The Blog

The Blog - Updated as regularly as possible!!!

Friday, November 27, 2009

I performed at the first TEDXNASA conference in Newport News, VA last week with trumpeter Dave Ballou. We improvised one duet piece for 6 minutes. The music was great and in fact the entire experience was really interesting. I hope I get invited back again next year. In early December I am flying back to Switzerland to record the music of saxophonist/composer Ewald Hugle. His music is so interesting and personal. I am looking forward to the experience very much. Other events of note are an upcoming CD release of the Stevens/Siegel/Ferguson Trio. This cd will be called "SIX" and it will be our sixth CD. I will be doing the final mastering for the new Griffith/Stevens Quartet CD in December as well. Hopefully the new Joyce Cobb/Michael JEfry Stevens CD on Archer Records will be released early next year. Joe Fonda and I will also be recording/performing with German vocalist Nicole Metzger in the near future, as well as working with our new Polish Project. Conference Call will be touring the USA in APril, 2010 just in time for our upcoming new release on Nottwo Records out of Poland! All in all lots of good stuff happening. Thanks everyone for your support.

November 6, 2009

I am now an officially recognized "Steinway Artist"!!! I am incredibly excited about this. Thanks to everyone at Amro for helping me to realize this life long dream of mine!
Wow.
Michael

November 2, 2009

I am sitting in Amsterdam airport waiting to finally fly home. The tour was a phenomenal success in so many ways, but most importantly musically. The band reached another level of "freedom" with each other. I guess it is true that perseverance will ultimately bring long term rewards. We performed in 8 countries including our first visit to Romania and Slovakia. Eastern Europe is really opening up for our music. The audiences are so hungry for "truth" in all its forms. I am glad we started pursuing this part of the world several years ago. Joe and I also performed 3 concerts with our "Eastern Boundary" Quartet from Hungary, and re-kindled our musical relationship with the great German vocalist Nicole Metzger. Finally, we forged a new musical alliance in Poland with some great young Polish saxophonists. A great tour and I am ready to go home.

October 24, 2009

Fonda/Stevens Group performed tonight at Jazz Club Nurnberg. Place was jam packed with people. Great crowd. Great concert. Tomorrow have to get up again early and take train to Belgium for late afternoon concert. Tour is going great. Selling lots of cds and the band just keeps getting stronger. This is what happens when you have a chance to play 3 weeks of concerts in a row. What a blessing.

October 22, 2009

Incredible concert tonight in Katowice, Poland performing at the Jazz and Beyond Festival at Jazz Club Hipnoza!! One of the most beautiful clubs I have visited in my life. Nine foot Steinway Concert Grand Piano in perfect condition. Really remarkable evening. Great audience. I always love coming to this part of Poland. Tomorrow night we perform with 2 of the young Polish Jazz Stars. Looking forward to that. Arrived this morning on another flight - this one from Germany. Saturday we fly back to Germany on our way to Nurnberg. That will be the last inter- Europe flight. Everything else puts us back on the Eurail pass, which is actually a lot easier. We are selling cd's like hot cakes. Maybe life does get better with age!

October 21, 2009

Great experience once again in Hungary. Made 2 studio recordings with different musicians and performed 2 concerts in Budapest. Last concert was filmed for television with 4 cameras. Also did radio interview and video interview for TV. That made up for the negligible concert fee. Sometimes life is a trade off. FEeling good. Just arrived in Germany for concert tonight in Muenster. Off to Poland for 2 concerts and recordings tomorrow!

October 19, 2009

Arrived in Budapest yesterday and drove directly to recording studio where Joe Fonda and I recorded with our Eastern Boundary Quartet. Great experience but had to fight with the studio owner to move the piano so that I could actually see all the musicians and not just the wall he had me facing. Strange. The tour is going well. Romania was an adventure. People were super friendly but the place harbors decades of negative energy and you can feel the tension and aggression in the air. Bucharest has the traffic from hell. Sibiu was a magical place from the medieval period. Wish I could have stayed there longer then 12 hours. We enjoyed our concert in Slovakia and tonight we will play the first of two concerts in Budapest.

