March 2010

It was nice to play the Fresno Jazz Festival again at the beginning of February. I hadn't been there for a few years, and it's a really nice little festival. I performed there with the New El Dorado Jazz Band and for a sample watch the video to the right.

I personally think the band is fantastic and it includes people I enjoy playing this style of music with. But just because I really love something doesn't always mean the crowd is going to take to it. So I was pleasantly shocked and delighted when the band went over like gangbusters! Our sets were packed and our new CD sold like crazy - people really seemed to enjoy this band as much as I do.

Incidentally if you'd like to hear a sample from our new CD and/or get your very own copy, click the buttons to the left. The "play music" button will give you a sample of the band playing "Salty Bubble", and by clicking on the album cover, you'll get the info on how to mail order the CD.

If you'd like to see more videos from our weekend in Fresno, visit: http://www.youtube.com/SFRaeAnn
Just do a 'search' for New El Dorado and February 6 and they'll all come up!

Playing "Linger Awhile" with the MKG (expanded) trio at the Fresno Festival.

Also at the Fresno festival, I had a few trio sets with Marc Caparone and Georgia Korba. We weren't really sure what we were going to do with these 'special' sets and so we started asking a few people if they wanted to come and join us. We had to start calling it the "mathematically challenged" trio because we had some really great people joining us for the fun of it! This included Dave Kosmyna on piano, Ray Skjelbred on Trombone, and Chris Tyle on Clarinet. At one point I think we had ten people in our 'trio'. Fortunately Rae Ann captured some of the sets on video and posted them on youtube as well. Just search for MKG trio and February 6!

Mid-month I played the benefit concert for the people of Haiti at the Belly Up Tavern with jug band legend Jim Kweskin and guess what.....? I have photos!! There were a couple professional photographers documenting the night so I finally have some nice shots of me playing with this fantastic band:

(l-r) Benny Brydern (his hands), Jean Sudbury, Padrick Pepper, Jim Kweskin, Bob Siggins, me.

Closing out the month, I played a Benny Goodman tribute show with Allan Vaché, John Cocuzzi, Marc Shane, Terry Blaine, Hal Smith and Marty Eggers. Wow - I'm still buzzing just thinking about it! I got to pretend to be Allan Reuss for the night and the two hour program seemed to last about 5 minutes. It was so much fun playing with all of those guys and I didn't want it to end.

This month comes in like a lion as I travel up to Monterey to play the traditional jazz festival with the International Sextet. I'm really looking forward to this because I'll get to play with Anita Thomas AND Kim Cusack - two of my favorite reed players. And having Hal Smith, Carl Sonny Leyland, and Clint Baker with me in the rhythm section is going to make my job really easy and really fun! Hopefully we'll get some photos and/or video that I can post next month!

Thanks for dropping by! – Katie