FROM THE ARCHIVES: A gripping blow-by-blow virtual tour with yours truly, from 2023! My 2024 tour was in Europe, my upcoming tour will be in the Galápagos Islands, one of the premier tourist destinations in the world. Ever wonder how musicians make a living? Yeah, me too.
I returned home to Ecuador after a very busy U.S. tour, five weeks long, involving several different groups. I had no road manager and had to arrange all flights, rental cars and places to stay, in addition to assembling the music (different for each project) and keeping myself healthy and sane. Here's the breakdown:
February 28, 2023
Day 1: Fly from Cuenca to Quito to Miami to Pittsburgh. Thankfully no delays. Arrive 10:30 PM and stay at the lovely Omni William Penn Hotel which was partially paid for by the first venue, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild.
Backstage at MCG. Now THAT’s a green room!
Day 2: I had wanted to arrive early because with my international flights I couldn't take a chance on being late for the first day of rehearsal and filming. The gods smile upon me, and I'm able to get my hair done by Tyesha at Loc N Loaded salon in Swissvale. Gotta look good on film so ya don’t end up on the cutting room floor…When I get there an older lady customer is cracking everybody up with her comments on life. Everyone's in a good mood, so this is a favorable omen for the start of my trip.
Dining room at Omni William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh
Day 3: Walk around the neighborhood of the hotel. Sunny and not too cold out. Decompress from the trip a little.
Day 4: We begin filming and rehearsing 5 Women Saxophone Journeys. This project was created by saxophonist Fostina Dixon, my colleague from our early days of NYC. The other saxophonists are Erica Lindsay, who I've known more than 40 years ever since she was in Melba Liston's group; and Virginia Mayhew and Laura Dreyer who were part of my saxophone section in DIVA in the 90s. All great players and composers. The program is all original music and the stellar rhythm section of pianist Alton Merrill, bassist Jeff Grubbs and percussionist James Johnson III provide excellent accompaniment in all the styles: Mainstream, Latin, Gospel, Brazilian, Modal, Fusion, Funk and more.
The band: Fostina, Alton, Erica, James, Virginia, Su, Laura, Jeff
Day 5: All day filming of interviews and rehearsing for tonight's big show in the beautiful MCG concert hall. Tickets are $50. It's sold out. Director (and wonderful guitarist) Marty Ashby, along with the production team of Renee Govanucci, Mark, David and Connor make sure everything runs smoothly. The program was so unusual and varied—and well-played— that the audience goes nuts, standing ovation, we all sign our CDs for folks in the lobby afterwards. Then it's back to the hotel for an unusual late night snack (really--I just don't do that anymore!) with Virginia, her partner Amy, and Erica. Amy's a finance wiz and we end up having a difference of opinion on Bitcoin. I say yes, she says no. Time will tell who prevails! [Bitcoin price at the close of March 2023 was $28,478. Bitcoin price at the time of this update, two years later, is $105,716. –ed.]
Day 6: The saxophones leave Pittsburgh (except me, because I have workshops to teach tomorrow). Plan for today, Sunday: I had found out that shakuhachi master Cornelius Boots had recently relocated to Pittsburgh and I'd invited him to brunch so I could hang out with him.
With Cornelius Boots in Pittsburgh
We eat at one of the trendy locales, then go back to the hotel to play shakuhachi improvs, then we go to a really cool tea house where we have more conversation about shakuhachi and everything else in the world. Then we go to a beautiful park and play more shakuhachi duets outside. By now it's evening and he's mentioned his partner Felicia about a million times so I say I'd like to meet her and he says "Great, let's go to my house." Felicia is super cool and chill about me barging in with no warning and we all have more great conversation and she makes a delicious salad and soup dinner, then more listening to music. CB turns me on to Mark Deutsch, a bassist colleague who invented an instrument he calls the Bazantar which is kind of a combination of upright bass and sitar. [Sadly, Mark has since passed away–ed.] Then he drives me back to the hotel and I crash.
CB and I realize we have similar tattoos!
Day 7: Mark from MCG (who also plays tenor saxophone and is a bandleader) picks me up and takes me to Slippery Rock Univ., where I meet Dr. Jason Kush. Jason had done his doctoral thesis on Francois Louis' instrument called the Aulochrome which is two soprano saxophones joined together in a unique configuration. Its precursor was the "Braithophone", invented and played by George Braith back in the day in NYC, where I used to hear him and sometimes jam with him.