September 27, 2009

Southern Excursion Quartet performed last night in Memphis at AMRO. Was a great concert. All original music. Good audience. Everyone is starting to get comfortable with each other and the difficult music. Tonight we perform at a private jazz salon again in Memphis. I am at this very moment listening to mixes from our latest recording which we are hoping to release in the next few months on ARC. Sounds greatl

Leaving on October 12 for a 3 week European tour with Fonda/Stevens Group. I am really excited about this tour. Will be the first time performing in Romania and Slovakia. Other countries will include Poland, Hungary, Switzerland, Germany. We are promoting our recently released cd "Memphis" on Playscape Recordings. This is our first studio recording in quite awhile and I am very happy with this music. Playing with this quartet is like being at home in the warmth of your family. Really feeling lucky about this great music.

Finished a great recording for Archer Records here in Memphis with vocalist extraordinaire Joyce Cobb, Renardo Ward on drums and my old musical Memphis ally Jonathan Wires on bass. This is a super group and we will be touring Europe in October 2010. If you want to hear a great mature vocalist listen to Joyce Cobb!!!

Conference Call will be touring the Southern USA in April 2010. We should be releasing our latest CD on Nottwo Records in the next month. This will be a great tour.

The Griffith/Stevens Quartet featuring Miles Griffith on voice will also be on tour in the USA. We have concerts booked in TN and MS for October 2010. Our new CD should be out by then. We recorded it 2 years ago at Zurich Radio. What an incredible studio and beautiful 9 foot Steinway.

Speaking of Steinway, I am hoping to become a "Steinway" Artist soon. Let's keep our fingers crossed! That would be a dream come true.

Thanks for all your support.

Michael

Memphis,TN

September 8, 2009

Finished an incredible recording in Memphis with Joyce Cobb on vocals, Renardo Ward on drums and Jonathan Wires on bass. It was an inspiration for me to play with these musicians, and Joyce is a true master vocalist. We will be touring Europe in October 2010 and anyone that loves Billie Holiday and Ella needs to come hear this band!!! Presenters - are you listening!!!!

I fly Thursday of this week to perform several concerts in NYC with my partner Joe Fonda, Emilio "the Stick" on drums and my close friend Lily White on saxophone. Will be great to go "home" again if only for a brief period of a few days. I guess once a New Yorker always a New Yorker. Joe and I will also be reuniting for a recording with my mentor, the great saxophonist Mark Whitecage! I am really excited about this!!!!

The Fonda/Stevens Group's October European tour is coming soon. Please check us out. The band is almost 20 years old! Incredible. Our new cd "Memphis" on Playscape Recordings was just released. I am really proud of this one!!!

Thanks for your support!

Michael

August 18, 2009

Tomorrow I will perform live on Channel 5 TV with vocalist Joyce Cobb in the early morning. Joyce is performing at the end of the month in a Duke Ellington tribute concert at the Bartlett Performing Arts and Conference Center. We will also be promoting our upcoming CD recording on Archer Records. We are scheduled to go into the studio this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I never had 3 days to record anything in my life. What a thrill. And, to top it off, the local Steinway dealer (AMRO) has been kind enough to loan me their 9 foot concert "D" grand piano for the recording. I feel like I am in heaven!!!

August 4, 2009

The Jon Hemmersam Group's debut CD was just released. This has got to be one of the most significant recordings I have ever been a part of. The group features Dave Liebman, Bob Moses, Ken Filiano, Jon Hemmersam and myself on piano. Included on the recording is a wonderful version of my compositions "For My Brother". We are hoping to get this group touring in the next year or so.

The Fonda/Stevens Group just released their 11th CD and debut CD on Playscape Recordings. This is our first studio recording in quite awhile and I am very happy about the way the disc turned out. The quartet will be touring Europe in October. Countries we visit will include Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland. I will also be working on a new trio recording in Budapest featuring Szilrd Mezei on viola and Jon Hemmersam on acoustic guitar. We are very excited about this acoustic project.

