Final Week Of Classes (Performance Week)

3:50PM May 8

Monday morning I went out for one last cappuccino and pastry with my parents before they headed off to Cinque Terre for a few days. This time I let them find their own way to the train station though, assuming they'd figured out the system well enough by now.

In the afternoon we had our final music theory class and we spent most of the time reviewing what we'd done this semester. I've known that we were moving at a faster pace than in previous semesters, but in doing the review, it finally hit home just how much we'd covered. I remember complaining the previous two semesters of music theory at the slow pace of class; it seemed as if we worked on three concepts or so each semester, which gave my teachers plenty of time to extemporate about whatever was on their minds at the moment. This semester, however, we followed the evolution of music theory from Wagner all the way up to Schoenberg and the 20th century serialists. It's incredible how much the music changed in that time, and our teacher got us safely through all of the material without making it feel overbearing.

After class, I rehearsed once more with the Afterthought Quartet and Andy Gravish. Unfortunately, it felt a bit like a step back for us, working with Andy again. He is a great trumpet player, and having a horn really adds to the group, but it feels like our chemistry is broken when he is added into the mix. Before, I could blame it on the difference between the repertoire we did with him and on our own, but now, most of the tunes we play with him are also in our set when we play as a quartet. I think we play stricter forms when we work with Andy because there are more instruments, so everything is more arranged, from solos, which we take less of, to melodies, which are played more rigidly. As a small ensemble we get more opportunities to spread out, and as a result, we can get more creative and evolve the music beyond the traditional structure we've worked out. I think we'd all love to play with the same abandon when Andy's around, but the atmosphere doesn't always allow for it.

Andy also brought in a new tune this week, which I didn't like very much. It was a re-arrangement of a standard with an awkward-sounding harmony part. I know he wanted to give us another tune for our last two performances where the two of us got to play in harmony, but it felt forced, especially when we have so many more interesting tunes already in our book. That being said, we did try to work Andy into the things we were doing as a quartet, and things felt better with him than it has before.

After rehearsal, John, Dave, and I dashed over to the Limonaia (top) for one of the week's final music recitals. The composition majors were having their pieces played, and then we were giving another performance of the Gershwin songbook revue. I really enjoyed the first half of the program. In particular, one of the students, Michael Bennet, wrote two scenes for an opera which I thought were really great.

Before one of the final performances at the Limonaia


This time the other ensemble, Origin Blue, played the first set of the Gershwin revue. When it came time for us to go on, there was only one music-stand though, as the other group had only needed one for the bass player. Our quartet needed stands for both bass and guitar though. I asked Antonio if he'd brought over anymore, but he had not. He just paused for a few seconds, glancing over at the giant lectern in the corner. There was no way we'd be able to use that though, so we worked it out so that Evan would use a stool to hold his music, and I would get the stand. After coming to this solution Antonio felt proud of his problem-solving capabilities—rather than acknowledging the added stress he was putting us through yet again—and told me, if this had happened to a German, they would have been running around, freaking out. "They always lay out strict plans," he said, "and when something doesn't follow accordingly, they have no idea what to do. We Italians though, we do not get scared. We find solutions."

I think we played our set even better than the day before. At least for those of us in the backing band, we'd only played through the music three or four times before, so there was still room to let the music grow. Taking Dave's suggestion, I tried to play less and give him more room to fill in behind the singers, which I believe made the times I did play that much more effective. The guitar would join in as a new voice to the mix, and I played more inspired material at those points. We went from a very good performance, to an excellent one.

The highlight of the night was hearing Dave play with Isamu, the piano player from the other ensemble. In advance of the concerts this week, two grand pianos were brought out of storage to be tested by the pianists. They'd never played together before, but that was not at all apparent in their performance. It was incredible how well they worked together, especially with two pianos, which can often make a clutter of sound if not done correctly. They played "When Your Lover Has Gone," and just brought the house down. It was evident that they were in mutual admiration of one another, and the performance was a real sight to witness. It is only a shame that nobody recorded the affair.

In Italian class on Tuesday we watched the video that one of our classmates recorded of the "spettacolo" the previous Thursday. It was pretty funny to watch some of my classmates completely letting loose in the dancing for the entertainment of the kids, including my teacher, who was a bit embarrassed a few times.

Waiting for the kids to file in and watch our "spettacolo."


After class I went over to Antonio's office, as I often do, just to check in, and he asked me to draw up a sketch of how we wanted the stage set up for our performance that day downtown. When I returned to his office after lunch he asked if I could draw up the same sketch on the computer so he could email it to the Blue Note in advance of our gig there on Thursday. I said "no problem," and within two minutes I had a pretty good outline of the stage which I made up in "Paint." When I showed it to him, he just looked at me and said, "you're done already?" to which I responded, "Antonio, this how Germans do things." He didn't even know what to say after that, and just gave me a look that seemed to say, "you got me this time."

That evening we had the final performance of the Afterthought Quartet without Andy at the Auditorium Regione Toscana downtown. This was a gig set up by Il Trillo, the music school where we usually rehearse with Andy, and although it wasn't a big show, it did bear the grand title of "Florence International Music Festival." If nothing else, at least I was a headlining act at the big stage of what can easily be seen as a major event. The funny thing is, Il Trillo made up lots of posters to promote the event (below), and because our name is difficult to pronounce in Italian, they spelled it as "Aftertough." For weeks, we've been trying to figure out how we could construe 'aftertough' to mean something interesting, but we couldn't come up with anything. Antonio assured us that they'd since fixed the spelling error, so on the program it read "Afterthought" in the inside next to our bios, but on the cover of the program they came up with the new derivation, "Aftertought," which is how it sounds whenever Antonio tries to say it.



