Hi Gang-
Well jazz Fest has been over a week now and I have finally got almost
back to normal. Julius and May hit town on Weds b4 the last weekend and it
was good to receive them both at last. We got home and had a couple night
caps and went to bed early. On Thursday I had to shoot video with Michael
Murphy Productions at the Sprint Stage and we had a great day of music there
with Greg Dawson (the Human Sax Section), Leigh Harris (Lil Queenie),
Lucinda Williams, and Lil Band of Gold. I could not catch the Sonny Landreth
set at House of Blues syage but I heard it was stellar. That night I had to
high tail it to JukeBox and with Julius and May in tow we had Julius'
friends The D'Amphibians on the show with the legendary Hackberry Ramblers.
Diane Evans came by to catch Jukebox with her pals and it was a great show
and we all went out to The Ugly Dog for cocktails before rushing home to
catch a few hours before fridays schedule (some of us that is).
On Friday I was back at the Sprint Stage (aka Stage One) for Curtis
Pierre and Casa Samba, Peter Holsapple, Keb Mo, and Galactic. I managed to
borrow a gold cart and catch some of Paul Simon at the Acura Stage (AKA
Stage Three) and he played Late in The Evening and Rhythm of The Saints.
Rushing again to drop Julius and May off at Checkpoint Charlies for the
D'Amphibians set, i then hauled ass to the Ugly Dog to do a set of my own
with Kevin and some other pals. Diane Evans came along with her friends and
the ever popular Willy The Shake also came by and sat in with me on a couple
of tunes as well as a couple on his own. Before we knew it the D'Amphibians
showed up with entourage to perform their own set and we danced and partyed
into the night. Rushing home again sleeping fast I was off to the Jazz Tent
for a day of shooting video with Leah Chase, Ellis Marsalis (with son Jason
on drums and Delfeayo on Bone), and an all star tribute to Louis Armstrong.
My family showed up a little after 3pm and they gave me permission to go
catch Dave Matthews, something Julian and Mikey and i have been planning for
weeks. 160,000+ people showed up with the same idea and it was a bitch
getting to the front of house mix position to watch the show. It took us
about 35 minutes to walk all of 300 feet but we finally made it and the only
dissapointment was tat Dave DID NOT do Julian and my fave track from the new
record, The Space Between. Jeff his FOH engineer had one of the best mixes I
have EVER heard at a Jazz Fest including my own. Julian had tons of people
in the area amused with the fact that he knew the lyrics to most of the
tunes DMB played. Paul Simon sat in with them and did Me and Julio and the
ever popular Lenny Kravitz sat in on All Along The Watchtower. The band was
smoking and Dave was in great voice. After a late load out till almost 9pm
(show was over at 7pm) I had to haul ass to the Govt Mule show to do a multi
track recording for Warren Haynes. Julius and May and a whole bunch of
friends showed up for the show and we all hung out on the side of the stage
for a wonderful two sets of music.
Sunday (with ass now dragging big time) I headed off to the Gospel Tent
for another full day of shooting. This was the roughest day for me cause the
line up was back to back with 10 min breaks. I don't know how our camera
guys did it, but we did. Aaron Neville was the highlight of the day even tho
he only sang to track, but hey he's Aaron Neville. I was loaded out with the
video crew by 9:30pm and off to meet Julius in the quarter at a friends
hotel where we knocked back a few beers and then headed off to the SuperJam
show at the Saenger Theater. I managed to get about 6 people in the show
with us and it was unbelievable. Me'Shell on Bass and Vox, John Medeski on
Organ, my boy Carter Beauford on Drums, Mark Ridot on guitar, Bill Summers
(I think) on percussion, and the great Joshua Redman on Sax. The music was
fabulous. I wish I coulda stayed all night, but I was beat and had to crash
cause I was still faced with two more days of private shows with the Neville
Brothers at Mardi Gras World on Monday and Tipitinas Ruins on Tuesday.
Julius and May got to meet most of the band and hang out with free drinks
and food at a private show and it was a great ending to a great 2 weeks of
music. It was so wonderful to be able to hang out with JMDL friends during
this period altho i wish I would have more time to just chill with them
instead of have two headsets on and be running the whole time. It has taken
me a long time to recover from all this work and party, but I am almost
healed. I am sure I have forgetten to mention so many details, but I am sure
some of the others will be able to fill in some of the blanks.
Next weekend I am off to Florida Springfest for onw more weekend of
solid music. You can check out the line up at http://www.springfest.net/ . I
leave right after Jukebox on thursday night and wont be back home till late
Monday night. I am getting too old for all this running around, but it sure
is fun. I wish you ALL could have been here with me. Hope everyone is well.
Love
Paz (off to bed early again)
