We're subtle-ing our way along and still trying to show what kind of energy we own. Even though we're sweating, things seem ok. We're playing the right notes, we're having good cross-communication, it's not so bad. Laurence and Ugonna are strong, and we're feeding each other's strengths. In fact I start to project us (in my mind's eye) as maybe like the three kings from the east - each with a gift of gold, frankincense or myrrh. Except there's some drunk at the bar arguing with some other regular and it sounds like it's getting out of hand. It pushes the magi scenario right out of my head and quickly gets louder and louder until and as with one voice the CROWD SHUSHES THE DRUNKEN BAR. Awesome. What could be better? But then, as I end my already interrupted ballad, the owner gets up frantically onto the stage and grabs my microphone and apologizes to the whole room - the listeners AND the drunks AND me.

"There's room enough for everyone to have a good time," says he, "and I just want to make it clear that NO ONE IS BEING ASKED TO LEAVE." He's upset because my listeners are bumming out his rent-payers with their tremendous shushing but he still wants my listeners' money, too. What a bizarre thing to live through - him taking the bull by the horns in the middle of my show looking all harried in beard sweaty red nose and button-down brown sport coat - his left hand crumpling up fliers in consternation and me looking quizzically at the floor, one hand on my cheek like Jack Benny.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later the show ends anyway (to loud applause, thank God). Afterward comes a mob of record-buying well-wishers and four people offering to run & go get their drummer husbands or brothers "for the second set." Well, lemme tell ya' they ain' gonn' BE no secon' set, Jack! Not in THIS jernt!

Saw a big fight in the streets before Izzy's: scowl-faced black muscle frowning in Nikes and stomping on this panicking kid in a red shirt, cowering and thinnish - almost laughing from fear under a van on 2nd avenue - all bystanders and people in a sushi bar just eyeballing, impassive, and saying things like "well, I guess summer's here."

Well, first of all, one month is enough. One month of residency in a town that's more than, say, an hour from your own actual home is enough - especially if you were married only six months before you are scheduled to begin. We've gotten what we came for - good playing time in the city with city cats, a certain following, terrific word-of-mouth in the industry ("A for effort," I'm told), good reviews in the big papers, good vibe, etc. . .

The real proof of the overdue ending, however, is a sprained ankle - a feat accomplished in the catskills coming down a mountain path all by my flatlander self and showing beyond a shadow of a doubt that I should really be getting home before I hurt myself any further. All thanks and good vibe in the direction of Bruce, Carola and Gideon Moor. They came to the rescue - volunteering at the end of a gig where I spent an agonizing night seated and performing with ice bags on the aformentioned aching and forlorn appendage. With them leading in the mountain darkness we go in cars over twisty forest roads to the hospital in Kingston. Two or three hours later & after all the advice, red tape, the x-rays and the gigantic pain and an even MORE gigantic shot in the leg LH & I are on our way out the door with crutches and a bandaged foot. It's now 3.15 am & tomorrow we're due back in the city at the City Wall with Japanese TV.

After an all-too-short night and a quick bite we race back to town to drop off the rental car change clothes for a scheduled 5.30 rehearsal and sound check with Adam Nussbaum. Except that now comes the story about the sound guy from hell. First he sneeringly tells Adam (who's shown up first and who calls me to tell me that) there's nothing doing in re a sound check of any kind. So I call the mgr. who says, all exasperated, "of course there's a check. I told him so!" But the sound guy doesn't TAKE orders from THIS manager, and tells him so in foul smelling language right to his face a little later in front of customers and the bands. It turns out he's been the sound guy in this room for the last FIFTEEN YEARS and right through every club that's come in. He's kinda' psychotic and makes people afraid of him the way a borderline personality will, threatening real and ugly violence behind the sneer of a mere smoke-blowing prick. Plus, he's probably charmed the different owners time and again and made them feel like he knows better than anybody on the planet how this PARTICULAR room sounds (as supposed to, say, ANY professional sound engineer might know just from experience, training, etc.). So, ok, the manager's not strong enough to change things and there's no need for the musicians to get killed. My advice to jazzers is to stay out of the room unless you get a contract IN WRITING to bring your own sound cat with you or else stay out of this club until this guy is gone.

On this night in July 1997 we do not have this option, what with Japanese TV, a roomful of guests, the Jazziz Mag photographer, Makanda Ken Mackentyre ready to sit in & me on yet another chair in icy pain. Plus, it's the only scheduled hit with Adam & we don't want to miss that - he could save us all!

So we decide to ride it out - no sound check & just a talk-down. Before ours there's an "early show" - a musical review called something like "But Mama, I LIKE White Music!!" (I'm serious) which features an all-black ensemble doing medleys of hits from do-wop to disco and included wiggy, costumed impressions of people like Caren Carpenter and Sonny & Cher. (The "cast" often tried to get the audience to clap and sing along, but it seemed only the European tourists complied. On vacation in der Grosse Apfel for the first time in their lives, they weren't about to go without getting their money's worth.)

