Concert # 2 “Pizza Express” London

Martin Gjakonovski, Lenny White, Mark Sherman, Bob Franceschini

Last night we played our second concert of the tour at “Pizza Express” in London’s Soho section. The music is growing as we dig in more and more. We did have an unfortunate problem at the airport in Cologne as we checked in for our flight. Martin Gjakonovski has been living in Germany for 20 years, but he has a Croatian passport as that is his birthplace. Well because Croatia is not part of the European Commission it is a real problem for him to enter London wither a special visa. My manger, and tour manager for this tour got the work permits for us all, but Martin’s visa had to be treated very carefully because of this problem. Well we got to the check in counter, and they would not give Martin his boarding pass, as something slipped by in the processing, or the airline did not know what they were doing regarding this matter. They said because his visa, and work permit were not stapled to his passport, he would not be permitted to board the plane in Cologne, as they would just send him back to Germany when he arrived in London. As I said in my last blog about the Germany gig, the stress level can really rise when situations like this occur, and it sure did. We were freaking out, and the airline is not in the business of making it easy for the passengers. We were flying on Easy Jet airlines, which really ought to be titled “Difficult Jet”. Of course if that was the name, nobody would buy tickets, so they lie and call it Easy Jet. Subsequently Martin was unable to come to London and make this concert. We arrived at the hotel in London 3 hours before the sound check after a very stressful check in, and I had to sort out a bass player for the gig. It was real drag as Martin has had the music for months and after the first gig he was deep in the music and the band was bonding. Anyway we got bass player named Arnie Somogyi. He did a great job and we made it through the concert ok. Actually it was really burning on the second set. It got to that comfortable place that we need it to be. The club is great, they treated us very well, especially as they understood what we had just gone through. These types of problems can happen, and I have learned over the years on the road that you must remain calm, and not allow it to raise your stress level too much, but it is very tough to control sometimes. I was quite aggravated with this problem, and of course Martin I am sure was devastated that he could not make the second concert. Anyway we made it through alright, but I must add that since the world trade center was bombed the world has really changed for the worse. Traveling is just become so stressful. When they search me sometimes I get the feeling that they are going to stick their hands down my pants. It is really annoying, and an invasion of privacy. The world has really changed!!

Beautiful Italia

 

The Great Percussion Explosion Recording Session

Mark,Lenny,Jammey

Today I played a recording date for Chesky Records in a church in Brooklyn. It was David Chesky’s idea to put Lennie White, Jamey Haddad, and myself together for a recording with all percussion instruments, and drums. It was quite an experience. Lennie White whose playing I have admired since I first saw him with Chic Corea, and “Return To Forever” many years ago, was really great to work with. Additionally Jamey Haddad was also incredible to work with. We played together years ago on Howard Shore’s film score for the movie “The Score”. Jamey is a master world percussionist. My set up was the classical percussion mixed with some groove percussion, as well as playing the vibes which is what most know me for these days. Lennie played what Lennie always does, and that is to play the drums with great feeling, and expertise. The session was recorded with the audio file technique that has made Chesky Records the label it is today. In front of our set-ups was two heads of dummies(pictured below, which contained one microphone in each ear, used to achieve perfect surround sound in a headphone mix, and then there was one super duper microphone in the middle. The music was totally improvised, and created in real time using themes for each piece. Themes like Tranquility, Peace, Battle, War, Water. We used these different moods and words to define the direction of the music. Pretty amazing stuff came out of it, as we were all able to bond beautifully and create something different. This was a far cry from any session I have done in my life. Much different than the jazz sessions I have been doing as of late, but lots of fun. I admire Dave Chesky for stepping out of the ordinary formats, and trying something quite a bit different!

MARK ON LENNY WHITE'S DRUMS

Play back and Iphoning