Jason's students are beginner improvisers. They're shy but they ask great questions during the workshop. He's asked me to play some shakuhachi for them and they're fascinated by it. We do some group improv based on my thematic suggestions.
With Jason Kush and his students at Slippery Rock Univ.
Mark drives me back to the hotel, where I rest up for the workshop that evening at Duquesne Univ. with Mike Tomaro's jazz ensemble students. They're rehearsing when I arrive and they sound great, especially the pianist. We open up with a little faculty jam, I make some opening remarks, then we open it up for questions. Because these students are more experienced players, we go into more metaphysical aspects. I forget what I said but I think it blew their minds, whatever it was.
Besides honorariums from Jason and Mike, Yamaha gave me $400 in clinic support. Thank you John Wittmann and Jalissa Gascho from Yamaha!
Day 8: Mark from MCG (thank you dear Mark!) arrives bright and early to drive me to the Pittsburgh airport, where I rent a car to drive to the Poconos. (You can't get anywhere in a timely manner in the Northeast without a car.) I arrive around 5 PM to Kim Parker's house, where she has graciously allowed me to park myself and my luggage for two weeks. Kim is Charlie Parker's stepdaughter and she is full of stories and memories, as is her house. She's a great singer, a reader, a writer, an art collector, a cook, and mommy to a sweet cat named Louie who listens in on all our conversations and makes an occasional comment.
Jesse Green (more on him later) stops by at night, and he and Kim and I have a super hang listening to music and discussing arcane details of jazz and jazz musicians.
Day 9: Kim drives me to Bartonsville where I return the rental car. It's freezing and windy in the Poconos but we walk along the train tracks in East Stroudsburg to a funky hardware store owned by her pal Jimmy, a genuine Poconos character, and hang out for awhile. Then it's back to the house to prepare for the gigs.
Jimmy from Jimmy’s Hardware, a real Poconos character
Day 10: The Pocono section of my tour was put together by the fantastic pianist Jesse Green (son of Urbie and Kathy). When he found out I was coming to the States he insisted on setting up a mini tour with the legendary Gene Perla on bass (the three of us had a group called UFO Trio when I lived there) and adding J. Taylor Leach on drums for a few dates.
Tonight is the Bookstore Speakeasy in historic Bethlehem PA, modeled after a prohibition-era speakeasy, with terrific cocktails and food. It’s a warm-up gig for the tour; Jesse and I play with George Torella, the house drummer. Jesse and I take the opportunity to run over the repertoire we're going to be doing with Gene and Taylor.
Taylor, Jesse and Gene (“Meant 2B Trio”), looking sharp!
Day 11: Jesse picks me up; on the way we stop at his mom's to help her go food shopping, then to Easton to rehearse with Gene and Taylor. After rehearsal we go downtown and eat, along with Gene's wife Sandy. They are in their 80s and they are doing great! I wanna be like them when I grow up.
Tonight's gig is at Lobby at the Lofts in Bethlehem, a super cool home furnishings store with a stage and sound system front and center. The owner is a finance guy who's traveled worldwide collecting objets d'art, including a gigantic 72-inch-diameter gong that sits at the entrance.
Upstairs are Air BnB suites, all different, tastefully decorated and comfy. (The manager gives Jesse and me a tour after the gig--you have to see these rooms to believe them.)
My dear old friend, saxophonist Adam Brenner, sits in with us, sounding beautiful as always. He brings his little dog in a leather bag and parks her on a sofa while we play. She is so cute.
Sorry Adam, I was going to put a photo of you and I here but your dog is cuter than we are.
Day 12: The big day, returning to my old stomping ground the Deer Head Inn, oldest jazz club in the U.S., located on Main Street in Delaware Water Gap. For this gig we're billed as "Su Terry and the Homecoming Band."
The club is full, I get to chat with Denny and Ian at the bar because Jesse picks me up early so we can eat (more great food!) before the club fills up. While I'm talking with Kim and some other customers who were hiking the nearby Appalachian Trail we have the first disaster of the tour–Jesse locks his keys in his car while he's unloading. Several phone calls later help is secured and he's able to get the music out of his car, without which the gig would be difficult as we're doing a very select repertoire: originals, Brazilian, Bernstein, Legrand, Gershwin, etc.
My dear friends Bill Phillips, Elizabeth Crefin and Larry and Cathy come from NYC to see me. My cousin Aaron Dunn drives up from Princeton. LOTS of old friends and fans, including my self-proclaimed fan club president and poet Mike Wetmore, and radio host Steve Krawitz who blows my birthday cover (I don't tell people my birthday) and gets the whole audience to sing it to me.
