back by popular demand, here's more adventures from the road...

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http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=27325&pg=1 

based on actual events:

How did I end up here? I’m sitting onstage in the ballroom of a five star hotel in downtown D.C. No matter I had to haul my drums through an alley, onto a loading dock and up a freight elevator, it’s a five star hotel none the less. On the way in there’s rats by the dumpster, a guy hosing garbage off the loading dock and a security guard that looks me over like I'm a hobo trying to crash a railyard. I wheel my cart through a maze of hallways and finally to the bustling kitchen, full of chefs, servers and stressed out maitre d’s. If this is what the kitchen of a high end hotel looks like I’d hate to see the back of a Chinese take out. Dirty dishes in precarious piles are stacked near the food ready to be served to tonight’s guests, on the floor soggy bits of food lie in water from the dishwashers hose and the ever present rat traps remind you who runs the place when the lights go out. 

So I make my way to the ballroom and am happy to see the bar is situated close to the bandstand, though this can be a blessing and a curse. A good stiff drink can be the tonic that either washes away the angst of the gig or makes a four hour wedding seem like an eternity. I set up my drums and make small talk with the other sidemen on the gig. The leader is happily away from the bandstand, nervously talking to the party planner about when the band should break for the cake cutting. He stutters, twitches and merely nods in approval when she tells him the band will not eat. This is gonna be a long night. 

We start the gig with the usual fare (bossa novas, standards and some show tunes) and we’re not three notes into the first tune when I realize the leader is a drummer’s worst nightmare. He’s the bass player (normally the drummer’s right hand man) and this guy can’t play two notes in time, much less in tune. Worse than that (almost) he feels he needs to coach everyone in the band on how to play. His favorite target seems to be me. “Now keep it the pocket. Don’t speed up.” This clown couldn’t find a pocket in a pair of painter pants. I just grin and say “Okay”, while my brain is saying “Fuck You.” As I look at him I see a glazed look in his eye that tells me it’s taking him every ounce of concentration to play as horribly as he is playing. A strand of drool hangs from his bottom lip as his fingers move in the most un-bass player like manner. This guy makes the bass player that played “Smoke on the Water” in my first garage band sound like Jaco Pastorius.  Why is it that every leader on a club date gig is always the most unqualified, insecure, saddest mistake for a musician in the room? Oh, I remember. He spends all his time talking on the phone to clients, going to bridal shows, jogging, doing yard work, anything and everything but practicing his instrument. Hey buddy, do us a favor. Become a booking agent. We’ll gladly pay you twenty percent to stay the hell away from the bandstand. 

The set mercifully ends. Me and the piano player practically trip over each other as we race to the bar. We defiantly order two scotches on the rocks.
I down my drink and say: “You hear the shit he’s playing up there? Unbeliveable.”
“Last time I heard someone sound that bad, it was a thirteen year kid on a bass at Guitar Center.”
“You won’t believe this. He booked me on a jazz gig last week and the front line was trombone and...violin!”
We both crack up laughing.
“Oh well, as long as his checks clear.”

After a few minutes of solace our fearless leader approaches, his bow tie askew and drool stains on his lapel.
“Come on guys, we need to go back up”, he stutters. “They want a dance set before they have dinner…and try not to hang around the bar”
We slowly rise to the bandstand like death row inmates preparing for execution. Fearless Leader counts off the next tune but starts his part at about half the tempo he counted. “Follow me boys!” he shouts.
We lamely make it through a few R&B tunes. These tunes are normally all about feel and groove but not tonight.
An older couple approaches the bandstand and politely requests “Moonglow.” Fearless Leader shuffles through his Real Book, finds the chart and says “Sure we can play that for you” in the tone of a Catskills lounge lizard. You half way expect him to say “Try the veal we’ll be here all week.” He then mercifully asks the piano player to set up the tune with an intro. After four bars the rest of the band somehow comes in all at the same time…well almost.  We get to the bridge and Fearless Leader is completely lost, staring at the music as if trying to decipher the Dead Sea scrolls. He nervously looks around, twitches a few times then shouts: “Sell ‘em Satin Doll!” as he suddenly goes into Dukes standard to the horrified look of the rest of the band. The sax player pulls his horn out of his mouth and drops his head as chords clash, the groove (or lack thereof) teeters on falling apart and the dance floor clears. I guess we didn’t sell ‘em anything. 

