January brought with it the winter NAMM for which I only attended the first two days as I think I value my hearing and my sanity a little more than the four day attendees.
I followed that up with a masterclass at LAMA in Pasadena which was short and sweet, and then took a few days break at my place in Hollywood before coming back to NYC for the madness.....
Couple of hits with Mike Stern in early Feb followed by a tour of Japan with Takanori Niida and Tomo Fujita. It was great to finally go to Japan for the first time, and to eat some of the greatest food known to mankind!
The schedule was nuts though. We played every night we were there, and then I flew back on a monday morning from tokyo via San Fran, got into JFK around 11pm, home around 12:15 am, did laundry for a couple of hours, and then jumped in a cab straight back to JFK to leave on the road with Mike Stern to Mexico. I think our flight was at 7am or something so by that point I hadn't slept in about 2 days and was feeling the burn. There's nothing like going on tour with one of your heros to a really warm and sunny place with great food to wake you up though. We played to a packed house the next night in Guadalajara, and the flew to Mexico City to play two nights at Club Zinco which was fantastic. Some of the best audiences I've had the chance to play for.
As soon as we were done I got a great break in Cabo with my lady for a week before heading back to LA.
Jojo Mayer was in town in LA at the same time as me so we got together and performed on this clinic he had booked at west LA music. And I also had a chance to hook up with some local musicians for a session while I was in town too - Dennis Hamm and Eric Valentine.
I headed back to NYC in the middle of march to work some more on an album I'm producing for Justin Vasquez, and to give a couple of clinics and do some hits with my own band, with Violinist Christian Howes, with Sax player Bob Reynolds, and with the band Sveti.
March ended annd April began with a one off in LA, a quick in and out trip with red eyes galore. April was pretty quiet on the whole, a few hits at the 55bar with Ada Rovatti, with my band, and with Sean Nowell, and some things in CT with Damon Grant and with the Bombsquad.
Back to May in the beginning of May to play on a few cuts for the new Jem album, a mastercalss at MI, and even a night off to catch a Dodgers game! dodgers beat the mets 6-5 I think.....
As soon as I got back to NYC I went straight into the studio to make a record for Ada Rovatti with Randy Brecker, Adam Rogers, George Colligan, Christian Howes, and Obed Calvaire which was a lot of fun.
I'm currently finishing up the acoustic side of Justin Vasquez's album with three days of mixing this week, and then we're tracking the electronica side of the album next week with Jojo Mayer and Deantoni Parks which will be totally out of control!
Well, this has been my first blog. I'm sure I'll get around to writing about something besides the schedule and alll the madness, but that does occupy quite a large portion of what's going on right now.
Lots of cool gigs coming up including a trio gig of mine with Adam rogers on the 26th of June at the 55bar.
So keep checking the blog, and the myspace page www.myspace.com/janekgwizdalaproject for all the latest updates.
Easy,
Janek
4 comments:
Hey Janek!
is there any record of you playing with Dapp Theory? i really would like to hear it!
Adrian.
I think there were a few bootlegs made while I was playing with them, and I know we shot a couple of videos, I'll try and track them down.....
great! thank you very much! if you found something please let me know!
how do you make the time, mate?
blogspotting frequent flyer lounge style - good they have wifi there, right?
well, you must be on the radio road now or something, starting out way west.
hope the fedexers had your shit together.
all well here, lotsa life happening.
catch up soon,
b
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