The show itself went really great. It was our best performance to date. We felt so comfortable as a quartet, playing a solid hour-long set. We had two standards which Andy brought in and two pieces each from Dave and I. In particular, our last two tunes, Dave's "To Be Determined," (our performance of this from the Festival can be heard here) which has a great long form with several interweaving sections, and my "Happy-Go-Funky," have become real staples of our program that I know Origin Blue really likes. Unfortunately, the gig was moved up from its original time in the evening to 6:00PM, which is way too early for anybody to come see us. Most of my friends are just getting home from school, and few people are around at that time who are available to go see a concert. I don't know many people who go out to a show before dinner, so we played to a meager audience of ten to fifteen people. On the positive side, the audience we had was responsive and appreciative of the music we were making, giving us considerable applause despite their numbers, and we didn't let the lack of audience get in the way of the music. We played with as much intensity as ever, regardless of who was their to listen.

Wednesday was the big end of the semester performance at school, and all of the art classes were also displaying their various paintings, sketches, and photographs. While that was going on, David Travis, the president of the Florence program, had asked if our Italian class could perform the Tuscan folk songs we'd worked on in the entranceway to Villa Ulivi during the art gallery. We actually drew quite an audience, with some thirty students lined against the walls and up the grand staircase to watch us. Besides the Tuscan music, we closed out with our big number, "Mambo Italiano." In the middle of the tune there's a dance break, but no one ever felt comfortable doing a little mambo there, as our teacher had hoped, so it's just evolved into a guitar solo, which is a lot of fun. I've even thought about transcribing the tune to play as a regular jazz standard in other groups, maybe with "Aftertough."

Performing our Tuscan music in the entranceway to Villa Ulivi. As you can see here, many members of the class are musicians, including John Bishop (Afterthought drummer, far left), Frank Garcia (film scorer, center left), Isamu McGregor (Origin Blue pianist, center right), and John Spencer and I (back left).


Also here are Molly Gachigard (composition, far right), Jennifer Bissel (actor-singer, back right), Mimi Parroco (who sang "'Swonderful" with me for the Gershwin Revue, center), and Michael Bennet (composition, back center). My teacher and her daughter are singing in the front right)

Later in the evening we had the recital, giving many of the classical students their first and only chance to perform—they all had opportunities at the classical aperitivos, but few of them jumped to do it. After the classical performance, we had, as David Travis put it, "a quick break for dinner," which lasted some fifty minutes or so. Only in Italy would a fifty minute break be considered "short."

Following "dinner," we played three songs as the "Afterthought Quartet featuring Andy Gravish." We opened with "To Be Determined," which we were able to elevate from our quartet performance with the addition of trumpet. Then we did a tune I wrote called "Done," which follows the traditions of Thad Jones and the Village Vanguard orchestra, so it was great to play with muted trumpet. We closed with Kenny Dorham's "Lotus Blossom," after we'd convinced Andy that it would be a better selection than the new tune he'd brought in on Monday. "Lotus Blossom" is a real upbeat tune by Kenny Dorham from the peak era for Blue Note Records. We always play great solos on it, we've got a great drum break, there's room for Dave to open up a lot during the intro, and I get to play tight harmonies with Andy on the last melody. It's a perfect closer, and we really nailed it. That was definitely our best performance of the semester in any configuration.

Origin Blue played an equally great set after us, and then they opened up the stage for a jam session. At first it was just the faculty, which was great to watch, with Francesco, Andy, and our aural comprehension teacher, Greg Burk, among the musicians. Then I got to join in for a rousing take of "Blue Monk" that must have lasted fifteen minutes or more as musicians that weren't on the stage to start with, such as Dave Schroeder—the head of the jazz department back in New York, who was around for the week—and my roommate, Adam, joined in with us for a few choruses. It's always fun to play the melody on a blues with that many instruments because everybody goes for a different harmony line and we get a really big sound. It was quite an evening, and I was happy to represent myself well on stage in such good company.

Below are pictures by a professional photographer from the final Limonaia performance:

The Afterthought Quartet with Andy Gravish. From left to right: Andy, Piero Spitilli, and John Bishop.


At the jam: Francesco Bearzatti, Ares Tavolazzi, and me.


Isamu McGregor, with Origin Blue.


My roommate, Adam Price.


My other roommate, Sean Huston.


And yet another roommate, John Frederick Spencer IV.




Afterthought bassist, Piero Spitilli.


Afterthought pianist, Dave Mainella.


Francesco Bearzatti




Afterthought, with me and Andy.


Introductions from president David Travis.


Dave Schroeder, left, and Greg Burk, right.


Francesco Bearzatti


Francesco Bearzatti and Greg Burk


Francesco Bearzatti, Ares Tavolazzi, me, Andy Gravish, and Jeff Hatcher.


Adam Price, me, Evan Crane, Jeff Hatcher.


