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Down by the lake... That's France in the background, and the little town by the water between the two large mountains ? - Evian, where the springwater comes from !
A view of the festival along the lake, from our dressing room window.
Left: Adrian Cunningham and myself, sitting on a little jetty down on the lake. Now THIS was heaven. After polishing off big indian curry for lunch, I lay down with my feet over the edge of the jetty and dozed off to sleep.
This is a statue of Freddie Mercury, by the lake. In case you can't recognize the difference, Adrian is the one on the left, Freddie the one on the right.
The Geri Allen Trio, with Rob Hurst on Bass and Eric Harland on Drums. This was the trio for the sax and voice semi finals and finals. - Talking with some of the sax players and vocalists, they all said it was really amazing playing with them. They were certainly killing to listen to. I was sitting in the 2nd row on the end of the judging panel, for the finals of the saxes and vocalists. --
--It was like being back in New York. Last time I saw Geri was at the Village Vanguard at Christmas 2002. Rob is the absolute complete image of the young Ray Brown, (and of course plays just killing as well) and Eric - well, it was amazing. He never played above "mf" (Mezzoforte) during any of the singers numbers, and mostly sat at "mp" (Mezzopiano) the whole time. I told him this afterwards, that I really admired how sensitive he played behind all the singers. He really knew how to keep his playing energetic, yet soft. It's such a difficult skill, not just technically, but it requires a lot of maturity as well, to be able to put your ego and chops and your own 'thing' 2nd, and put the music and/or needs of the singer 1st. Thats one of the big areas of accompanying a singer (whatever instrument you play) that is so vital so have in control - Volume ! Most singers, if they can't hear themselves on stage, can't sing in tune - why? because they actually have to hear their notes to 'make' them. Where as on the piano, if I want a "D", I can still press the note "D" and know that a "D" will come out, or on a sax (although you need to be able to hear as well), you can press the "D" fingering and know that a "D" will come out... But with the voice, (except for the real experienced singers) - it don't work like that. They need to hear themselves. Such a huge percentage of the outcome of their performance is in the hands of the sound man to give them a good sound on stage, and the musicians, to accompany them well. Thats one of the things I like a lot about my drummer Jamie Cameron - he can play all levels of dynamics, yet always keep the energy there. He puts the music first.
