February/March

I've been hounded a little for not updating this thing.... So I'm going to try to give you as much as an update as I can... But for those of you that have been hounding me, how come I don't see your names in my followers list??

Well... I'm guessing I should start from today and go backwards, since my most recent activities are a bit clearer to me now... First off, I guess I should say it's 3:32am now and I am basically wide awake.. Which is due to my most recent Oceania Tour with the Mingus Big Band. The tour was a zig zag tour that started in Sydney, Australia and then went to Macau, China; and then Wellington, New Zealand. Although I had a good time, I didn't really get to see much. We basically spent 2 days in each city, which didn't give me time.. And because there was so much traveling involved, I was often too tired to get my butt out of the bed to go see the sites... But I did get to see a little...

It was my second time being in Sydney and although my time was limited, I did manage to get out to a nearby beach as well as walk around the town a bit. Sydney reminds me of London. It's very clean and organized. The one thing that disappointed me is that hardly see any aborignie's when I'm there... I think I may have seen 2 this time. The last time I was there the only aborignal people I saw were homeless. I guess I don't think of it as much in America, but I really think about it when I go to a country and hardly see any natives... I think it's pretty insane when I think about how English and European colonization has destroyed so many cultures and civilizations...

On to Macau... We basically had to take a boat from Hong Kong Airport to this Island. The first thing I saw when we arrived at the dock was a huge casino sign for SANDS... It's a huge GAMBLING town! I didn't get to see much of the town until a few hours before we were about to head to our final destination - New Zealand. But I did get a good idea of the town... I ended up going in to the more residential areas of Macau with a couple members of the band. One of them - trombonist Andy Hunter, speaks FLUENT Mandarin (he also MC'd the show..) So we didn't have much trouble getting around and seeing what we needed to... I'll try to post some pics soon....

Last, we went to Wellington, New Zealand... Which basically has the same London/Australia vibe... It's a pretty town though...

Ok... I'm getting sleepy... But before that.... I had my 31st birthday (Feb. 11th)! Yikes! I'm officially in my 30's! And in the beginning of February, I went out to UMKC in Kansas City, Missouri as an artist in residence. It was very special for me not only because it was my first residency, but because I was going to the school where one of my biggest hero's - Bobby Watson teaches.. I basically gave a workshop, and did two performances. One was with a group called Diverse that consists of some bad young cats that are coming out.. Look out for them... Herman Mehari on Trumpet, Will Saudners on Tenor Saxophone, John Brewer on Piano, Ben Leifer on Bass, and Ryan Lee on Drums. The next day I performed with The UMKC Big Band, which was also fun... When Bobby asked me what tunes I wanted to play.. All I could think of were the charts he'd arranged for big band that I always wanted to play... So of course, we played a bunch of them... And had a great time.. I don't remember all of the names of soloist that night. But the pianist and alto saxophonist Michael Shults took some pretty hip solos. There were a bunch of other young cats I got to hear out there... I can't name them all now because I am finally falling asleep... But I definitely had a good time out there and I wanna thank them all for it.... later...