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Paris and new TRIO recording with John Betch 

I am fortunate to say that Paris has become a home away from home in the past five years - a place to get away from New York and a place to do creative things.  I first visited there with the Either/Orchestra around 2004.  Years later my wife and I spent a summer there cat sitting - no joke!  It was during this trip that I met the amazing bassist/composer, Nicolas Moreaux. 

Nico and I have since made two records.  The first being Belleville Project, on Sunnyside records, which featured our friends RJ Miller, Robert Stillman, and Piere Perchaud, and was made possible by the French-American Jazz Exchange Grant.  We later made a very fun, very spontaneous duo record called Rose Rocks EP.

In August I returned to Paris and called Nico into the studio with the great jazz drummer, JOHN BETCH.  John and I had a connection through Steve Lacy (With John I once played a three-soprano sax tune on a memorial concert for Steve - the other two sopranos being David Liebman and Joe Lovano!)  John has played with "everybody," including Steve, Mal Waldron, Dewey Redman, Archie Shepp, etc.  When we rehearsed he had been in Italy the previous day with Benny Golson.  When I put a Pharoah Sanders tune in front of him, he humbly mentioned that he had played the tune many times with Pharoah!

More on this later, but for now I'll say that John has such a beautiful spirit - it was a pleasure to hang and play with him again, and a huge honor to play a few of Steve Lacy's pieces.  We shared some truly spiritual moments in the studio.

Now to mix and get this thing out!

More to come...

J

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