Go Faster No Fester So Foster

Go Faster No Fester So Foster … July has been a quick sprint of a month, kicking my tailbone from one gig to another, from rehearsal to rehearsal. Its ok, rent will get paid! Actually, I’ll be sad to see July go. Sure it’s been hectic, but fun -- shit, it’s been damn near hedonistic. Some’tet, alone, will have played at least 8 gigs this month, four of them I’d call pretty significant: 1) July 2nd gig at the Lodges on Vashon. Our musicianship that day was kind of muscular -- not what I expected. The plus side result, I guess, from playing in front of a large attentive crowd and being on the same bill with some great, established Northwest jazz artists. But it was also, sadly, our last gig with saxophonist Dianne. 2) On July 13, we played the Earshot Second Century Jazz Series, the most noteworthy gig we’ve ever booked. A small audience turned out, but we played solidly, and there were some top-notch solos from all of us. Next year, I’m planning on getting into the annual Earshot Jazz Festival. 3) One of the first positive upshots coming out of the Earshot gig was meeting, once again, the new tenor sax player on Vashon Island, Kevin Nortness. He came down to see us play, and the following Sunday the 16th he sat in with us at Snapdragon. What an incredible musician! Go to our video page, and you can see him kicking it with us -- and remember he’s never played with us before! 4) Vashon’s annual Strawberry Festival. This year, we gigged prime time! And Some’tet performed as a full six piece with Kevin guesting on sax and clarinet. He and Barry, actually all of us, just ripped it up. We may have started off the first song a bit tentatively, but we wound up going big rest of the way. One song of note, Plywood Winter, was just wild. Untethered I say! There was some serious hoots and cheers after that baby. The nutshell -- this year, July has had a lot of tricks up her sleeve, every few hours she seems to deal out another surprise -- all kinds of surprises from cantankerous to divine. But that’s Ok … we’re improvisers by nature. So thank you July 2017!! Looking forward to what August has in store. Here's an excerpt of the song Plywood Winter.