Two hours later, when we're through with our own roller coaster single set, including tons of surprises, and gifts passed from cat to cat (there's compassion and valor, challenges to joust and round-the_horn flashy passes, there's joking and grandiose operatic posturing, also Ken Mackentyre sits in and honors us in doing so) we make it fine. But I can barely remember the finish of the night's story from shear tiredness. Sustaining the energy of a bulldozer for a month is exactly as difficult as you think it might be. Even on a night when everything comes out great. When will this trip be over?

Just after dinner the next day, LH walks (and I hobble) over to RedJack's. We're tired and kinda ornery. We've given it our best and we're ready to go home, so having to play again in another new joint is a drag. I know that cats in the old days would go on the road for six months or a year and think nothing of it. Ok, it was a tough gig. But then, road high with a band meant that the music could develop over many shows with the same cats in front of some kind of jazz-acquainted audience. Tonight we'll be playing with our seventh rhythm section in a month, in another room used to only God-knows-what kind of sounds, and for people for whom the word "jazz" is probably synonymous with "lame".

Though we set our sights on mere survival, the actual sight of tonight's venue is, to be honest, not very encouraging. You see RedJack's is sort of a painted black metallica-vibe rock joint just on the border of Alphabet City and the East Village. When we walk in all we see are tattoos, black neon shirts or cheap brown denim with silver piercing & a van dyke or two. The place is mostly empty of people, but the cigarette smoke of many crowded nights is pasted to every surface with hundreds of band stickers ("NoseBug", "Blasphemy", "Pig In A Poke", etc). Did I say hundreds? They're everywhere you look - covering doors walls windows shelves the mixing board the bar. Make no mistake: at RedJack's they serve beer and well drinks and there are no chairs. We are wearing suits.

Nevertheless, the manager is cool to us. Unshaved and wearing black Converse All-Stars, he's an old friend of our excellent road manager Robert Singerman. AND he's heard and dug our sides. Still, the set-up is nutty - drums in the middle on a high stand with lights that flash when Yaron plays. The place is still pretty empty when we hit. But all thanks and praise to big swingam Andy Mckee on bass who immediately digs where the fun is and leaps out into the land beyond. HE'S the one who moves the band tonight. He's a fresh horse and also surprised, I think, to have so much go ahead on a singer's gig. He takes us all the way out and we finally do all go screaming away on Herbie Hancock's tune "Hurricane". LH covers the room in freshly minted notes as Yaron stuffs it full of backbeat. After a quick 45 & a few huzzah's we're off the stand for bar-type aftersweat & unscramblification. (The next band gets on dressed like they're on their way to a square dance at Hillel House, so I guess I needn't have worried about LH's Versace. Plus they sound like a spot on the dial where ironic self-conscious geeky retro Vegas sounds splatter with bad jazz & the inevitable David Byrne. Maybe it's "lounge night".)

While I'm still trying to figure, up comes Andy & introduces me to a friend of his - a sweating, gray haired hipster in stripy shirt who claims to have performed with Lord Buckley and given Kerouac his first LSD. (It seems old Jack ran home in tears to tell his wife, "Mommy, they made me take it!!") Also I talk to James Lein from CMJ who is a very nice and knowledgeable cat. LH, too. (He an I are SUPPOSED to go out to dig Ugonna & Jacky T.'s gig uptown, but we're so beat we decide to call it off. It's just as well, 'cause my ankle is hurting and I can barely walk anyway.)
Cab to Bed.

Another hot and useless day with the foot and with sweating. Did get started with chapter three of The Odyssey, though. Maybe I should've started at the beginning of the tour, but I doubt I could've kept up - after all, Odysseus didn't spend time reading while he fought the Cyclops. What could he have taught me, though? Don't leave your wife behind for twenty years & don't piss off Poseidon, I guess.

The last gig, at The Knitting Factory for the NY Jazz Festival, was sorta' anti-climactic. As I say, we've gotten what we came for: some beautiful, generous reviews, a lot of radio support, a little CNN hit. We've made nice with some of the top players in town and learned from them. We've made friends with some club owners and some crowds, too. Except for my damn foot it's been no blood shed. In fact, it's been alright for us. I hope to God the next time we come back everything will be cool.

So last night we got to play it with Victor Lewis and Ugonna, which was beautiful. But there wasn't much stretching out 'cause we only had 45 minutes to make our point. Half the room had split at the 20 minute mark anyway to get good seats for Bill Frissell upstairs. So we just played for each other, knowing it might be some time before we'd hook up again. At least I could stand again to sing (albeit with some stiffness).

And tomorrow I pack the rest of my stuff. (Thank God Jen packed most of it already since I can't walk around without crutches yet - also thank God I married the right girl.) I swear I could sleep for a month but there won't be time - Jen & I are moving back to the South side in five days & we go to Japan the week after, so sleep will have to wait. Oh well. Sleep is overrated anyway. As my long lost friend Denni always said: "It's better to do than not." At least we've done New York. For now.