Very nice weather here, about 60 and sunny. I hear it's 14 in NYC and heavy wind chills in New England. I guess this is one of the reasons I came on this trip! Today I'm nursing a sinus-type head cold: achy and stuffy, very low energy. Gonna take a quick nap before the 5:15 bus call to the theater. Tomorrow we leave for Beaufort, SC, at 8 am -- our longest drive yet.

Tonight's the night my students back in CT give their school recital. The Small Jazz Ensemble I coach is being very well looked after by my colleague, Jim Martin. Good luck, guys!

Tonight’s concert in Meridian was a real surprise. We played again in one of those old opera house/burlesque type halls (seating for 1000), this one totally restored and looking and sounding beautiful. We also had a full house, one of the few so far on this tour. People were very receptive and gave us many heartfelt congratulations afterwards in that slow, broad Mississippi drawl.

One day… four states! Whew!

Well, today (1/26/07) represented the longest travel day to date. Luckily, no concert tonight. We left Meridian, MS, at 8 am, and by the time we arrive tonight in Beaufort, SC, we will have entered the Eastern time zone and crossed four states: MS, AL, GA and SC. These aren’t New England-like states either. This is a “12-hours on the bus day,” no getting around it. We had two 15-min. breaks, and a 1-hour lunch break, but that’s about it. My energy has not been real good due to this lingering head cold, and I have taken advantage of every opportunity to rest, stretching out from my seat across the aisle to a vacant seat on the other side. Everyone else has different ways of coping. There are some who sleep sitting up, others whose legs cross the aisle, one guy seats way in the back behind all of our wardrobe stuff hanging there. Sometimes there’s a bunk available if the crew wishes to share with us musicians. My bass rides also way in back behind the wardrobe, safely bungee-corded to the luggage rack.

Anyway, we arrived safely at the Ramada, settles in for the night. See ya... Photos: Steve, the quarterback; a guy, some clothes and a bass...

How can I describe the motel we are staying in? For three nights I might add! Well, to begin with, it is a huge sprawling labyrinth of arms and legs – building extensions with hundreds of rooms on two levels. The parking lot goes all around it, and no matter which doorway you exit you’re always liable to be a long walk away from where you wanted to be, or thought you’d be. When we first arrived, to get to my guest room with all my luggage and my bass, I had to first walk from the lobby down a long corridor into a huge atrium the size of an aircraft hangar, with about 35 of the ugliest ceiling fans hanging 25-30’ above my head, and rotating all the time. At one end of the atrium: the pool, jacuzzi, and a small actual building (like a temp trailer) housing the game room and gymnasium. Atrium isn’t really the right word perhaps – it contained no live plants but instead hundreds of artificial plastic ones hanging from the balcony – kind of faux New Orleans.

Continuing to my room, I had to then go back OUTSIDE and use my key to get back INSIDE the long, dimly lit corridor down which I eventually found my room. Inside, the room was pleasant enough, EXCEPT the real clunker is this: none of the 100 or so rooms bordering on the atrium have ANY view of the outside – you can’t tell if it is night or day, 24 hours a day. The pathetic little square windows atop the atrium don’t let in enough light to significantly change the dingy, cavernous feel of the place. I guess the architects decided that you’d just have to settle for this false idea of “outside.”

OK, so to do my laundry, same routine: outside, inside, walk, walk, walk, outside again and inside to the laundry room. (By the way, one washer and dryer for the entire guest population.) To categorize this experience as Kafka-esque is entirely appropriate: you feel that you are trapped in this huge indoor labyrinth, and hoping to find a way out to the beautiful out-of-doors you finally burst outside, only to realize that in January, in Monroe, LA, indoors and outdoors are essentially… identical!

Photos: the room (not bad)... the atrium (not so good)...

Galveston ,TX to Monroe, LA… Sadly we left the grand old Hotel Galvez this morning en route to Monroe, LA, about a 400 mile drive. Stopped for lunch at the Cajun Cookery, right on the Texas border, for some gumbo, rice, black-eyed peas, and… yup, alligator meat! Man, southern Louisiana is a vast swampland, and along the roadside we passed many depressing looking shacks. As Vito said, we haven’t seen any houses with foundations for miles. A few shacks had Confederate flags flying! Mild weather though, the local HS and college teams were outside practicing baseball, and the sight of thick green vegetation was welcome after so much prairie. I think we saw some of the remnants of damage caused by Hurricane Rita, the one that followed Katrina down here.

