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my last entry being a week before our concert, it's only fitting this one be a week after.

regarding said concert, it was immensely satisfying on many levels. sure, it would have been nice to have more people there but for a wednesday night it was quite respectable; we paid for the room and everyone walked with a couple bucks. not like any of us are "in it for the money" but nice to get some anyway. me? i'm in it for the mad groupies that flock to comprovisational music. i could barely read my charts for all the gently-worn bras and panties gracing the stage! ahem. anyhoo, the recording turned out well and it rocked.

last night went to see mike doughty and his band. last time he was here was just him and "scrap" on cello. this was a four-piece and was solid and fun, though he seemed overly grumpy. it almost became danceable but never quite enough to move the head-bobbers into action. at one point a woman gently approached the stage to say or request something and MD was cruelly dismissive, which changed the whole vibe of the room in a not-so-good way. that kinda bummed me and my friend talia out, but oh well, not my problem.

lesley left for the UK last tuesday. she was planning on going at the end of the month but sped it up due to some concerns she's had about some numbness and tingling in her extremities. being a british citizen, she still gets free care over there so took full advantage of it with a comprehensive blood test. now she has to wait for that to come back and take the next step(s). could still mean she's gone for a while, or may be back next week. our hunch is that she impinged a cranial nerve, possibly from doing so much yoga, but it's nearly impossible to self-diagnose these things. i'm just glad she's getting it taken care of, as the symptoms have been freaking us out this past month.

ma and pa will be rolling through next week from phoenix back to minneapolis. the snow birds have been flooding our sleepy town the past couple weeks. they're going to come to my students' recital and it'll be nice to see them, even if lesley won't. i don't think i'll get up to MN this year, but won't rule it out. i do want to go next year as its my 20 year HS reunion; not having attended any of the others, this one seems worth it somehow.

i've been pondering the possibility of going to japan this fall, but am having trouble with the cost. there's a trip organized by 10,000 waves that sounds delightful (hot springs, northern mountains, rustic villages with no white people, sake) but would be roughly $5K for only ten days. i do want to go somewhere, though, just not sure. in mid-may les and i are heading back up to valley few for a couple days. got a cabin already reserved and will hopefully see dapper dan as well.

gGg

It's an overcast wednesday morning in the fe. Got a delicious opportunity to catch up on sleep and am in the preparatory throes of our upcoming concert in one week. This will be a stellar lineup and the first time this sextet will be heard (maybe the only?). I've been sketching a lot of ideas out, utilitizing the DUH! realization that's crystallized so clearly these past couple weeks: notation! Now, seeing that this particular concert will also feature two other composers, i'm not going overboard or anything (especially with the ONE rehearsal we'll have), but damn it feels good to write out those neat little black dots again. I realized, since my last post and two more concerts i've taken in since, that it's quite clear that i need to be writing again. i've been doing the pure improv thing now for several years, and while it's beautiful and not in the least getting discarded, i need structure. the three concerts of staggering inspiration have been rez abassi's organ trio, andy milne & dapp theory and the stunning claudia quintet; the last two from this past weekend. all had kick-ass compositions and puh-lenty of improv. DUH!

One of the primary things i'm doing now is providing purely rhythmic heads; cued junctions where we can come together out of the ether, nail something together, and then float back up again. music is the shizzit.