Later in the evening the crowd’s getting liquored up and doing the silly dances that well off white folks love to do. We’ve already done “YMCA” and the father of the bride requests the “Chicken Dance”, possibly the corniest song ever written. Knowing that this guy is paying for the whole thing, including the band, Fearless Leader triumphantly announces: “Coming right up!” He immediately counts of the tune without enough time for the horn players to get their bearings and they slightly falter on the pick ups at the top of the tune. No matter, this is a silly song anyway and we’ve fucked up every other tune so far, so no problem. Not so for Fearless Leader. He puts down his bass and storms over to the horn section to the bands polka accompaniment. He stares at them, with wild hair and bulging eyes as if he were Stravinsky and they’d just butchered “The Rite of Spring.” WHAT”S WRONG WITH YOU GUYS DON’T YOU KNOW THE FUCKING CHICKEN DANCE?!!!”, as yet even more drool flies from his lips. “I THOUGHT I HIRED A-1 FUCKING PROFESSIONALS!!!” Now he’s starting to sound like Buddy Rich but without the talent. Me and the piano player play the stupid little polka theme as the crowd forms a circle and pump their arms like chicken wings, seemingly oblivious to the tirade unfolding before them. He grabs their band books and throws their music all over the stage, “CAN’T YOU READ A FUCKING CHART, MOTHERFUCKERS.” I feel like a shrink witnessing some kind of Freudian meltdown. “YOU GUYS ARE FUCKING FIRED, EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU”. His voice cracks at the end as if he’s about to cry, the climax to his onstage therapy session. 

We finish out the set without Fearless Leader and the rest of the band is just hoping that he can pull himself together enough to get the check, before either he’s committed or the father of the bride is too drunk. I pack up my drums as Fearless Leader’s bass forlornly leans against his amp. I feel sorry for it. 

Once again, out the back of the hotel. No glamorous exit with paparazzi at every turn. Not for the club date musician, the guys that tough it out weekend after weekend, lame gig after lame gig all just to pay the rent. Save that for your pop stars. We don’t need it anyway. Just a decent gig with a group of good players and a sane leader. A hot meal, an open bar, free parking and an easy load in will seal the deal. 

I load up my car and slide in behind the wheel. So how did I end up here? When I first got into music it was for the love of playing and the mystery resolved after each new discovery. A pair of sticks and a snare drum were the voice of some fascinating new language.  Playing with other musicians brought a feeling of camaraderie and accomplishment that I’d never felt before. Somewhere it turned into whoring myself out to half assed band leaders that either can’t or don’t want to play some quality music. 

I slide in a CD to wash away the stain of the gig but it’s bittersweet. Listening to masters like Miles and Trane, I doubt these guys ever had to put up with what we did tonight, and if they did it was from a leader that sure as hell knew music. Hacks didn’t cut it back in those days. I think back to the beginning when music was a joy and I’m sure at one time it may have been for Fearless Leader.

Somewhere along the way it went horribly wrong.         
 

There's nothing wrong with sleeping in a five star hotel but it feels good to sleep on a familiar matress that leans to one side and creaks when you lay down. Living out of a suitcase is an adventure but it gets old washing your drawers in the tub and sending your shirts to the laundry. I'm happy to be home where I can wake up in the middle of the night and stumble into the kitchen for a late night snack, though I gotta say I do like room service. It feels great to pick up the phone and have a cheesburger and cold beer arrive at your door delivered by a guy in a starched uniform. After being in India for 10 days I was craving the most American of foods. I love spicy food but Indians have a way of spicing up everything, including breakfast food. It wasn't long before meatloaf, mashed potatoes and apple pie were sounding real good. Indians are some of the most good natured people I've met, at least the staff at the hotels. They're polite almost to a fault. I was called "sir" so many times in India I started to think I was in the military. Before long I was wishing for some New York attitude. Once after ordering room service I started to nod out with that relaxing post meal full stomach feeling. The phone rang and I thought maybe it was one of the guys with news of a happy hour special or a change in flight plans. "Good evening sir." Did you recieve your room service okay sir"? "Uh, yes". "Was the food satisfactory sir"? "Yes, it was until you called me and fucked up my nap." I didn't say that last line but I sure thought about it. My housekeeper in Kolkata was a young kid with a great smile that went about his duties with the intensity of a doctor preparing for brain surgery. Once I called down for an iron and ironing board and he appeared at my door huffing and puffing like he'd taken the stairs instead of the elevator. This was probably just for dramatic effect so I tipped  him more for his acting ability than his timeliness. The next day I decided to lighten up my suitcase since you almost always bring more stuff than you actually need. I pulled out a pair of jeans and two T-shirts and gave them to my thespian/housekeeper and he looked at me like I'd just handed him bars of gold or a winning lottery ticket. He thanked me and shook his head in the way we know as "no" but sort of in a semi circle and the way Indians do it, it can't be mistaken for anything less than the purest of affirmations. It's become one of my favorite human mannerisms.
 
