Quick updates:
1. Recorded new discs w Itamar Erez Trio and Only A Visitor over the summer. You can hear those someday in the future. They sound fantastic and neat.
2. Premiered a suite of music in June with my trio (Jeff Gammon on bass, John Nicholson on tenor saxophone) at Frankie's as part of the Vancouver Intl' Jazz Festival. This music was commissioned by the good people of the Coastal Jazz Society more than a year ago and it was lovely to finally share it. A few of these pieces were recorded at the Chan Centre in July with the truly brilliant engineer Will Howie and you can hear some of those below. I'm hoping to record the entire suite this winter.
3. I opened a secret takeout coffee shop and microroastery in an east vancouver alley in March. Next to music, specialty coffee has been a major obsession of mine for years. This project was a sort of proof-of-concept that DIY is not dead, that poor and working-class people can and should have nice things like really good coffee, and that working-class people don't need venture capital or intergenerational wealth transfer to create fuctional spaces. I believe I've been mildly successful in supporting those assertions, and as music begins to take up more of my time again, I hope to continue running the shop whenever I get a minute. You can find info about that on instagram at @coffeebuscoffeebuscoffeebus or send me a massage or telephone call or whatever.
4. I've scaled back my teaching work to a very significant degree and currently I'm no longer taking on beginner students. I'm happy to pass on contacts for great teachers to anyone looking to get into drums for the first time. Advanced students feel free to get at me and I'm sure we can find some time to get together regularly, semi-regularly or sporadically.
5. Hope everyone is well and very much looking forward to seeing everyone around.