Jesse, Gene and Taylor play their asses off. The audience is great. And quiet during the show (which doesn't always happen). My homecoming (after 4 years!) really couldn't have been better.
Day 13: Bill and Liz pick me up and we have Sunday brunch at the Stroudmoor with Larry, Cathy, Mikhail and Meri. Then I ride with Bill and Liz to NYC where they drop me off at The Porch in Harlem where my old friends, percussionist Lloyd Haber, pianist/vocalist Mala Waldron and bassist Marcus McLaurine are doing a gig. Surprise surprise, percussionist Warren Smith, our mentor from NYC, is there hanging out so I get to see him too. I play the last set with the group. Lloyd has invited me to spend a few days with him and his family in Long Beach so off we go.
Lloyd's wife Alice is Chinese so they've been to China a lot and have amazing photographs. Lloyd parks me in a massage chair ("I was so mad when Alice bought this thing....now I use it every day!"), gives me a glass of merlot and plays me a slideshow of China with his original music. Then Alice comes home with the two boys Kailin and Soni and we eat traditional home-cooked Chinese food, yum! A little spicy though....
Playing “Killer Joe” with Lloyd and his son Kailin
Day 14: I take the LIRR into Manhattan and meet up with shakuhachi player and maker Perry Yung, who had restored one of my flutes years ago. He looks at my flutes (one of which had developed two large cracks due to the hot, dry heating in the Northeast) and tells me how to humidify them to close the cracks. He gives me strong, tubular plastic bags to seal the flutes while the cracks are healing. We talk about shakuhachi stuff. He is so generous with his time and he won't let me pay him.
With Perry Yung in Manhattan
Manhattan is dismal and cold and rainy so I just go back to Long Beach.
Day 15: In the morning it's snowing on Long Island, but promoter Joel Chriss assures me the gig is still on. It's the Jazz Series at the Masonic Temple in Sag Harbor–quite a distance away. Lucky for me, multi-instrumentalist and entrepreneur Omar Kabir agrees to drive from Brooklyn and take me to the gig. The first half is with my old colleagues Randy Brecker, Billy Drewes and Santi DeBriano who are playing with drummer Claes Blondel and pianist Bill O'Connell. They do a bunch of beautiful original music, then Omar and I come up and we do a great jam with all of us.
Su with Randy Brecker and Billy Drewes. Photo by Barbara Maslen.
Day 16: Day off! It's sunny (but VERY windy) so I walk to an Asian joint to eat, then take a long walk on the boardwalk. Big mistake. I'm all wrapped up, but even so, the exposure to the cold wind gives me a cough that lasts till I get to Texas.
After Lloyd sits with the boys at the piano overseeing their practicing, we go downstairs to his studio to record some shakuhachi with handpan drums. Recording coming soon!
Percussionist Lloyd Haber’s studio
Day 17: I take the LIRR again (but this time I am older and wiser and ask for a senior ticket) to meet up with my old friend, trumpeter Mark McGowan. He lives in the Bronx and I am shlepping a rolling bag, another bag on top, plus my backpack horn case with my soprano and clarinet ON THE SUBWAY. Yes. (Thank God I’ve left my big suitcase at Kim's house back in the Poconos.)
With Mark McGowan
I hang with Mark for awhile then get back on the subway to make my way to shakuhachi master Marco Lienhard's house for a lesson. His record titled Shakuhachi is one of my absolute faves and I had scheduled this lesson with him a month ago, so even though I would have loved to rest for the gig later, I couldn't. I'm glad I pushed through my discomfort and shlepped over to Marco's because he gave me a great lesson and helped me a lot.
I learned shakuhachi during the pandemic, ONLINE with my sensei Rodrigo Rodriguez, so before this trip I had never played the instrument live with another player.
Then it's back to Mark's house because I am playing with Jesse and Gene at the trendy jazz club Mezzrow in the Village tonight. Mark and I head to the Village on the subway, have dinner at the Washington Square Diner, then go to the club. Our set starts at 11 PM, so we get to hear the fabulous trio of Bill Cunliffe, Will Lyle and Tim Horner before we go on. Later Spike Wilner, the owner and a fine pianist himself, calls Jesse and says our show was fantastic and the livestream will be posted on the site soon.