Back in Memphis I will be recording my debut CD for Archer Records at the end of August. The quartet features the amazing Joyce Cobb on vocals, Renardo Ward on drums, Jonathan Wires on bass and myself on piano. Joyce is one of the most incredible jazz vocalists I have ever heard and it is a great pleasure to be working with her.

Southern Excursion Quartet will be releasing our 2nd CD in the next month. The group performs original music by all 4 members (Jonathan Wires, Tom Giampietro and Don Aliquo). You can hear us perform in Memphis and Murfreesboro this coming September.

Check the touring information on this web site for more details. Click on the discography section to buy cds. Thanks for your support.

Michael Jefry Stevens
York Harbor, Maine
8/4/09

July 6, 2009

IASJ Conference was great. Student concerts were amazing. I think the future of jazz is in good hands. Looking forward to next year at the Hague. Tina and I are off for a few weeks of vacation. Looking forward to the upcoming September Memphis recording with vocalist Joyce Cobb. That will be exciting. Also a few concerts in September in NYC. ALways great to get home.

June 30, 2009

Playscape Recordings To Release
The Fonda/Stevens Group’s Memphis September 29th

Playscape Recordings will officially welcome The Fonda/Stevens Group to its roster with the September 29th release of Memphis (PSR#033108), the eminent ensemble’s 11th recording. Only the fourth studio release in the band’s two-decade existence, Memphis was recorded at the end of a week-long March 2008 U.S. tour. The Fonda/Stevens Group is co-led by bassist/composer Joe Fonda and pianist/composer Michael Jefry Stevens and features trumpeter Herb Robertson and drummer Harvey Sorgen.

Memphis takes its name from Stevens’ composition, “Memphis Ramble,” one of ten tracks documented here for the first time. The subject matter of the piece, which features a spoken word section developed spontaneously during its first performance, deals with his move from Brooklyn to Memphis to be with his wife, who teaches poetry at Rhodes College. Coincidentally, it was the poetry of the city’s name that appealed to Fonda. “When Mike suggested we call the record Memphis,” he recalls, “I just liked the sound of the word —the poetry of it. And, Memphis is a musical melting pot, just like The Fonda/Stevens Group.”

Known as “one of the great and often under-appreciated jazz groups of the modern era” (Steven Loewy, All Music Guide), critics have credited the band with playing “with equal precision and passion” (Peter Margasak, JazzTimes) and “a combination of recognizable creativity and courageous new experimentation” (Christian Carey, Signal to Noise). “The quartet of Fonda, Stevens, Sorgen and Robertson continues to mine territory that defies categorization,” adds AllAboutJazz.com Managing Editor John Kelman. “Everyone demonstrates a fine ability to skirt the edges of convention, while at the same time stretching its boundaries.”

Active collaborators since 1984, when they first worked together as sidemen with saxophonist Mark Whitecage, Fonda and Stevens founded their own band after the 1990 demise of another all-star ensemble, The Mosaic Sextet. The Fonda/Stevens Group began as a quintet, and toured with some transitional personnel following Whitecage’s departure in 1999, but has operated primarily as a quartet with its four remaining original members for the past decade. Although based in America, the band found early success touring abroad and recording for European labels, and has built its longstanding reputation on the world stage. Learn more at www.joefonda.digitalspace.net and www.michaeljefrystevens.com />

June 27, 2009

Today was the registration and first concert day of the 19th annual IASJ (International Association of Schools of Jazz) conference being held this year in Luzern Switzerland. What a beautiful place!!! I am staying in a small hotel which I am enjoying very much. Tomorrow we listen to the students who have been invited by their teachers from all over the world. They will be divided into approximately 10 ensembles, mostly based on geography - so as to spread the countries around evenly. Schools bring one or two of their very best students. The point of the week is to feature the student ensembles in concert at the end of the conference. The organization was started by Dave Liebman and he is still artistic director and player a great concert tonight with the Swiss student band from Luzern. Everything sounded great and the vibrations are extremely high. Great to be here.....!

