussion.

However, I’d like to say this. The classic oneliner “jazz is at its best live” is still relevant today, and even more prominently I would say. In fact, it may be the only reason the music has survived and shape-shifted so much to this day. Because there is a slew of music lovers and performers committed to pushing the art form forward.

But going back to my New Yorker friends, I thought to myself, there is nothing really new about this. It’s always been hard to know where to go for good live music. Outside the well-advertised (not always advertised actually) top acts, catching a jazz show without anyone tipping you off can be challenging. You might see a familiar name in a leaflet or online magazine and decide to check them out, only to discover that the concert is cancelled or rescheduled. The music hides and its takes some tenacity to get anyone interested in looking for it.

Pianist Ethan Iverson recently spun off his popular and erudite Do the Math blog with a Do the Gig column (sign up here to receive the newsletter: https://tinyletter.com/ethaniverson) reviewing gigs happening in New York city. Here’s a screenshot I lifted from his blog. There are a lot of names I’m not familiar with but there are also big names that remind me how vibrant and diverse the music is. Given time and a little prompting from like-minded friends, I may engage in a similar endeavor some day, listing the acts that drift up on my local radar. Sometimes, you just have to get out – weather permitting – and hit the grimy streets like a hungry hound. You never know, you may stumble on something really, really good.

By the way, if you’re in town this Friday, our trio Fairly Wired will play at la Mairie du 3ème arrondissement, Paris. It will be cold outside. But we’ll make it warm inside.

Come out!

Info here:

https://fr-fr.facebook.com/events/145907389404023/