Traveling

22/10/2016

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A street in Rome, probably Via dei Greci, where the infamous Conservatorio Santa Cecilia is situated.

Jukkis Uotila and Stephan Kurmann sound checking at the Museum Tinguely

Beautiful water basin in the inner court where our hotel was situated in Basel. (Hotel Au Violon)

Getting prepared for our concert at Museum Tinguely

Dear friends!

(The first part was written a week-and-a- half ago!)

While writing this I'm sitting on a train in Italy, heading to Milano from Rome. It has been a great week full of music and new friends in Rome, and the city itself was gorgeous as always! We had a concert at the beautiful Bebop Jazz Club this Tuesday (I arrived the same noon) with Alessandro D*Anna and Francesco Ponticelli, and there was also my dear friend, great pianist Greg Burk sitting in with us, plus a whole number of musicians willing to jam. The following night it was my turn to sit in at Na Cosetta where Domenico Sanna, very well-known and great pianist, and trumpetist Francesco Lento were playing with Alessandro and Leonardo Da Rose (Bass). That was very cool! On Thursday I played some with Alessandro again at the Lettere Cafe in Trastevere. The concert and the jam was hosted by the great pianist Raphael Heudron, who was joined by Alessandro in drums, Francesco Criscuoli on bass, and Nicola Tariello on trumpet, and some other, really good musicians .

After my short visit in Milano area, I will be heading home again for a couple of days, which will be busy with teaching. On Thursday this coming week (OCT27) I'll fly to Zurich and take the train for Basel for a few days full of intense work. It will be a great band with Jukkis Uotila, Mike del Ferro and Stephan Kurmann. Looking forward to that!

November will be mostly teaching in Joensuu- we have at least two concert nights over there at Piimälinna, on NOV 17 and NOV 24, where all my 3 ensembles are performing. That will be fun!!
In the end of the month (NOV 28th)I will be going to Leuven (near Brussels) for a week-long visit at the LUCA School of Arts, and hopefully performing also with my friend Peter Hertmans! In any case I will be performing with the legendary Eric Ineke in Den Haag on Saturday DEC 3!

(From this on written on Monday, OCT 31st)
NOW, after returning from Switzerland, I have to tell that the trip was totally fabulous! I had a great time in Basel! The concert at the Museum Tinguely (Friday OCT 28th) was really cool- audience full of people, and they seemed to love it! Afterwards we had a dinner with our hosts there, the directors of the museum were so kind to come and enjoy the wonderful meal with us. After that gig we rushed our way to the club (Bird's Eye Jazz Club) where we had another two sets of music, and I think we succeeded in both concerts really well! On top of that - we still had one private event that same day - a late-night gig at the same venue for a private group of people.. In the end I noticed I had played 13 hours almost straight - including a good rehearsal, two sound-checks and 3 full (two-hour) concerts! A few glasses of wine were deserved!:)
On Saturday (OCT29) we had also two appointments - first one being a workshop for a private group of people- and still the whole concert the same night. I had a long walk in the city that early afternoon, and really enjoyed the vibe there. Basel is a really lovely city!

Thankful for the amazing work by Jukkis Uotila, Stephan Kurmann and Mike del Ferro! I hope we could work more together in the future!