June 24, 2009

Heard some terrible news yesterday. My close friend and incredibly talented pianist/composer Jarmo Savolinen from Finland passed away last week. It seems it was a sudden heart attack. Jarmo was really one of the most gifted musicians I ever met. Certainly one of my favorite pianists and an incredible human being. Just another reminder to all of us that our time on this planet is severely limited and we need to make every moment count.

June 20, 2009

Played a great gig last night with Memphis diva - vocalist Joyce Cobb. The quartet which includes Renardo Ward no drums and Jonathan Wires on bass sounded beautiful. Will try to take this group into the studio ASAP!!!!! Europe get ready for Joyce Cobb. She is the real deal!!!!

Been listening to Southern Excursion's latest studio recording. The band sounds great (Tom Giampietro on drums - Don Aliquo on sax - Jonathan Wires on bass. I am particularly impressed with Jonathan and Tom's compositions. The clarity of their music is so engaging. I really feel lucky to have found these wonderful musicians down south of the border. We have some concerts coming up to celebrate our upcoming new CD release in September (Memphis and Murfreesboro and maybe Knoxville).

The Fonda/Stevens Group's new CD "Memphis" on Playscape Recordings will be released any day now. Our European tour is scheduled for October 2009. I am really excited to be venturing into some new geography: Will be the first concerts for me in Romania and Slovakia.

Getting ready to fly to Switzerland for the annual IASJ conference. This organization was created by Dave Liebman to foster relationships with jazz educators and students all over the world. It was through my first conference several years ago that I connected with my now dear friends and colleagues in Argentina. It was this same conference in the early 1990's where Brad Mehldau met the Rossi brothers.
Really looking forward to going.

Eastern Boundary Quartet (Joe Fonda- Mihaly Borbely - Balazs Bagyi) just finished an incredible USA tour (Virginia - Vermont - New York City - Rochester). This project is a collaborative effort between 2 great Hungarian master musicians and two American jazz musicians. It is such a learning experience for me to play with these brilliant Hungarian masters. I just finished mastering a DVD of our concert in Burlington, VT.

Thanks everyone for your continued support. In these rather desperate times it is good to keep the flame burning. Great music - positive energy - love and respect for each other and the planet.

Michael Jefry Stevens
Memphis, TN

February 21, 2008

Hi Everyone. I can't believe it has been over 7 months since I updated my news. Lots of great things have been happening. I leave on Monday for 2 weeks of European concerts with vocalist Miles Griffith and our Griffith/Stevens Quartet. At the end of March the Fonda/Stevens Group will undertake our first extended USA tour - 7 concerts in the USA. Can you believe it!!!! We will also end the tour with a studio recording in Rochester, NY. Speaking of recording, the Griffith/Stevens Quartet will spend 2 days at Radio Zurich recording our debut CD. I just returned from recording two separate projects in NYC. The first is a new band of mine called "Brass Tactics". The band performs my music for 4 brass and piano. I am very happy with the results of the recording. Also I reunited with Mark Whitecage and Joe Fonda in the studio. We recorded some very beautiful trio improvisations. Next month I will be back in NYC recording the new Stevens, Siegel & Ferguson Trio CD. Also, my first Cadence Records CD release should be out by the end of March 2008. This is a quartet recording featuring Dave Schnitter on sax performing all my original music. Iin July I will be back in NYC recording with my good friend, Danish guitarist Jon Hemmersam in a session that will feature Bob Moses and Dave Liebman. Wow, I can't wait for that to take place. I also recorded my new Tennessee quartet project featuring saxophonist Don Aliquo. This is a really special band and I hope to start touring with them in 2009. I have two more European tours coming up in May: The Swiss "In Transit" Quartet has several concerts in Switzerland and my Eastern European quartet will be back in Hungary at the beginning of May. Conference Call will be releasing a new CD on Nottwo Records in the next few months. This is a live recording from our last European concert tour. I feel really fortunate to be involved in such great musical adventures.

Additionally I am teaching more and more. I have more students and ensembles at Rhodes College here in Memphis as well as a staple of serious private students whom I really enjoy teaching. I have also begun traveling back to NYC every few months to continue teaching some of my students in the NYC area.

