harbor in the sky

i'm trying to stay awake during a layover in phoenix, a place i try to visit as little as possible, en route to minneapolis. it's been two years since i was in the homestate. last time i was here, our newly-adopted dog tesia, who we weren't sure about keeping due to her periodic freakouts, was giving birth to those amazing nine pups that graced our lives with spit and poo that fall. noni, the ninth, and her mama are doing great now and in fact we just celebrated her 2yr birthday with a couple of meaty bones.

i just confirmed what my student heidi told me a couple days ago: josef zawinul is dead. funny how few of my musician friends neither knew of this or came out and told me. september 11. tomorrow i have a gig with swingblade, my old jam trio and methinks we oughta at least attempt a mild butchering of "mercy, mercy, mercy" in the old boy's honor. i always dug that guy, esp. some of the live cannonball adderly recordings where the vibe is so greasy, the audience so ecstatic, the color so BLACK and here's this old austrian MF of a keyboardist on rhodes dishing out soul scoops of sound; funky, subdued.

tasty tasty tasty.