The Afterthought Quartet featuring Andy Gravish

Fontanafredda

11:30AM May 8

Saturday we had our big performance in Pordenone, recording in front of a live studio audience. I was pretty excited for the opportunity, especially after our great rehearsal the day before. I finally felt like things were jelling with the Afterthought Quartet and was ready to go out there and record a great show.

Our train didn't leave till after 11:30, so I met my parents for coffee in the morning, and then we went to the train station, where I helped them buy there first TrenItalia tickets. They decided to take a day trip to Siena, and I wanted to make sure they understood the train system, which is a confusing one even if you do speak the language.

While we were waiting for their train, we walked over to Santa Maria Novella and ran into a parade for Italian Independence—April 25, 1945 marked the end of fascism in Italy. There was a military band, flag bearers, and two representatives from each of the eight branches of the Italian military. The whole affair, marching the military down the street in a celebration that marks the beginning of free-rule, was a bit odd. After I dropped my parents off at the train station again, I ran into citizens celebrating the holiday, but many around the outside were holding flags to support the communist party. I love Italy, but I can't say it makes much sense a lot of the time.

I was at the train station by 11:15 to meet up with my bandmates. This was the first performance where we would share the bill with the other jazz ensemble, Origin Blue, but I was surprised to see Evan, their bass player running with his instrument towards track three while I approached our train at track ten. It seemed to me they had found a different route, which was confusing, as I'd checked all of the times the day before, and this was clearly the best option. Pordenone was well north in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, one of the Germanic autonomous regions of Italy in the far northeast of the country, past Venice. The only train that could get us up to the local Friulano trains was the Eurostar to Venice.

When Dave showed up, he informed me, that the other group had found an alternate route that wasn't supposed to exist, taking three local trains by way of an outer Florentine station before getting to Venice. Not only that, but apparently, Antonio had sent out an email the night before at 11:00PM explaining that we had to pay for this gig out of our own pockets, but, in his words, that was okay because we were "getting a good deal on the hotel"—which was a three-star place, as usual. This was quite a shocker to us all, especially after I'd already spent 140 Euro to buy train tickets for my trio just for the way there. I felt like I'd been conned by Antonio. He's put us in so many great situations, and we try to put our trust in him, but he consistently drives us nuts as well, not letting us know information till the last possible minute, if that.

I tried to get over it on the train by analyzing some of those fabulous atonal pieces by Schoenberg and Webern for music theory. It wasn't till we arrived that I realized we weren't actually going to Venice, but rather Mestre, essentially the Newark of Venice. On the way there, we'd tried to console ourselves by saying, well, at least we could take an hour stroll around Venice while we wait for the next train. That was no longer possible though. Outside the station there was even a hotel called "Hotel Triste." We decided to use the extra time we picked up by taking the Eurostar to go out and see Mestre briefly, grabbing a quick bite at a restaurant a few blocks from the station. I got tagliatelle in what was supposed to be bolognese sauce, but really just turned out to be a fair marinara. The town itself was pretty lame, making Newark actually look like a good alternative.

Beautiful Mestre

Waiting at Stazione Venezia-Mestre. From left to right: Evan, Jeff, Dave, John, and Isamu.

Dave and John

Jeff, Evan, and Dave.


While we waited back at the train station again, we ran into the other ensemble, who, three trains later, were getting ready for the final leg of this journey to Pordenone. The final train was actually a gorgeous ride right up into the mountains. As we were approaching our stop though, we got a call from Antonio saying that we should get off one stop before Pordenone, in Fontanafredda. It was apparently closer to the final location. We asked the train attendant to let us know when we arrived in Fontanafredda, and she just looked at us as if we didn't know what we were getting into. When we finally exited the train, she asked us, as we looked around at the barren landscape, "is this really where you're supposed to get off because there is nothing here." Like usual, we just had to trust in Antonio.

We did indeed get off in the middle of nowhere, just shy of the Dolomites. The train station sat in the middle of farmland with a few houses down one road. At the station parking lot we found a little faucet, and we pondered, "is this the great 'fontana fredda'?" For about twenty minutes we waited there by our cold fountain, which was indeed cold and played makeshift frisbee with the lid to an old jar of cashews. Eventually we were greeted by a caravan of cars sent over by the studio, and they took us to the hotel to drop our things off.

Approaching Fontanafredda and the Dolomites


The station in the middle of nowhere, otherwise known as Fontanafredda.


Dave stands by the cold fountain


Awaiting a ride to the studio. From left to right: Evan, John, Dave, Isamu, and Jeff.


In the hotel, we turned on the television for a bit, and it was fascinating to find not only Italian, but German programming. We watched a bit of a professional handball match, which is pretty popular in Germany. At one point we even saw an advertisement for "Deutschland Superstar," the German version of "American Idol."

When we got to the studio to do our sound check, it didn't take us long to realize that this was primarily a rock venue. Yes, they did have the requisite black-and-white photos of jazz musicians on the walls, but the piano had to be played on a keyboard, the guitar was going through Marshall stack, and the drums sounded like something Phil Collins might play. We tried our best to make do with the situation, but the sound engineer wasn't completely responsive either. Francesco Bearzatti, the internationally recognized saxophonist who leads the other ensemble, was telling the engineer time and time again to change the same things on his microphone and monitor. It got to a point where we just stopped asking for help, and Antonio went and talked to him and asked if he could just let us play primarily acoustically. The engineer wanted to create sounds with the microphones rather than let us do the work and have the microphones amplify the natural tones we were creating.