The marriage is working out great. My health is very good and we are happy. I hope to see everyone in the next year. Please stay in touch and thanks for your continued support of my music.

Michael Jefry Stevens
Memphis, TN

May 31, 2007

Well, it has been quite an exciting four months. First, our “Stevens, Siegel & Ferguson” Trio released a new CD and toured Europe again for the first time in about 6 years. The concerts were fantastic and I am hoping to release a “live” CD once I have some time to listen to all the music. I also toured with my new “Griffith/Stevens Quartet” in Europe. This was a very successful tour with some wonderful concerts. We are now working on a March 2008 European tour with the same group featuring Dieter Ulrich on drums and Peter Herbert on bass. Conference Call toured Europe in April, performing our first concerts in Poland. The audiences were very receptive and we recorded a live CD at the Alchemia Club in Krakow (which is one of the treasures of Europe for sure!!!). The final European tour was with the Fonda/Stevens Group Trio featuring Szilard Mezei from Serbia on Viola. We had a great time with concerts in Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia and Austria. Our new Fonda/Stevens “Trio CD” was released on Nottwo Records. We are very happy to be a part of the Nottwo family of musicians!! Joe and I also started a new Eastern Europe project with the talented Hungarian drummer/composer Balazs Bagyi. We performed two interesting concerts in Hungary and will be returning to do a longer tour of Eastern Europe in May 2008. At the end of the trip I was lucky enough to record improvised duets with Szilard Mezei in a great studio in Budapest. I am very happy about this project and look forward to releasing it in the next year. Also, Conference Call will be releasing our 5th CD and first studio recording since our debut recording sometime in 2008. The recording is finished and the mastering is almost done!!!

Back at home here in the States, Vocalist Katie Bull will be releasing her latest CD in the Fall of 2007. We had a wonderful DVD recording party last month and I am looking forward to the release of this music. I will be teaching again at Rhodes College starting in August 2007. This will be my 2nd year and I am hopeful the jazz program will continue to grow. In November we will perform a jazz concert with Saxophonist Don Aliquo and the faculty. Don and I are also working on our own quartet project with several musicians from Nashville.

In October I will be touring Switzerland with my “In Transit” Swiss quartet. Our CD was finally released!! I will also be returning to Argentina in October for 2 weeks of teaching and concerts.

I look forward to hearing from everyone. Stay well. Thanks for your
Continued support!

Michael Jefry Stevens

March 19, 2007

Hi Everyone! Thanks for stopping by. I just celebrated my 56th birthday (March 13). Tina and I are very happy and I feel very lucky to be able to continue to share my music with so many wonderful people! I leave tomorrow for a 2 week European concert tour with my “Stevens, Siegel & Ferguson Trio”. It is our first European tour since I moved to Memphis (5 years ago) and we are all very excited about it. Our new CD “Get Out of Town” is available for sale on my web site and I think it is by far our best one to date!

My new “In Transit” Quartet finally released our debut CD on the Swiss “Unit Records” label. I am very excited about this group. We are planning our first European concert tour for October 2007.

I finished recording a wonderful new CD project here in Memphis with New Orleans saxophonist Breeze Cayolle.
Also, the latest Katie Bull recording was just mixed, and the release date is planned for the Fall 2007.

Upcoming tours include Conference Call touring France, Holland and Poland in April as well as the Fonda/Stevens Trio performing in Eastern Europe in May. Our new trio CD should be released on Nottwo Records in April.

Thanks for your continued support. Hope to see you soon.

Michael Jefry Stevens
Memphis, TN

November 23, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving and Seasons Greetings. This has really been a wonderfully busy year of great musical activities. Thanks to everyone for your continued support. It is only because of you that I am able to share our music with the world.

I just returned from the first annual EMU music conference in La Plata, Argentina. It was an incredible experience and such a success that we will now be making it an annual event in November to coincide the the La Plate Jazz Festival. The students were extremely musical and inspiring. Thanks to Waldo and Deborah and the entire gang at EMU for a great job. I was able to record at the end of the conference with some great Argentinian musicians and we are planning a CD and tour for November 2007.