Jesse drives us all back to the Poconos, dropping off Gene, then me, then driving to his own house. It's 3:30 AM.
Day 18: Another gig is scheduled at the Bookstore Speakeasy, but I am feeling like shit and Jesse says I can take the night off and he'll get a sub. (He ends up getting the great Nelson Hill to sub for me so that's cool. My former teacher Paul Jeffrey always said if you have to send a sub, send someone as good or better than you are). I'm sorry to lose the bread but health comes first. I rest at Kim's house.
Day 19: I feel better and after resting during the day, I go with Jesse to a curious venue in Easton called the Lafayette Bar that is listed as one of the top 50 jazz venues in the U.S. even though it's a dark bar with no food....or maybe BECAUSE it's a dark bar with no food. This is our final Poconos gig, and it's a goody. I bide a wistful adieu to Jesse, Gene and Taylor, till we meet again.
Sign at the entrance to the Lafayette Bar in Easton, PA.
Day 20: DAY OFF! I hang out with Kim. She makes REAL corned beef and cabbage. She is a great cook.
Kim serves me breakfast on Bird’s favorite plate!
Day 21: In the morning Kim drives me to the Hertz place in Bartonsville where I rent a car to go to snowy New England. I almost upgrade to a Kia Sportage but the price brings me back down to a Toyota Camry, which ends up being just fine. These next few days I'll be at my stepdaughter Sunny's house, with her boyfriend John and my grandson Alex, who plays bass and piano. (Sunny and John are songwriters and I play on their debut album The Writeful Heirs, as well as on their upcoming album to be released this year.)
SNOW! EEK!
Days 22-24: In New Hampshire I have a whole wing of the house to myself so I set up camp with my horns, my reeds (Sean King from Légère has sent ahead a box of 20), my computer, clothes, paperwork, etc. Now I get to practice, and help Alex with piano, and talk with Sunny and John. Sunny cooks super healthy meals, wow am I lucky on this trip to be fed so well, especially with food being so expensive. Coming from Ecuador to the U.S. is major sticker shock. Plus, it’s freezing!
Day 25: Time to drive to Vermont, where the promoter Wendy Redlinger has offered to produce a house concert for me. MORE SNOW. We go to the Vermont Jazz Center that evening for Bob Stabach's birthday concert and I get to meet and play with the director, pianist Eugene Uman. The bassist George Kaye and I realize we know each other from 30 years ago in NYC. Cats sit in, like saxophonist Carl Clements who runs the jazz ensemble at Amherst and also plays bansuri, so we have quite the conversation. And Eugene is a musical soulmate! We exchange CDs and tentatively plan a future concert of original music, either in Vermont or South America. Or both.
Day 26: We set up for the concert at Wendy's house. I am running a projector connected to an iPhone with images of Japan for my shakuhachi presentation Samurai: Their Secret Life. It's snowing so we don't have as many people as expected, but those present are very generous and I end up making twice as much as I would on a club gig.
Poet Steve Minkin is helping out with logistics. We have a nice conversation and he gives me his latest book.
Day 27: Off to Massachusetts, where my dear high school pal Wendy Cole and her husband Jon Pachter are hosting another house concert for me. Before folks arrive, Jon and I do an impromptu banjo/shakuhachi duet.
I have arranged to have pianist Nina Ott and bassist Chris Lopes accompany me tonight, even though we've never met. What happened is, during the pandemic Nina wrote to me on my website and we ended up staying in touch. I checked out her music and realized how great she is. I knew she lived nearby so I hired her for this gig. I asked her to bring Chris and meet me early at the Pachter's house to rehearse, then it was time to hit. They were stellar!
Conversation about various topics– like ayahuasca ceremonies– afterwards with Jeff Summit, an ethnomusicologist and bluesman from Tufts, and Calín and Elizabeth Carpio, old friends of my husband Johnny who live nearby but have visited us at our house in Ecuador with their son who is a fine young pianist. They tell me that during their visit to our place, when I took him into my studio and we jammed, it was very motivational for him and he’s now a music major at Oberlin.
Jon and Wendy are musicians themselves (I mentioned he plays banjo and sings; she is Director of the Boston Skyline Chorus) so they know a lot of musicians and they have regular jams at their house. My college buddy Chris Watson (who graduated with a physics degree but didn't want to work for a weapons company so his first job was driving a school bus, and then he bought the school bus and he and a bunch of our friends outfitted it with beds and such and drove from Connecticut to California, camping at all the state parks on the way....but I didn't go because I was all about starting my career and I didn't know how I would be able to practice on the bus….”The Bus Not Taken” will be the subject of a future post) came down from the Cape and he brought a bunch of percussion instruments which he played quite well during the after-concert jam.