All things considered, I had a great time at the performance. We had so many problems that day, but when it came time to make music, that's exactly what we did. We left it all behind and played a great show. In fact, it was definitely our best show up to that point. The audience really enjoyed us, and we felt like the music was finally evolving. Every week we play in rehearsal with Andy, the music feels stale, and that is partly because of the poor room we play in, but as a quartet, we were building real chemistry and finding new ways to express ourselves on the same tunes we'd been playing for months. It was great to play like that at a concert that was being recorded, although the quality was a bit suspect. My two tunes felt particularly good, and on Happy-Go-Funky, we invited Francesco to come play with us. It was a lot of fun to play my own composition, in a recording, with an artist that has his kind of reputation.

I got Jeff to take a few pictures of us: John and Piero here.


Dave, me, Francesco, and John.


Then I took a bunch of pictures of Origin Blue: Francesco and Evan here.


Jeff


Isamu


Francesco and Evan


Sunday we got up early for breakfast before catching a 9:00 train back. We had the same options as the day before, taking the Eurostar back from Mestre, but instead we chose to take the three trains and risk a nine minute changeover in Bologna in order to save a bit of money. Fortunately it worked out, and I was back in my apartment by 3:00, tired and stressed out after that most unusual weekend. I didn't have much time to relax though, as I had two more performances that night.

I had to be over at La Citè by about 5:15 for the classical aperitivo. Now that I had an instrument to play on, I volunteered myself to play some of the classical repertoire I'd been working on this semester. I can't say that Antonio's nylon string guitar sounded very good, especially amplified by the poor microphone at the cafe, but it was a great opportunity for me to continue with my classical studies, and the performance possibility was enough of a motivation for me to really work on some new pieces. I met up with my parents at the cafe, which also gave me a chance to show them the venue we'd been playing at on a regular basis in Florence. Unfortunately, we didn't have anymore jazz gigs at La Citè left.

Waiting for the train in Fontanafredda: Isamu, Dave, Piero, and the infamous Antonio Vanni.


Piero, John, and Antonio.


At least there were pretty mountains


Immediately after I played—and I specifically went on first—I had to head over to Porto di Mare, a restaurant about six or seven blocks east where we would be giving the first of two performances of the Gershwin Songbook Revue that night. The performance wasn't until much later in the evening, but Antonio wanted us there really early for a soundcheck. True to form, at this performance where Antonio wanted us there early, we didn't need nearly as much time as he gave us. My parents rushed over from La Citè, afraid they were going to miss the second performance, but they ended up just hanging around for a long time while we were setting up. While we waited for 10:00, when we could start the show, I took a nice walk with my parents around the river, catching the sunset over the Arno.

The show itself went off without a hitch. It was really solid all of the way through. My group opened with an instrumental, playing Rogers and Hart's "My Romance." It seemed to fit with the period of music we were playing, and I really loved what we did with it. The tune was completely unrehearsed, but we were really connecting as an ensemble at the time, and it all fell together really well. I'm only annoyed that I forgot to turn on my recorder, which was sitting right on the piano at the time. I did, however, make sure to record the rest of the show (two of the songs, "Do It Again" and "How Long Has This Been Going On" can be heard on our site, along with new versions of "Tuesday Troubles," "In Cologne," and "Happy-Go-Funky" from Fontanafredda) which went just as smoothly. It was a nice change to be playing with singers. It was reminiscent of the work I did in the pit orchestras back at NYU last fall, filling in and playing off what the vocalists were doing. The whole time, I was thinking back to the John Coltrane-Johnny Hartman album, where Coltrane, for once, had to take a backseat to someone else. When it was his turn to play though, he really shined. I only wish some of the singers had listened more to that kind of music. A few of them got it, but most of them were coming from the musical theater scene, where every word has to be articulated in order to get across a story. Jazz singing doesn't have to be so precise. I can't say that most of them did the research to get in that spirit. Nonetheless, I had a great time playing behind them, and some of the tunes were really spectacular.

Getting ready to play Italy's worst classical guitar


My roommates, Adam, Sean, and John, preparing for the classical aperitivo at La Citè.


Playing 'Swonderful with Mimi Parroco for the Gershwin Revue

Friday Fun

9:00PM May 1

Friday I took my parents to a place near the Duomo to grab a cappuccino and a pastry before heading up to campus for a rehearsal with my group for our gig the following day in Pordenone. In the meantime, my parents got to go up the Duomo and get one of the great views of the city.

On Saturday we had our second performance as "The Afterthought Quartet," without Andy there as our leader. After our first mediocre performance at La Citè the previous weekend, we really wanted to do this one right. To add to the pressure, this gig was specifically set up as a recording session in front of a live audience. Earlier in the week I'd given a recording of the Sunday show to Dave and John to see which tunes they thought we should keep in the condensed program—unlike La Citè, we only needed one short set for this performance. We came up with a nice six tune lineup which included two tunes of mine, including one of the funk tunes I figured we were going to discard after the last gig. We really worked hard on one of Dave's new tunes though, and started really coming together as a group. I felt a new life in the ensemble at that rehearsal. After we came to Florence, it felt like we discarded everything that John, Dave, and I had worked on before in New York, but that chemistry started to come back that day.