The fifth and latest Stevens, Siegel & Ferguson Trio CD “Get Out of Town” was finally released on Imaginary Records. This is by far our best release. You can buy one on my web site and send it to a loved one for a holiday gift!!!! The trio will be touring Europe in March 2007.

My new quartet project with vocalist Miles Griffith – the Griffith/Stevens Quartet – will be touring Europe at the end of January/beginning of February 2007. This is a wonderful new project which features Dieter Ulrich from Zurich on drums and several different bassists including Christian Weber, Christian Ramond and Peter Herbert. There will be a debut CD released as part of this upcoming tour. I am also performing with Miles Griffith and New Ting at the IAJE conference in January 2007.

The Fonda/Stevens Group will be releasing our first “TRIO” Cd on the Polish Nottwo Records Label. This should come out in Spring 2007, and we are working on a Eastern European tour with violist Mezei Szilard for May 2007. Will keep everyone posted on this!

Conference Call released our 4th CD “Live at the Outpost Performance Space” last month on 482 Music. We are so happy to be a part of this wonderful record label. Check them out. They really have a great artist roster. This CD features Gerry Hemingway on drums. The group will be touring Europe in April 2007.

My new Swiss Quartet project “In Transit” will be releasing our debut CD in early 2007. We already have one festival concert scheduled in Schaffhausen on May 11, 2007 and are working on a Fall 2007 European tour.

I will be performing on Friday, December 1, 2006 at the first annual ISIM Conference in Ann Arbor, MI. This is an exciting new organization for improvised music and I am looking forward to my solo piano performance there.

Hopefully the Dave Schnitter Project CD will be released soon on Cadence Records. This is a recording from the archives of my compositions featuring Jay Rosen on drums, Dominic Duval on bass and Dave Schnitter on saxophone. I am looking forward to this release.

Finally, the mixing for the new Katie Bull CD Project should be finished by January. Hopefully the CD will be released early next year.

Thanks again for visiting and stay in touch.

As Elvin Jones told me once after a performance of his group in Italy “The world needs great music”!!

Michael

April 24, 2006

F/S Group Trio Eastern European Tour
March/April 2006

The Fonda/Stevens Group was formed in 1993 as a quintet featuring Herb Robertson on trumpet, Mark Whitecage on saxophone, Harvey Sorgen on drums, Joe Fonda on bass and Michael Jefry Stevens on piano. Mark Whitecage left the group in 1999 and the group has remained a quartet until the present. However, our most recent European tour in March 2006 was the first “trio” tour without horns.

Here are some notes on the tour:

March 29, 2006 – Darmstadt (Germany). The members of the trio meet up in Darmstadt at the Knabbenschule concert venue. This is probably my 4th time performing here and I love this place. Jurgen is a wonderful character who picks us up at the train station and tells us all about how he won re-election to the local parliament by running in the “punk” party. He forgot to book the hotel and now we are staying in an apartment that will only fit two of us. Fortunately, our drummer, Harvey Sorgen, arrived yesterday and is staying at a friend’s house. So this must be a good sign for the tour as a near hotel disaster is averted and everything somehow is already working out.

It is a good crowd and very attentive. This is our first trio concert and we are checking out the material in performance. I think we are all surprised at how well the music feels. While we love playing with Herb Robertson it is clear that the trio is a very strong group. We have been playing together for 20 years, since the beginning of the Mosaic Sextet in 1988. I think we are probably one of the oldest running rhythm sections still performing together today.