At a rest stop just now… Steve, Vito, Eric and I jumped out of the bus and found a grassy field to toss around the football. Only Steve has a really good arm; my shoulder is sore (rotator cuff?) but loosens up after a while (I much prefer the roundball); Vito’s got great hands – he’ll be the primary receiver obviously, but they’ll double team him, which leaves me open in the flat. I think we could beat most traveling bands, easily…

Da crue…

Hey, we have had some very professional theater crews at each venue, and sadly some amateur-ish crews. Our own (supremely professional) traveling crew consists of four, and they are constantly on several cell phones in advance of our arrival in each new city and venue. The tour manager is Pete Dake (Eau Claire, WI) who handles all the lodging, meals, and getting us to the theater each night for an approx. 5:30 pm sound check. He also is the back stage manager – on & off stage, etc. Our tech director is a young woman, Nicole Dessin, from Killingworth, CT. She does a great job managing the diverse theater crews as well as running the actual show. It's not a horribly complex set-up but it does involve stage and video screen set-up and strike, video and lighting cues and a fairly busy stage set-up with 10 musicians and a vocalist, equipment, stands, lights and chairs. We also have an excellent sound man, Charles Trundy from Hawaii, who has to run a 24-channel mix every night in widely varying halls, not to mention 4-5 separate monitor mixes. And then there’s Bob, our incredibly steady bus driver -- 10-12 hours/day are nothing to him! Today, for example, we drove 10 hours from Galveston, TX, to Monroe, LA. Luckily, no gig tonight. These four pros work very hard every night so that we only have to play the music with no worries. And the bunks on the bus are reserved for them, deservedly so...

Photo: l. to. r., Pete, Charles and Nicole. (Hopefully Bob is behind the wheel!)

Greetings from foggy Galveston, TX. Last night we played in the The Grand 1894 Opera House here. Beautiful old theater and a regular stop on the tours of many artists, including Tony Bennett, Bernadette Peters and many top Broadway shows. Inside it's very much like the Shubert in New Haven: three levels and box seats staggered along the sides, great acoustics. We played one of our best shows yet and the nearly full house loved us.

A second show there today at 3 pm, then back to the hotel to watch the Patriots beat the Colts! (Being a New England boy I just couldn't resist saying that.) Looking out my room window I see downtown Galveston, the skyline populated by a few tall buildings, several oil rigs in the distance, and two large tour ships at the wharf, at my eye level (at least 5 stories high).

Pam keeps asking me if I'm losing any weight (one of my goals for this tour) -- geez, the way they feed us before shows! Last night, chicken breast smothered in mushrooms, tossed salad, ziti with tomato sauce, steamed fresh vegetables, vegetable soup and great home made cookies. You be the judge, meanwhile yummmm...

Photos: the Opera House interior; tour mgr. Pete Dake, lookin' spiffy!

On the road today from Dallas to Galveston… The air is warmer and more humid as we approach the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, though there is still a cloudy overcast. Haven’t seen the sun in 3-4 days. Just in case anyone thinks this is a glamorous tour, we just had lunch at a mall food court! Actually the Mandarin Kitchen prepared a fair resemblance of Chinese food.

Among the many, many, many discussions on the bus, I must comment on the extraordinary knowledge my rhythm section mates, Ron Krasinski and Steve Rawlins, have on what can only be called “ancient” TV shows. Just finished discussing “Sergeant Bilko,” which I remember from my earliest youth. You know, the comedy about an Army motor pool company starring Phil Silvers. Well, Ron and Steve knew a slew of trivia about the show. Among these: Neil Simon wrote many of the scripts; key characters included Col. Hall, Ritzik, Doberman, etc.; actors who made early TV appearances Alan Alda, Fred Gwynne, Dick van Dyke, Joe E. Ross.

Tonight we play at the Grand 1894 Opera House… supposed to be a beautiful old building. Let’s see… Photos below: drums and TV trivia, Ron Krasinski; Hotel Galvez, where we are staying – right on the Gulf of Mexico.