After rehearsal, I met up with my parents at the little bar just up the street from campus where they have the most fantastic sandwiches. My mom and I both got panini with pesto, mozzarella, and fabulous grilled peppers and eggplant. My dad got a similar one with salami. If the sandwiches weren't reason enough to walk up the hill, we ate them in the La Pietra gardens on that gorgeous day, and I got to show my parents a few of the places they'd missed on the extensive property two days prior.

Walking up to La Pietra with sandwiches

Eating sandwiches in the gardens






What wisteria!


Coming to campus also gave my dad to check his email, and then we all headed back downtown. We tried heading over to the great synagogue of Florence (top), which I'd been meaning to check out. Unfortunately, it was closed at the time in advance of shabbat. We just got to see it from the outside.

We had a 4:30 appointment with Antonio at the Uffizi, but it was still a bit early for that, so we stopped by Santa Croce, sipping some wine at the great outdoor market in front of the grand cathedral while we killed the time. While trying to contact Antonio, I told him that I was walking with my parents by the Poseidon statue in front of Uffizi, to which he replied, "what?" After going through the same failed interaction again, it occurred to me that even today, that Roman influence had Antonio calling it "Neptune." When I said this, he immediately got it. I was so surprised that those ties to the old Roman empire were still so ingrained, and he told me to wait opposite the main door to the galleries.

Relaxing with a glass of wine out front of Santa Croce



As we were waiting there, my dad asked me, "so is Antonio just going to pop up out of nowhere?" That is his way of doing things, and even though I was looking out for it, he still caught me pretty off guard, coming up on us from behind. He only took us through about three rooms of the gallery, but in those rooms, he went into copious detail about what makes the paintings at Uffizi special, and even more important, how that relates to the history of the city. As much as I'd been trying to relate various stories to my parents about the history of Florence, Antonio really put it all together in a way that refreshed and enhanced my own memory of the cities' history. We spent a while with one of the rare paintings by Michelangelo—the only finished piece of his—all the while, Antonio compared the paintings and artists to various jazz luminaries and specific contributions they made to that culture. I don't know if those comparisons resonated with my parents quite as much as they did with me, but I think I've given them enough of an education about that history that they knew what Antonio meant when he compared Michelangelo to John Coltrane.

That night, we went out to dinner with my roommates Adam, John, and Sean at Acqua 'all Due, the very place John and I had missed out on winning the gift certificate to a few days prior. It was quite a meal though. John, my parents and I all joined together to get the mixed pasta first course. Instead of bringing out just one dish, they bring out a sampler of five different types of pasta one at a time. That was really excellent. Then for second courses I got a steak in my now favorite lemon-caper cream sauce. My mom got the same over veal, which is how I'd eaten it before. My dad got one of the tastiest chicken dishes I may have ever had, which I could only compare with the curry chicken I'd gotten there a few weeks earlier. Sean and Adam both got the restaurant's signature dish: blueberry steak. I know it sounds like an odd combination, but the flavors actually work together incredibly, and we were all blown away by it. We got several tiramisu and a few coffees for dessert, and then we all walked back with my parents towards our apartment and their hotel.

Afterwards, John went to meet up with the girls, and Sean joined him. Adam and I were going to meet up with them later on, when John let us know what they were up to, but we never got that call, so we decided to just go for a walk and find a quiet bar where we might talk and share a beer. The walk turned out to be much longer than we'd anticipated, as we couldn't find that perfect quiet place, but after almost an hour, Adam recommended we try out this place he'd been to once before on Piazza della Signora. Save for the one guy who was singing karaoke when we got there, it was perfect. The beer was even half-decent—I believe the lobby for the huge wine industry in Italy is so strong that they prevent any good beers from being produced or imported to Italy. Fortunately, the wine is so good that it is easy to get over this, but every once in a while it would be nice to have a decent beer. Italians I talk to think that Budweiser is a quality beer option. I'm actually glad that Adam and I went off on our own, as the girls tend to go to bars that are overly loud and expensive. This was a much more relaxing end to the evening.

Parents' Arrival

11:50AM April 28

Wednesday I only had Italian class in the morning. I would usually have piano in the afternoon, but our piano teacher has been on tour with a pop singer, so I headed home immediately after class and got a chance to catch up on the blog a bit. Mostly I was just waiting around for my parents though, who were supposed to get into the city by about 2:30. At that point, I headed down the street towards their hotel, which was about two blocks away. I knew where it was located, but I forgot to write down the name, so I ended up walking around for a bit, asking three different hotels in the area if they had "una prenotazione di Bridges."

I struck out at each one of the hotels, and just as I was starting to wonder what my next move should be, I ran into them walking down the street. None of us had eaten any real food in a while, so I took them out to one of my favorite restaurants here, on San Lorenzo. In fact, it was the same place that I went for my first meal out in Florence, my second night here, when Adam, John, and I were looking for food at 6:00PM.

It was interesting introducing them to the Italian way of living. It was siesta at the time, so the place was pretty empty, but it still took the waiters a while to get around to us. Everybody here just moves at their own pace, which is one of the things I really love about Italy. It took my mom a bit to get used to though, at one point affirming to me, "I'm being patient!"

