Saturday, October 8, 2005 Forli, Italy

Greetings from Italy. It is 5 AM, and we are driving from Forli to the Czeck Republic. Last night the Yellowjackets did a live recording and video shoot to commemorate 25 years as a working band. Hard to know, but I think we got some great video and audio representation of what the band is doing today.

It was interesting to revisit some of the older Yellowjackets tunes and play them with a conception more in keeping with the band’s current philosophy. The tunes stand up pretty well 25 years later, and with a new treatment, work rather nicely.

The rest of the repertoire on this project consists of tunes spanning the last 18 or so years of Jacketdom. Most of these we have been playing for a while, and the band was able to get loose and find some other pathways.

Tony Zawinul, (Joe’s son) was the director of the video shoot. He had a full-blown crew of 15 with three cranes and cameras flying around every which way. It looks to be a very interesting video of an extremely high quality.

Gerard Albo did the audio engineering, and is recording all the concerts of this three week tour. We’ve got some great versions of these tunes as well as some other tunes. What a luxury to record every night when you are doing multiple dates. The music really gets to breath, evolve, and grow into a more mature state.

It was such an amazing learning experience to do this video shoot and watch it unfold. We were able to do two shows, playing the same 8 tunes two times. So many factors were at play simultaneously.

The acoustics of the room, the interaction of the four of us, our individual performances, and unforeseen events (technical glitches, feedback, a monitor that suddenly went out) all contributed to the flow (or lack thereof) of the music. At times the music swept us all along and had a life and momentum totally separate from our individual efforts. What a great feeling when this is in play! There were other moments when things did not go as smoothly, and we had to jointly navigate things back on track without forcing too much. The fact that each performance is so different makes one quite vigilant and attuned to what’s going on. I didn’t really feel like I was playing so much as being part of a larger force that moved on it’s own. Selflessness at it’s best!

The challenge for me was to hit the stage with a clean slate, no expectations, and surrender my will to the ensemble and the environment at hand. Get out of the way of the music, so to speak. When this happens you are able to play things like never before, and put the notes together in a totally different way. The equivalent of having a conversation with flow and spontanaety, focus and reckless abandon, emotion and intellect.

The DVD portion of the project (due out next June) will contain the live concert, interviews with band members past and present, and footage of us touring through Europe. You will be able to get a real feel for how a band of this stature and intimacy co-exists on the trail. Perhaps useful information in an era where things are moving so fast, and bands don’t stay together for very long.

There’s nothing quite like playing every night to get the machine oiled up. I find that I’m trying to blow a little easier and be lighter with the fingers in the name of playing with more of an articulate vibe and general ease of execution. It seems to help, and my lip doesn’t hurt as much at the end of the day. Also leaving space is a big focus lately in my improvisations. This definitely seems to help in terms of the conversation between musicians.

The bottom line is: Keep at it, try new things every chance you get, and keep your radar on and vigilant for inspiration and interplay in music and life. Strive for tone, we like to say