In Chennai we did a workshop at the Unwind Center, a community outreach center/music school.  It's run by a beautiful cat named Saroop that's the kind of guy we need in American schools, passionate, dedicated and fun loving. It's here we meet a young percussionist named Allwyn. He sits in during our workshop and damn near gives me a lesson with all his skill and enthusiasm. One thing you can say about India is there's no shortage of bad ass drummers. Later that evening we do a concert with a local band called Yodhaka. The leader is a percussionist kind of like Trilok Gurtu. He plays a hybrid kit that's one third Latin, one third Indian and one third drum set. If Chennai wasn't so hot I think I'd move there.

I covered Bangladesh and the Phillipines in my other blogs so here's a few words on Taiwan: Here I had the greatest Chinese meal of my life and there wasn't a single grain of rice to be found. Apparently, the Chinese don't eat much rice it's more an American phenonmenon, like fries with a burger. If you don't have any chops with chop sticks you'll be up a creek since a fork is about as common as a menu in English. You sit at a round table with a lazy susan in the middle and you spin it around to sample all the different dishes. The only problem is the plates are about the size of a saucer for a coffee cup. The upside is the dumplings are handmade by a crew of guys who fold them while you watch behind the glass at the front of the restaurant. The local beer only comes in a 24 ounce bottle and that's just fine with the Duende Quartet. Most of the Taiwanese are either Taoist or Buddhist and they have their own cable channels which I'd much rather watch that American Idol even if it is in Mandarin Chinese. The media is way hipper overseas. I got almost all of my news from the BBC and it was refreshing to get a different perspective from the usual American pablum.

The trip home was another odyssey. Three hours to Tokyo then a three hour layover, then twelve hours to Dulles...fun, fun, fun. I think that's why I'm up at 4am writing this blog. While in line for the flight me and Sam are eyeballing a family with a two year old kid. As fate would have it I had the middle seat in a five seat row and the two year old sat right in front of me! He was cool for most of the trip but he seemed to let out a bloodcurdling scream everytime I was about to nod off. Fire up the iPod. The fun really began once we got to Dulles. I had been up for probably twenty hours at this point and was lucky enough to get  singled out by immigration for a random search. I told the officer I was out on a State Department tour and wipped out my intinerary. This was in a binder, about 50 pages long that listed everything I did while abroad damn near down to the minute. He was reading a letter of welcome from the amabassador of the Phillipines when he decided to search my bags. I guess going to Bangladesh and India is an immediate red flag. It's sad that a few knucleheads ruin it for everyone else because everyone I've met in my travels are regular folks...sweethearts. A few idiots try to wipe out a cricket team in Pakistan and every trip to the airport has a black cloud of suspicion hanging over it. So here's a guy with rubber gloves going through  a plastic bag of my dirty laundry. I'm hoping he'll find some skid marks on my boxers. He pulls out a pocket knife and starts slicing into my souveniers and I ask him to be careful since he's about to slice into a Buddhist wall hanging I bought in India. He takes this as an affront and proceeds to go through every piece of luggage I have from top to bottom. Welcome home! He goes through my shaving kit like a detective at a murder scene...maybe he thinks I can make a bomb out of toothpaste, dental floss and hemorrhoid creme. I'm all for homeland security but I thought for the last month I was a government employee. Guess when you're a musician all bets are off. I really felt sorry for the guy behind me named Sanchez. They probably had him pegged for a Mexican drug lord. 

It's good to be back and the ride on the Beltway from Dulles seemed suprisingly mellow after our adventures with South Asain driving. I'll leave you with a couple of qoutes I got from a book I bought in Chennai about the influence of Indian music on Western culture called "Bhairavi":

Shujaat Khan: It's very natural for two people who are musicians to sit down and play together without concerns about where they came from or what religion they practice...I think music could go along way toward promoting the idea of harmony between different people whether they are Hindu or Muslim or whatever.

Ravi Shankar: I believe in Nada Brahma (sound is God). Nada Brahma is just a word but that's what it means to me when the raga comes to life. It's absolutley true that Hindus and Muslims work together in creating this music. Our music is our religion, our spiritual path. So in this way, I feel it is an example of how people can work together without thinking about religion. All we can do is play our music and share it with the rest of the world.

AMEN.