The house was packed and I also sold a lot CDs and books because Wen and Jon's friends are mostly college professors and the like. The take at the door was $760. I paid Nina and Chris $360 so I made $400 which I was happy with. MUSICIANS: house concerts are where it's at!
Available on Amazon as paperback or Kindle edition
Second disaster of the tour: I did not have a U.S. cell service account but I was able to use Waze to navigate if I set the destination when I was connected to someone's wifi. As long as there were no detours due to accidents, the navigation would continue even after I lost the signal, which would happen as soon as I left the driveway. Somehow, as I'm getting ready to drive to Sunny's in New Hampshire after the concert, I press the button for Vermont instead. After 90 minutes of driving I realize I'm seeing the same signs as I did when I drove to Massachusetts from Vermont. As if I were heading back to where I'd come from. And I was!
I have no signal so I can't change the navigation, and I'm out in the sticks with no all-night stores or anything. In desperation I flag down another driver who appears out of the blue. He stops, but we can't figure out how to connect my phone to his phone's internet. He inputs the New Hampshire address and I take a photo of the directions on his phone. But directions from a nav program are not the same as when someone gives you directions, and it's hard to follow. But on the way I find a mini mart that's just about to close, and the guy says I can use their wifi to connect and reset my navigation. Saved! And I only went 75 minutes out of the way!
Third disaster of the tour: I arrive at Sunny's house but the door is locked. Apparently we had a miscommunication and she didn't realize I was going to drive back that night. So I wake up everyone in the house by ringing the doorbell at 2 AM. Could've been worse I guess.
Day 28: Running errands, picking up stuff at the store, mailing stuff to my courier service (we have no postal service in Ecuador) because I won't be able to fit it in my suitcase. Trying reeds. Packing.
Day 29: Sunny and John have a gig at a local pub so I go with them and sit in. Fun! Everyone else is doing covers. Sunny and John are the only ones doing original music. Go Writeful Heirs!
The Writeful Heirs doing a livestream from their kitchen during a snowstorm
Day 30: Fourth disaster of the tour. I'm all set up to leave through the garage so I don't wake everyone up at 3 AM to drive to the Boston airport, but I can't get the internet turned on to set my navigation (Sunny turns it off at night for sleeping.) So I have to wake her up. She is very gracious though.
In case any of you are saying "why don't you just use maps?" you've got to be kidding me. Drive in the wilds of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, especially at night, using maps? Not possible.
At the car rental return the guy sees all my luggage and instead of me having to shlep everything on the shuttle bus, his co-worker drives me to the United check-in. We speak Spanish and I give him five bucks. Way to go, Logan Hertz car rental return team!
Fifth possible disaster, averted: The Jet Blue flight from Boston to Houston is delayed and it looks like I won't make my connection to Austin. But that flight (United) is also delayed so I end up making it. I even had time to pay $4 for a bottle of water before the flight. Speaking of which, I am shocked and dismayed to see it is now almost impossible to pay cash in the airports. Hello digital identity, digital surveillance, digital money, digital everything. Well at least I still have my analog clarinet.
You can’t use cash in the Houston airport. (Or most airports…except in Ecuador. ) Everything is by QR code.
Peggy Stern, pianist/composer and my longtime dear friend and colleague, is somewhere at the Austin airport waiting for me to call her with my location. Again, I have to ask a stranger for help because my phone can't make calls except on Skype. The guy dials Peggy's number for me and I tell her I'm at pickup point F. One flat. She's with her dog Cleo, a cute border collie mix. That night we go to her granddaughter Mila's school chorus concert and Mila sings a scat solo on Blue Skies that ends with an ascending sequence of 4ths, and nails it! Well I guess it runs in the family since her grandma is Peggy Stern and her grandpa was George Mraz!
Day 31: Rehearsal in the morning with Estrella All Stars, which will be closing the Lulu Fest on Saturday. My dear friend Alex Coke on sax/flute, Suzi Stern on vocals, Peggy, Ryan Hagler on bass (who I know from when he was living in Ecuador!), and Mike Gordon on drums.