March 30, 2006 – Muenster (Germany). We arrive in Muenster after a nice short train trip. We have learned over the past 10 years of touring to try and make the train rides as short as possible! Someone from the club Cuba meets us and we walk 200 meters to the hotel. Somehow Joe Fonda ends up with the honeymoon suite apartment on the top floor of the hotel, complete with bathtub, sitting room and balcony. One of the great things about touring is the randomness of the hotel rooms. We never know what we will find and it is always nice when someone gets a luxury suite!! This is our first time performing at this club, which is a wonderful, small performance space: really a listening room. Once again we get a nice crowd and I am very happy with the concert. The concert ends up being recorded and I get 2 cds at the end of the evening, which I have just started to listen to in the past few days. When we first started touring 10 years ago I was hesitant to have the concerts recorded, but now I am happy to get recordings. Quite often we are able to turn these recordings into live cds that ultimately get released.

March 31, 2006 – Bielefeld (Germany). Our first F/S Group European tour was in the fall of 1997. During that tour we performed our very first concert in Bielefeld at the Bunker Ulmenwall (a restored WW II bunker). We love this club and all the people associated with running it. They have become part of our extended musical family. The Bunker has a great piano and we were anticipating a good concert. We had quite a large audience and the concert was fantastic. I believe we had to play 3 encores: A night to remember!!!

April 1, 2006 - We had a day off in Bielefeld and had dinner with our good friends Wolfgang and his wife Ziggy at a wonderful Italian restaurant. The older we get the more we require at least one day off a week to recuperate!

April 2, 2006 - Poznan, Poland. While Joe and I had performed in Warsaw 6 years ago with our Conference Call Quartet this was our first F/S Group venture into Poland, thanks mostly to my relatively new relationship with Marek Winiarski, who runs the Nottwo Jazz Label out of Krakow. He had released a Cd of my music several months earlier and was instrumental in booking two of the three concerts we would be performing in Poland. Poznan is the third largest city in Poland, and we were staying at a hotel in the old part of town. The old city is quite beautiful, and although our train trip lasted about 7 hours, we still arrived in Poznan with enough time to walk around the old town and enjoy its beauty and charm.
The concert hall was filled and the audience was enthusiastic about the music. The promoter was a very friendly and helpful person who really loves modern jazz and is obviously trying to bring this music to the Polish public. We had a wonderful concert and met some fantastic people!

April 3, 2006 – Bydgoszcz, Poland. We had to travel only a few hours to get to this little town in Poland. The hotel was first class and right around the corner from the club. I had my doubts about this club because the piano was un-playable and it seemed like a rock club. By unplayable I mean that at least a dozen keys did not work and the entire top two octaves of the piano were completely out of town!! But, by concert time they had found me a decent electric piano and transformed the space into a wonderful concert room. The audience arrived and we had a great concert. For the second half of the concert we invited several Polish musicians to perform with us, including a sitar player and a trumpet player. The audience was enthusiastic and we came away with another wonderful experience.

April 4, 2006 – Krakow, Poland. People had been telling us that Krakow was a very special place, but it is even more special than we could have imagined. What a beautiful city. We met Marek for the first time in person. He is such a charming gentleman and avid music lover. It was great to spend time with him face to face. He had arranged to record the concert at the club to release on his label, so we were very much looking forward to the concert. The hotel was quite charming and situated in the middle of the old Jewish quarter, which is now fast becoming a big artist community. We had enough time to walk around the city, visit the old city, and in general enjoy some of the wonderful atmosphere that surrounds Krakow. At the end of the concert we sat around with some locals and the club owner who proceeded to ply us with Polish vodka. I am not much of a drinker, but the different kinds of vodka (especially honey and cherry) were really extraordinary. We were each offered a free bottle of the vodka of our choice. I took home the honey!!!

April 5, 2006 – Mitterdorf, Austria. Today was the dreaded 12- hour train ride. We must have left the hotel 6 in the morning to meet the van that was supposed to drive us to the train station in the next town over (about a 1 hour ride). Unfortunately 20 minutes into the drive the van broke down with an overheated radiator. However, we were able to use the 2 bottles of drinking water I had stashed for the train ride to help get the van to the nearest gas station. In the end we made it with 15 minutes to spare. When we boarded the train, which was supposed to go to Vienna, we found out that because of high flood waters from the Danube River in the Czech Republic we might have some trouble getting to Vienna. And this proved to be the case. We had to change trains at the Czech border and take an alternative route to Vienna. This meant we had to find a new route to get to Mitterdorf, which is several hours away from Vienna up in the mountains. We ended up arriving at 7pm, which gave us 2 hours to get ready for the concert at Jorgi’s Bar. Jorgi is quite a character and one of the great things about this gig is getting to eat Jorgi’s cooking at the restaurant. He made us a fabulous meal. The crowd was small but attentive, the piano barely playable, but we managed to have a good time and were looking forward to leaving early the next morning for our first visit to Zagreb, Croatia.