So here we are yet further away from home in Manila on the island of the Phillipines (I should say islands... lot's of them. The Phillipines are made up of approx. 7,000 islands depending on whether it's high or low tide). We made it out of Bangladesh unscathed. The embassy briefed us on terrorist attacks, muggings and credit card fraud but like India the most deadly thing was the traffic. It's okay driving there since there's so many cars, traffic goes from a slow crawl to a stand still. But walking around town can be a dangerous thing. Cars dart out of side streets onto the main drag with no regard for human life. Ricksaws speed past the sidewalks either carrying passengers or hawking you for a ride and pot holes and uneven sidewalks are everywhere. This is a walk you definitely don't want to take with an afternoon beer buzz. If food and gourmet meals were the theme of our last tour, traffic and driving styles make up the theme of this one. Bangladeshi buses look like something out of bumper cars or a smash-up derby. They're completely dented, scraped and scratched up. Why fix them? Fender benders are as much a part of driving here as not using your turn signal. The morning paper has reports of pedestrians killed with the frequency of the weather report and stock market listings. Some of the buses are double-deckers and have people packed in like sardines, some leaning ominously to one side, appearing they will tip over at a moments notice. The beggars are relentless and if you're in a decent looking car they're all over you. Their tactics are showing you a young child, the stump of an arm or other physical limitation to pull your heart strings. Trouble is if you open your window and give them some cash the whole lot of them swarm your car in a feeding frenzy. Once I was in a deep nod returning from one of our gigs and was woken by a tapping on the window, only to see a guy pointing a deformed arm inches from my face. Not the best way to wake up from an afternoon nap. It's sad, I know, but after seeing desperate poverty for the last two weeks you start to get numb to it. It's gotta be the only way to survive here without going into an existential depression.

More about Shillong:
In my last blog you met Robin Laloo, racounter, story teller and all around good guy. On our day off he offers to take us out to see the sights even though the whole lot of us are hungover. Lucklily we have a driver and we head out to Shillong Peak, the highest point in the area. Beautiful view of the mountains and hamlets below. Then we take a road out to the country to see a Khasi village. On the way we see monoliths that were erected thousands of years ago by Robin's forefathers. We get to the village and the people there probably don't live much differently than those who were there during the time the monoliths told time and had religous significance. Humble shanties line the dirt roads and we stop for lunch at a roadside shack. It has a dusty concrete floor and a few flies but the women cook food over an open fire in beautiful handmade steel skillets. Robin and Harry dig in but the rest of us lay low. We've gone this far without getting sick and don't want to try our luck, though the food looks very appetizing. I snap some photos outside and the villagers mug for the camera. These folks probably don't know anything about the internet, world financial crisis or Prozac. For a moment I envy them.

More stuff on Calcutta: 
In my last entry I might have seemed a little drug about Calcutta and it's true the destitution can be overwhelming. (There's a reason Mother Theresa set up shop there). But there's a vitality that's undeniable and a deep artistic tradtion there. Some of the best musicians, artists and writers hail from Calcutta. One auspicious moment was when we were out with Dushan and I asked him about Satyajit Ray (one of my favorite filmakers). "See that building across the street"? he said. "That's the film institute that Ray set up". And there it was right there in the middle of the slums and chaos. Forget "Slumdog Millionaire". Check out Satyajit Ray or Mira Nair's "Salaam Bombay".

So here we are in the Phillipines with six days to go. We haven't seen much local color in Manila, this place feels like Crysal City. It all hotels, shopping malls and skyscrapers. I've gotta say it's been a bit of a relief since our previous adventures. We did get out to Cebu which is on a different island and has alot more character than what we've seen in Manila. Manila feels more like a tourist trap with connections to the skin trade. Every time you turn around there's a crusty old Euro-dude with a girl that's probably nineteen but looks fifteen. No one even looks twice at these couples. Harry said he saw an old geezer in the lobby that could barely walk with not one but TWO young girls! Guess he's got the little blue pills. The people here are great, very polite and speak English with happy lilt. You really feel like a dumb American when you travel abroad since everyone we've met usually speaks at least three languages. We've had our best meal of the tour so far, a feast of fresh seafood. The embassy folks have really been on the case,  the airport scene has been smooth and we haven't had to hassle with any gear since we've gotten here. They've been the most together crew so far. 

Tomorrow we head to Taiwan so this might be my last blog till I get back. We work four days straight and then catch the long flight home. It's been an education out here and we've had some great musical experiences but it'll sure be nice to get home! I'll never complain about D.C. traffic again.

Travelogue: take two. I spent over an hour on a blog about a week ago in Chennai, India, only to have a computer glitch wipe it out. This may happen again since we're now in Dhaka, Bangladesh and there are occasional rolling blackouts. They don't last long since the hotel generator kicks in right away but it would be enough to wipe out this blog. Consider this a love letter.