I got gnocchi in a cream sauce with walnuts, which was pretty tasty, but not quite up to their usual standards at dinner. My mom got ribollita, a traditional Tuscan stew, which had a lot of rice and mushrooms, and my dad got a rib dish of sorts. I can't say the meal was anything memorable, but it was great to spend the time catching up with my parents in person over a nice long Italian meal.

After lunch, I pretty much expected they would want to crash, having just flown through the night. To my surprise, they were still quite perky though, and they wanted to make the time zone transition successfully without losing too much time. I had to be back on campus by 6:00 or so, but we had some time yet until then, so I took them for a quick tour around some of the major sites in Florence. We went in the Duomo for a short bit, then down through Piazza della Signora by Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi. We walked by the Ponte Vecchio, but we didn't cross it, instead heading back up to their hotel. By that point I did have to get back to school, but I wanted to at least give them a taste of the city before they ventured off on their own.

Again, I thought they might be ready to retire, but they were interested in joining me for the walk up to campus. Nick Myers, a senior sax player from the jazz department, who came abroad last year, was returning on his first official Italian tour. After school finished last year, he stayed to help Antonio with the Umbria Jazz Festival and entered himself in a contest, placing second, and getting a recording contract. He recorded his album with a lineup of young Italian musicians, all under twenty-five, and now he was back to tour. Apparently none of the clubs in Florence could meet his quota though, so David Travis, the president of the school here in Florence, and Antonio set up a concert for us to see him and his group at the Limonaia next to La Pietra. We went to the show, which was pretty good. He had a real confidence on stage and looked completely like a professional, a student no more. I can't say I was moved by everything he played though. It was his drummer who impressed me the most.

I had to stay on campus after the show for the first rehearsal with the vocal performance majors for their Gershwin songbook revue. I told my parents to go visit the gardens before leaving though, and we planned to meet up the next day around 5:00 after I was done with classes. The rehearsal went pretty well, especially for the first time. This is a great project that Antonio put together, getting the jazz majors and the vocal performance majors working together. I've always thought one of the biggest flaws in the music department, and I guess this extends to most conservatories as well, is that all of the various musicians are kept pretty separate, working on their own projects, rather than together for the common goal of music. Antonio completely understands this problem though, which is why he set up projects like this and the film score recording.




Thursday morning I headed up to campus with John in all black, as that was our performance dress for the grand Italian "spectracolo." It was the big day, and we met up with the rest of our classmates in front of Villa Ulivi before heading down the hill to the elementary school which our teacher's daughter attends. It was a lot of fun to play for these kids—and get out of class—but they were clearly into it too. In particular, Amanda, our teacher's daughter, was dancing with more passion and knowledge of the music than any of us who had been rehearsing it.

That afternoon in aural comprehension we went about our usual routines, working on singing tritones, tone rows, and complex rhythms. The second half of class we usually move to dictation, but our teacher brought in some African chants for us to work on instead. It was a lot of fun, getting the whole class singing together in harmonies and counterpoints. We were going to move on, but everybody, our teacher included, was enjoying the chants so much that we just continued to do more and more of it, making the rhythms and melodies more complex, and then improvising together. It's such a nice break to have somebody like Greg Burk, a notable American jazz artist over here, teaching us. Whereas in New York the teachers feel compelled to take things much more by the book, he, along with our other music teachers, finds ways to adapt the curriculum to actually help us as musicians as no textbook can do.

After aural, I headed down to meet up with my parents. I found out that day that I had to be back on campus again that night for our second Gershwin rehearsal, but I had plenty of time to go out for an early dinner with them. I took them this time to a place directly underneath my apartment called "Amor di Vino." I'd gone there once before with John when his friend Ben was in from London, and we had a great meal. I'd gotten pizza before though, and I remember John's pasta being the real winner of the meal, so we all got pasta. My favorite part of the meal was the antipasto though. We got a mix plate of grilled vegetables, including zucchini, peppers, eggplant, and artichoke. They were stunningly tasty. When the vegetables have as much flavor as they do here in Italy, who needs protein?

It was a good portion of food early in the evening, so we didn't really feel like having dessert afterwards. Instead, we took a bottle of amaro I'd bought a few weeks earlier back to their hotel and sat around for a while chatting before I had to head back to school. I can't say this one was as good as the first bottle that Adam and I bought of Amaro. I got it on the recommendation of my favorite wine store owner here—I've gone to him several times before, and he always tells me to avoid the higher priced bottles in favor of a lesser-known more tasty variety of liquor, be it limoncello, brandy, or wine. This bottle was definitely more complex, not able to accompany a tiramisu in the way that the first one was, and it had a mint flavor as one of the herbal qualities of the liquor which didn't quite do it for me. It was a nice time though, and I was thankful to be sharing another one of my favorite parts of Italy with my parents, knowing they would appreciate a fine liquor. I then left them to go rehearse Gershwin, and we made plans to meet early the next day for a cappuccino.

Sickly Beginning To The Week

12:15PM April 25

Sunday night we hung around for probably an hour after the gig, talking over the performance and sharing a drink. Now that we're playing gigs with one another and have time to kill before and afterwards, we're spending more time with Piero, our Italian bass player, just getting to know him. We've built up a real friendship now with a local which goes beyond just the music.

