Ballard Jazz Festival dates

I just got my gig dates for the Ballard Jazz Festival in April; I'm making up for my total, shameful absence from the Portland festival by playing two nights as leader. First I'll be playing on the Brotherhood of the Drum night on Wednesday, 4/18, at Conor Byrne. Michael Shrieve will be emceeing (and playing?), along with Kobie Watkins, the great Gregg Keplinger (hopefully playing duo with Rick Mandyke), and my old boat colleague Eric Eagle, who's been doing a bunch of touring lately. Probably one or two other people. Matt Chamberlain and Matt Cameron have each done it more than once, so maybe one of them will be on it, too.

Then I'll be playing the Jazz Walk on Friday, April 20 at the Eagles' Lodge with the Seattle iteration of my Ornette band- Rich Cole and Paul Gabrielsen plus Weber Iago on piano.

Get updates on the festival timing, locations, and more. If you're in Seattle, cumon down and say hi!

Gainsbourg biopic

The film on the life of French songwriter Serge Gainsbourg ("GAINSBOURG: A HEROIC LIFE" Heh.), which was just being released in Europe after my last tour over there in 2010, is about to come out in the US. We'll see if it amounts to anything- the prosthetic nose they slapped on the dude playing the ol' Serge-monster has left me a little... trepidatious...

Anyhow! What an excellent time for me to plug my 2009 Origin CD 69 Année Érotique, featuring his music! It received some good notices and airplay, made several serious writers' "best of 2009" lists, and I built two Europe tours around it. If you're finding the content I'm providing useful, and are looking for a way to support the blog, buying the CD is a good way to do that- it's $15.00 with free shipping. Thanks in advance!

What brought the whole thing up is that Salon has a feature polling some hip/hipster musicians- including China Forbes, of Portland's own Pink Martini- on their favorite Gainsbourg songs. You can go take a gander at it- it's entertaining reading- while playing my own selections in the background...

My Gainsbourg pics-o-the-moment after the break:

I get interviewed

 Oregon Music News' Tom D'Antoni talks to me about my current project outside the Blue Monk:

Saxophonist Bob Mover at Mississippi Studios. Got this with the Lomo. This is an old favorite shot of mine, but I'll probably cut it from the portfolio. 

Mark Turner plays with Matt Jorgensen's group on Origin Record's Ballard Jazz Walk this month.