Whilst keeping quiet in the leafy confines of my little cottage down here in Hythe, cutting back willful wisteria (which surely is a mild, contemplative hysterical state), pondering on an action-packed two weeks on the road and missing my partner, Johann.. I have been listening to Liane Carroll's "Slow Down" album. It worries me that I cannot conjour up anyone in this world who sings and plays so personally, with such heart, connection and honesty. Every track is imbued with a slightly different state of emotional input, leaving you feeling that she will never cheat you out of what is real and solid..almost like a Carol Ann Duffy poem, a Lucien Freud painting..or, well, life, with all its euphoria, its upsets, its expectations. I am proud to be a friend of this woman and eager to pull her on stage for the next three nights at Ronnie Scott's.
           If only Katie Melua, now a self confessed "big star" (see her Glastonbury interview) was also her friend, then she may be gently persuaded to listen to "Take It With Me" and start all over again, or preferably just stop.

Have to tell you 'bout a killer venue in Paris...SUNSET SUNSIDE. I've never played there before but will be back there as soon as they ask. We did two gigs, monday and tuesday this week. I was lucky to have Alain Jean-Marie as the piano player in a trio which featured Gilles Naturel on bass and the amazing Phillippe Soirat on drums. I'm normally fairly grumpy when I have to show local trios my musical geography (having done years of "pickup" bands in the US) and as we were promoting my Joni album,feel that musicians, when confronted with a visiting artist, shouldn't have to hike around scrawled arrangements with scribbles and pointers, peculiar only to me and my UK band!

           The incredible enthusiasm of our Parisian mentor and friend, Francois Lacharme, ensured that my promotional vist was a great success. The trio was a dream, the audiences so supportive..and a big cheers to Colin Cook from Linn Records and Helene from Coadex (my distributors in France) for being there.

            Huge thankyou to the fans who came and made me feel so welcome.

Just a note to visitors to my mymymyspace..for a good few years now, I've been playing regularly at these INDEPENDENTLY run clubs....The Vortex and The 606 Club, Chelsea. Sure, go check Ronnie Scott's..it's a jazz institution, a seemingly immortal shrine.I played five shows there before Xmas. The staff were a dream, the audiences a pleasure to sing to. Dean Street, Pizza Express is another wonderful club. I was delighted to be invited to curate a week there in March. Balls were nightly had.The staff are angels, the sound engineers perfect.

    How-bleedin-ever...The Vortex is a unique and self-generated labour of love. Headed buy the passionate David Mossman, a Neil Diamond fanatic, now resident (along with Christine Tobin and Phil Robson, diamonds themselves) in marvlus Margate, this club boasts a team of glorious, music loving freaksters; Oli (Babel) Weindling and Will Gresford being the well-oiled wheels, the growling belly of the operation. Alongside the crackdens and piano bars of Amsterdam, I cut my milk teeth here in the eighties. That the new (Dalston Square) site works beautifully, is a given. That the writer, Chris Parker understands all that is vital to the club's programme is apparent on their website. That the audiences are varied and constant is a joy to the London scene..all this makes for an important piece of this city's jazz-related live music hub.May the god of dotted rhythms forever bless your portals. May there forever be Smirnoff at my gig.

                                 THE 606 CUB, 90, LOTS ROAD, SW3.

     Steve Rubie is a musician.He is also foolish enough to be the owner of THE MOST IMPORTANT JAZZ CLUB IN THE WORLD. His dogged determination to present forty bands a month is a staggering tribute to why we do what we do. Forgive my personal micro-journal, but...this is where I met Mark Murphy, had dinner with Pat Metheny, fell in (and out of ) love, realised that if you don't have the truth and internal connection of Liane Carroll, you must work in Biscuits, met the Stacey Brothers, heard Gary Husband play piano, fell asleep in James's mini, did "Jazz At The 606" for BBC2, countless photo-sessions, TV interviews, sat in (or on!) on endless pal's gigs, heard the incredible pianist, Tim Lapthorn, showed Polly Gibbons one of her future homes,met Bernard Purdie, dentists, actors, dancers, lawyers, doctors, thieves, queens, prime-ministers, healers, runners, priests, Bobby Wellins, Liza Tarbuck, Sooty...

   The club is cherished by all, yet strangely, occasionally sidestepped by critics; that unfathomable, elite shower (some great, some egocentric and well, ungreat) that lend a valid printed propulsion to our humble artforms. What more do you need from a jazz club? I tell you..zilch. Steve's club has the fucking lot; a proper kitchen, great beers and wines, artless and important employees, a great sound system, a committed manager; but above and beyond all other clubs, a programming policy that serves all tastes, supports great European and Latin musics...and doesn't in any way stumble into any notion of corporate, greedy, tired old tricks. (Would that I could ponders Rubie!!) Stay put mate.There would be no UK jazz without you. Thanks Steve.

Sitting amid half-packed boxes in the north London flat that has been my happy home for two-and-a-bit years.The removal van arrives tomorrow and my clothes remain resolutely unpacked. I am moving into my dear friend, Mario's Waterloo pad. 'Bout time I had a flatmate. 'Bout time I lived within spitting distance of the M20 which snakes temptingly to the coast where I have a home far from the Boho jumble of a city that keeps me hungry for jazz and its soggy old social distractions.The inane and domestic doings of a flat move have thankfully been eclipsed by a weekend spent with my beautiful partner, Johann.

     Happily encamped in the perfectly polite and gentle city of Zurich, our stolen time together (he is a student, I a jazz singer with precious few free weekends) is normally a three to four day shift of Arthouse DVDs (his passion for Japanese cinema is becoming more and more apparent) and outings to a rich variety of rather nice restaurants.

        Yesterday, with an early afternoon azure sky and Johann's rucksack crammed with bread rolls and strange herbal fizzy drinks, we boarded a train to Eglisau,an old town on the banks of the romantic old Rhine in the Bulach district. After an abandonment of all things mappy and with Johann's precise and detailed printout of a river walk disregarded, we stole through a farm, half-heartedly attacked by a German Wolfhound, only to scale a fairly precipitous large hill, upon which was a magical, cool forest. Majestic and tall pines sprung up from a herb and moss covered ground. Opting for the pathways that tempted rather than led, we were soon in a clearing lifted straight from a Grimm Fairytale. Happily grounded, we held our breath while furry bees hummed and sucked on purple primula and a pair of buzzards twirled and danced high above the pines.

          As the late afternoon sun turned gold and with all thoughts of gigs, charts and deadlines gone from my head, I found myself in a place so perfect, so unlike anything experienced before, a place where the only distraction was to be a significant other's tightly held hand as we marched down the hill to the banks of the Rhine to a terrace reastaurant where we ordered supper from the crankiest and most unpleasant waiter in Switzerland.

              Now.Which fucking box is the Miles Davis box set.