Needless to say, staying up till 2:00 or so after the gig did leave its consequences the next day. If it weren't enough that I was sick, I went ahead and added sleep deprivation to the mix, and in the afternoon we worked on Schoenberg in music theory. If you're not aware of his music, it should be noted that Schoenberg was essentially the composer who decided to take the grand leap into complete atonality. He did, at least at first, write music that conformed to more traditional structures, but he saw it as almost his divine right, as the next in a long line of great German composers to take music to this inevitable juncture. By atonal, I do not simply mean dissonant, in the way that Stravinsky is dissonant. In fact, Schoenberg had a great grudge against Stravinsky for being too regressive in his thinking—and also because Stravinsky was more popular. Schoenberg took classical music to the point where I and many others can't bare it anymore, with no key center, and often no strong rhythmic structure. I actually came to appreciate this music more over the course of class, but suffice it to say that this grand combination of Schoenberg, sickness, and sleep deprivation was giving me a headache, and Monday tends to be a long day for me regardless.

After music theory I tried to get a quick nap before heading off to ensemble practice. Of course, this only reaffirmed to myself how tired I actually was. Practice was good though, and it did lift my spirits a good bit. It takes a certain amount of energy to really put out music you're invested in and care about, and playing with other people really got me going again.

Unfortunately, John wasn't home to make dinner that night, as he usually is on Mondays, so I stopped by the store and picked up some some pasta, arrabiatta sauce, and a bottle of wine. I threw in a bit of mascarpone and some peas to give the store-bought sauce a little more punch. It turned out pretty good, and by the time I finished whipping it up, John arrived to join me. The only problem was that the bottle of what I thought was red wine, actually turned out to be a sweet after-dinner wine. It just didn't work at all alongside our pasta, but Dallas was kind enough to let us share some of his wine.

That evening I made sure to call my parents one last time before they flew over just to make sure they were set and to give them a few tips on the cultural differences here in Italy. Of course, that meant going over to the girls' place to use Jaimie's phone, and she had plenty of work to do that night, so it wasn't until almost midnight that I got to go over. I'm glad I did though, as I think my call was helpful, and we set up a time and place to meet on Wednesday afternoon.

Tuesday morning I had my presentation on Philadelphia in Italian class. It went off without a hitch, and I even impressed a few of my classmates, speaking in discernible Italian without any notes other than the slideshow of pictures I had behind me.

After Italian class, I got the idea to re-tune the nylon string guitar that Antonio had acquired. As previously noted, I accidentally snapped off one of the plastic knobs on the low E-string's tuning peg as I tried to crank it into tune. It was permanently fixed at a pitch just below E-flat. Fortunately, the two pieces I was spending the most time on were in drop D tuning, which would be not even a half-step below the fixed pitch, so I tuned all of the rest of the strings up that amount sharp to match it. It was really fascinating to hear these pieces I was playing changed to a different tonality.

In politics class we learned about the EU, which was a large reason why I wanted to take the class in the first place. As our teacher put it though, even in the two-plus hours we spent learning about it that day, we were already far more knowledgeable about the system than most Europeans. This lack of knowledge has been one of the downfalls of the EU. To boost interest, they have lots of teaching materials for school students on their website. We took a look at the fifteen and older section in class and found a comic strip, called "Troubled Waters," about "the adventures of a Member of the European Parliament as she gets embroiled in a water pollution scandal." It was a sad sight. I did find it fascinating that more than eighty percent of legislation in European nations, even those which aren't in the EU, comes from the EU. I had no idea they had this much power in law uniting the continent. The union is essentially stuck in limbo right now though, as leadership wants to push the union into having more political power. The Treaty of Lisbon, from 2007, sought to fix the problems in the system after the addition of the Eastern states, while also re-building the system on a single constitution—as opposed to a series of several thousand-page treaties—with a head of state and a foreign minister. Every nation signed the treaty except for Ireland, which found that in order to do so, they needed to have a national referendum. Given that kind of power, and a lack of information, the Irish people voted against the treaty. The EU is based on system of unanimous consent, so they are stuck in a position where the system cannot evolve further without Irish cooperation.

That evening was also the talent show, and John Spencer and I put together a little battle which followed the evolution of music. I started out by playing Bach, then he interrupted me at the piano with some Mozart. We then went back and forth, from a neo-classical Barrios waltz, to a romantic piece by Liszt; then I played a very Spanish piece by Tárrega, and John responded with Gershwin. We then joined forces to move straight from Gershwin into Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love." I was only disappointed that I flubbed a good number of notes on my classical pieces. I got nervous on stage like I haven't felt in a long time, and it didn't help my confidence that my guitar had a lot of buzz to it through the amp. Nonetheless, we played off the duel pretty well, and I heard from several people afterwards that we were the most fun to watch, bringing a lot of humor to the performance. We failed to win the show though—based on audience voting—which would have gotten us a 50 Euro gift certificate to Acqua 'all Due, a restaurant we love. We didn't even place in the top three, which would have gotten us girl-scout cookies, but that's all right. I know we gave everybody a good time. Actually, the top two performers both did some sort of Bollywood-style dancing, which I can't say was anything I loved myself, but the audience certainly enjoyed it. While they were counting the votes, I got to accompany Tryson, who was the host, one more time with his take on John Legend's "Stay With You." I think that was as much fun as the show itself.