April 6 – Zagreb (Croatia). Who could have imagined how incredible our trio to Zagreb would be?? Mate, the promoter, met us at the train station in Zagreb. It is always great to meet someone for the first time that you have only known through email (the miracle of the 21st Century). Mate is an amazing person who fascinates us with a short history of Yugoslavia on the way to the hotel. The hotel turns out to have a health club and all 3 members of the group are able to afford a ½ hour massage for the pittance of 10 Euros. We will be performing at the University of Zagreb. The room is beautiful and the students crowd into the hall. We are overcome with their enthusiasm. They are yelling and screaming with excitement for our music. I have NEVER experienced this before at a jazz concert. We must have played 5 encores. It was exhilarating. I am anxiously awaiting our return visit to this wonderful city.

April 7 – Rudersdorf, Austria. One of our most intimate and dearest friends in Europe is Udo Preiss. Udo wears many hats, including healer, organizer, music promoter, husband and father, left wing radical and generally speaking a lover of the arts and of the planet. At the last minute Udo invited us to stay in his town for 2 days, play a concert, and in general spend some time visiting with him. The concert was great. Many people came, including a wonderful young jazz drummer from Budapest who drove 3 hours to hear us, as well as several people from Vienna and others from the surrounding towns. Rudersdorf is on the Hungarian border and is a very special place.

April 8 – Our second day in Rudersdorf is a vacation. We spend time visiting the schnapps man and tasting/buying a variety of home-made schnapps to take home. We visit the woman who makes pumpkin seed oil and buy some to bring home. We go up into the mountains and buy clothes from India and Nepal by a local clothing importer. We have a fantastic time. We met Udo on our very first European tour in Graz, and he has become family!

April 9 – Kanjiza, Serbia. The last concert is in Serbia. An early morning train will bring us to Budapest, and from there we take a taxi to another Budapest train station and catch the local train to a small town in Hungary. At that point we are picked up by a wonderful driver who speaks no English and drives us one hour to Kanjiza, which is a town 30 km from where Bartok was born (on the border of Serbia and Hungary). Like most Americans, I do not understand the subtleties and differences between Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, the war that terrified these nations over ten years ago, etc. But I am curious and am hopeful to learn more about this part of the world while I am here. Our concert will take place in a theatre. The opening band is a very interesting Serbian quartet playing original music by a great violist and composer named Mezei Szilard. We play the 2nd part of the concert and the audience is very enthusiastic. During the third part both bands improvised together. Once again we get to see first hand that this language of jazz and improvised music is a universal language that speaks to all peoples, all nations, all races. After the concert the entire group goes out to a wonderfully ethnic dinner. It is a great tour and the people are so generous and hospitable. We are already making plans to return next year and perform concerts with the Szilard.

April 10 – We get up 5am and are driven to Budapest where we will each begin our individual journeys home. I will fly to Amsterdam and then on to Memphis. Harvey will fly to Frankfurt and NYC, than take a 2 hour bus ride to Woodstock. Joe has to take a long train ride to Frankfurt where his bass case is stored and will fly the following day to NYC. It has been a great trio tour. I feel that we are opening up new doors by sharing our music with more people and more cultures. It is an amazing experience and I know how lucky we are.

Michael Jefry Stevens
April 24, 2006

Michael Jefry Stevens, PO Box 40551, Memphis, TN 38174-0551 (USA)
ph: +1 901 276-6544, mobil: +1 917 916-1363
e-mail: mjsjazz@mac.com, facebook.com/mjsjazz, skype: mjsjazz
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