We arrived in Kolkata after a brutal travel day: 15 hours of flying plus a 4 hour layover. We get to the airport around 4 am and are met by our liason from the embassy. We've been warned about malaria and there are mosquitos in the terminal. Good thing we have our meds. It's hot, dry and dusty. I thought India was like that travel commercial with lush jungles, waterfalls, Hindu temples and Bengal tigers. None to be found. The ride to the hotel is like a circle in Dante's Inferno. The streets are dimly lit, many of  the buildings appear to have no electricity and scores of  homeless people sleep on the sidewalks. There's a guy in the middle of the road with a herd of goats (remember it's 4 am) and there's construction work going - a group of guys repaving the street, heating the tar over a pile of burning logs. The side streets look like avenues to the netherworld.  Maybe it's a dream and I'm still on the flight...not so. Finally we arrive at the hotel, an oasis in the middle of this surreal scene. 

We get some sleep then we hook up with Dushan who is one of our liason's and sound man for our concert at the Taj Bengal. He takes us downtown on a wild car ride. It's crazy enough that the British left behind their legacy of driving on the left side of the road, but driving in lanes and stopping at traffic lights are things that Indian drivers could care less about. Driving in India is nothing if not a symphony of car horns. Drivers lean on their horns to let you know they're passing or making some improvised move and they basically squeeze in anywhere they can. Two lane roads are changed into four or FIVE lane roads. This makes driving in D.C. look like a leisurely Sunday drive. We get to Park street, one of the main drags, and here's my fondest memory of Kolkata. Car double parked (or is it tripleparked?) as we stand on the sidewalk among the throngs of people, drinking tea, discussing politics, religion and Sanskrit as blaring car horns add to the conversation.

Oh did I mention, we're here to play music? We play our first concert the next night and though everyone is still jet lagged we're well received. I even meet up with Naima's roomate's parents who came out to the show. I've got connections worldwide.

The next day we catch a flight to Guwaharti which is on a plateau below the Himalaya's. From there we take a three hour ride to a city in the mountains called Shillong. If driving in Kolkata is crazy this drive was certifiably insane. Up mountain roads, horns blaring, blindly passing cars while on bends in the road. One routine was passing a car, barreling straight for an oncoming car (or petroleum truck) then getting over at the last second. This happened numerous times. I began writing my will in my head. We saw two overturned trucks and two guys on a motorcycle get run off the road (the passenger falling off). After a while it was so ridiculous it became comical. Somehow we arrive alive.

Shillong is a beautiful place, a small city of 250,000 populated mostly by Khasis. The people here have a more Asian or Mongolian look about them, much like Tibetans. Here we meet Robin Laloo, a great human being with a big heart. He takes us in like family. It's guys like him that make life on the road a lot easier...it can get lonely out here. Robin's a successful business man with a nice house, beautiful family and is completely down to earth. He says "I'm not a businessman but I know business. I just use it to fund my lifestyle."  He love's the arts and did most of the leg work to get us to Shillong. The world needs more people like him. He's one of the most well educated people I've met, speaks about 7 or 8 languages and is a great storyteller. He not only speaks perfect english but speaks like an actor in a beautful baritone voice with pauses in all the right places. The drinks flow and he has us spellbound and cracking up all night long.

We play a concert and do a workshop with some local kids then off to Chennai. Chennai (formerly Madras) is on the southeastern coast of India. This is more how I pictured India, still very urban though it's not as oppresive as Kolkata. We finally get to see a Hindu temple. Me and Harry go out on a day off to a Shiva temple (can't remember the name, it begins with a K and is about 12 letters long). The temple is made up of  huge pyramid like structures covered with gargoyles of Hindu dieties. It's supposedly closed when we get there but we're met by a "guide" who for the right price can get us in. We leave our shoes at the entrance. I just hope they're there when we come back out (seen "Slumdog Millionaire"?). We finally get to hear some Indian classical music. In the restaurant at our hotel a world class ensemble plays Karnatic music with two bad ass percussionists. We eat there every night. 

Another workshop and concert and now we're in Bangladesh. We did an outdoor concert last night for about 1000 people (our best gig so far) and did a workshop at Dhaka university. Sam and I got into a drum battle with a tabla player (big mistake) though he went easy on us and a good time was had by all. It's a little tense here after the recent unrest but the people are great and overall the vibe is cool.  Check back later boys and girls for stories about the Phillipines and Taiwan. Less than two weeks to go!