Mike Gordon and Ryan Hagler at rehearsal
Peggy plays tonight at the Elephant Room, an Austin jazz stronghold, with a high-powered, funky jazz group led by tenorman/composer Scott McIntosh. The group is really tight and really swinging, and I play the whole second half of the night with them (after I go shopping at REI. It's rainy season in Ecuador and I desperately needed a waterproof jacket).
Day 32: Peggy and I play duo at her steady gig at Milano. The place is full and Alex Coke comes by to sit in, so we rehearse a couple of the tunes we're doing tomorrow.
Day 33: Day of the festival! It takes place in the lovely and modern First Presbyterian Church and we go early to set up. Peggy's daughter Sarka is in charge of food for the musicians and selling merch and tickets. Guitarist Margaret Slovak opens the show with a beautiful set of original compositions. Singer/pianist Emily Gimble, an Austin legend, follows with a swinging set of standards, and Estrella All Stars take the stage for the closing act. We play Peggy's latest compositions, arranged for the group. In the middle Alex Coke and I get to do an a cappella improvised duet that is one of the high points of the night. The group receives a standing ovation! Archival video coming soon.
with Peggy and Suzi setting up for Lulu Fest. No one wears socks in Texas except me I guess.
Day 34: The Austin Jazz Society is inducting Suzi Stern and two other Austin music legends into the Austin Jazz Hall of Fame, at Chez Zee. It's so crowded you can barely move. I'm a little freaked out by the crowd so I take a couple GABAs and a gummy to calm down.
Trombonist Mike Mordecai has put together an all-star group including Peggy and Alex. Suzi does a Hank Williams tune that brings down the house. I play on a few tunes. A successful closer to my tour!
Peggy and I go to eat and drink margaritas at a Mexican place to celebrate the successful gigs. <Two old bitches school young waiter on proper way to greet customers.>
Day 35: Somehow whenever I'm with Peggy we end up going shopping. At Whole Earth Provisions I find a shirt for my husband Johnny and pants for myself. On sale. I never pay retail. If I can help it.
We take Cleo for a walk in the park, then it's time to go to the Austin airport, connecting through Houston. The flight arrives in Quito at 11:35 PM. I get through immigration and Customs and take a taxi to the hostal, about 15 minutes away.
Day 36: Five weeks after my departure from Ecuador, I take the morning flight to Cuenca where Johnny picks me up. I'M SO HAPPY TO SEE HIM. I'M SO HAPPY TO BE HOME. We drive back to our house in the country, about 45 minutes away. My chihuahua cries and pees on my shoes and runs in circles, all at the same time. The two other dogs bark a lot. The cat is like "oh, hey."
Day 37: Chop wood, carry water.
And now for the moment you've been waiting for: FINANCES!
Gross: $6,292
Total expenses: $4,016 *
Net: $2,276
* Travel expenses alone (flights, luggage fees & rental cars) were $2504. If I had had to stay in hotels and buy my own food, I could never have done this tour. Or to be clear: I could have done it but I wouldn't have taken home any money. In fact, the tour might have COST me money.
Two grand ain't much for 5 weeks of hard work and another month of prep time, but it goes a lot further in Ecuador! Thank you to all my wonderful Stateside friends who helped make it a success.
Kim says this was Bird’s favorite book
Talk to your kids about jazz. Before it's too late!
I’ve stopped putting a button that says “Support Temple of Artists” because I don’t want “support,” I want enthusiasm! I want all my readers to feel energized and ready to create and live all their dreams! Why do folks in the arts always use the word “support,” like we’re handicapped or in jail or being held hostage on Tralfalmadore or something? Screw that.
And if you haven’t yet picked up your copy of the book everyone is raving about:
Reminds me of why I stopped touring. The music and people were great, the life and the money sucked. Driving all over the US in a van, setting up, tearing down, dealing with agents, club owners, hotel accommodations, food, lack of sleep, getting sick and still having to play.
On tour with the Decastro Sisters in the 70s, they flew us from L.A. to the East coast and at the end of the gig, flew the singers back to L.A., Peggy's son drove a van from L.A. to Baltimore for the band to drive back to L.A. It was supposed to save them money. The trio loaded all the equipment into the van, then drove non-stop for 3 days to L.A., destroyed the van so they lost money instead of saving money. Chunga's Revenge!
I didn't know you knew Paul Jeffrey. He was Director of Jazz Studies at Duke when I lived in Durham so I got to see him whenever the student jazz orchestra played, always with a superb guest Paul would bring in. I got to talk with him s couple of times about his time with Thelonious Monk. I always appreciated how generous and patient he was w his time, with me.