The Limonaia at La Pietra, where the talent show took place.

Film Scores

Here are the two video clips that I played music for in April. The first is composed by Alicia Barret, and the second one is by Frank Garcia. The two scores accompany sequences from Georg Wilhelm Pabst's 1929 German film, Pandora's Box.







Some of you may have seen this already, but here's a video produced by one of Antonio's friends that tries to document what our aperitivo every Thursday was like at Caffè degli Artigiani:

Gig Weekend

12:20PM April 20

Friday I got to sleep in for once, catching up completely after Ferrara. I then headed up to campus for a makeup class of aural comprehension. Of course, only Adam and I, out of the sixteen-person class, bothered to show up, even though I ran into several members of my classmates on campus. I guess that worked out for the best though, as we cut the class well short of the usual two and a half hours, and we used the time more constructively to focus on what Adam and I needed the most help with for the final.

All the while, I'd been trading lots of text messages with Antonio and my bandmates to arrange a practice for our group that day. We had a long performance on Sunday at La Citè--the cafe we usually play at for aperitivo--and for once, we were playing without Andy, our faculty bandleader. Without a trumpet playing the melodies, we had to get together a lot of different material, including some things that would work well with that environment and instrumentation, especially given the fact that Dave would be playing Fender Rhodes instead of piano.

The night before, Antonio told me that we could rehearse for a bit at La Citè, so I had to confirm with my bandmates whether they were cool with that. That fell through though, so Antonio found us space up on campus. Again, I had to recheck that everyone else was fine with that. We had a problem finding practice space in the first place because the other ensemble would be playing in our usual space downtown. When they got word that we would be playing on campus they offered to switch with us though, which was all fine by me, but I had to yet again check to make sure that was fine with Piero and Dave.

We did end up having a good practice, working out some different ways to play some of the tunes we've been working on with Andy, reintroducing some old tunes we did last semester to Piero, and adding a few funky ones that would work particularly well with the Fender Rhodes. The biggest flaw in the practice was that John couldn't make it, as he was taking the day off to travel, seeing as it was his last real chance to possibly get up to Venice. We were all understanding of this and told him to experience that incredible city, but as it turns out, all the trains were booked that day, and he ended up going to Siena instead.

Saturday I woke up feeling sick. I had felt precursors to it, but I just felt really awful all day. I did however go up to school to work on my presentation on Philadelphia, which I had to give in Italian class on Tuesday. I'd already written out what I wanted to say for the project, essentially a five minute oral exam given in the form of a lecture to the class on our hometowns. I had a great time finding pictures of Philadelphia to accompany my text, some of which inspired me to think of a few more things I wanted to say. It would have been easy for me to ramble on about Philadelphia for the whole class if it were in English. I found it surprisingly difficult to find old pictures of the city though, both in its pre-nineties skyline state and at the turn-of-the century, when industry populated the city.

That night I had a gig at an art gallery downtown just over the Arno with John, the drummer from my group, and Evan, the bass player from the other jazz ensemble here. Unfortunately, I had to get the amp down there from campus on my own, as Antonio wasn't able to get his hands on any taxi vouchers for this gig. When I finally left campus after working on my presentation, I'd just missed a bus, and I was in a hurry, so I walked it all the way down the hill. I had my laptop with me as well, and I was tired enough after walking with them for a half-hour back to my apartment. I then had to get them across the Arno, and with all of the tourists populating the area in between my apartment and the Ponte Vecchio, the closest bridge to the gallery, it took another half-hour of walking with the amp. If that wasn't bad enough, Antonio gave us poor directions, and I ran into John as we walked around trying to find this place. Antonio called us to make sure we were getting there all right, and then gave us poor directions several more times as we wandered around looking for this place. We did eventually find it though after I asked a local store owner for directions.

The gig was fine, and Antonio was pleased with how we played and represented ourselves. It was background music gig though, not the environment for the most inspiring musical output. The artist was Spanish, so they served paella to accompany the art. Although it tasted good, particularly the shrimp, it just seemed like a poor choice for food at a gallery, where people walk with the food. All of the seafood in the paella was shellfish still in its shells, including shrimp with the head still on. It just made it difficult to eat, as one hand had to be devoted to supporting the plate itself.

Sunday I returned to campus to finish up my presentation and get a handle on my course selection for next year. I spent most of the day there, and then headed down to La Citè for the classical performance that night. I had a lot on my plate this week, so I didn't get the time to practice for and perform at this performance. John Spencer and Adam took the lead on the show though, and they did a really great job.

I hung around for another two hours after the classical performance as my group was to perform there that night as well. It was a great time playing with the Fender Rhodes, a first for me, and some of the tunes turned out really well, particularly our rendition of Wes Montgomery's "Road Song." All in all though, I felt it could have gone a lot better. It was a tough audience that didn't give us a lot to play off of, but we simply weren't rehearsed well enough. I had some tuning issues against the sharp sound of the Rhodes, and as John hadn't rehearsed with us the other day, he'd forgotten that the ballad we were playing was in 3/4 time, instead of 4/4. We also played straight through for almost two hours, and by the end, we were pretty exhausted. That being said, we definitely had our moments in the show, and I got some nice complements from some of my peers who attended the show. It was a great experience to build on, as it was our first performance as a quartet, and I look forward to topping it soon enough.