Florentine Finale

10:30AM May 26

Thursday was a surreal day. I had three finals left to take, and yet, within twenty-four hours I would be leaving the country for an indefinite period of time. Italy would never and could never be the same as it was during those four months of fantasy, and the friends that I made there will be different once they return to their natural environs. We were living in a dreamland that I doubt can ever be replicated. I was still there in the thick of it all Thursday but with the knowledge that it would all be gone in a day's time.

The exam in Italian was not bad at all. It followed suit with the previous two tests we'd taken. Nothing was tricky about it. You simply had to know the material, and as residents in the country, it was in our own best interest to work on that every day.

I took a brief lunch, my final meal at the great school cafeteria, before playing my piano final. Our piano teacher was on tour at the end of the semester, so our aural comprehension teacher, Greg Burk, a world-renowned jazz pianist himself, was the proctor for the exam. That final went better than I thought it might. I struggled a lot this semester to keep up with the material, which was far more challenging than in previous semesters, especially considering we didn't have much practice space. Unlike most piano finals I've had where we play a piece of our choosing and maybe a scale, this time we had five or six things to play, including Gershwin's "Summertime," a piece in alto clef, and a sizable excerpt of figured bass (essentially a melody, bass line, and chord changes as it would be written in the Baroque period.) Thank to the practice I put in the previous week, it all went really well.

I waited for everybody else to finish their piano finals, and then I went back in as the second person in alphabetical order to do the extensive atonal singing portion to our aural comprehension exam. We had to sing tone rows (an ordered collection of all twelve pitches), collections of intervals that featured tritones (the devil's interval), and sing and clap two complex rhythms together. My favorite part though, was singing and playing the jazz standard "Detour Ahead." On guitar, I played the bass line and sang the melody, and then vice versa—most people did this on piano, except for Evan, who played it on bass. As there were sixteen of us in the class, and we each took five minutes or more to sing for the teacher, we spent a long time waiting for the exam to finish. I twice walked across the hill to Villa Ulivi and back, saying goodbye to Antonio and David Travis. Once the singing was done, we had about fifteen minutes left in class where we took a brief written portion to the test. And just like that, I was done with half of my college career.

The Baptistry outside the Duomo


The Duomo


I'd already packed, so I used my last hours in Florence to go check out Piazzale Michelangelo, a famous city overlook on the south side of the Arno that I'd missed out on up to that point. I asked several people if they wanted to come with, but I believe most everybody was preparing for the journey home before we went out that night. I walked right through the center of the city and its numerous tourist attractions, taking pictures all along the way to supplement my all too short supply of Florentine photographs. The views were simply stunning from up there. The piazza and famous nearby church, San Miniato, are perched up on a hill close to the city center, with what is possibly the best view of Florence. I would compare it to Belmont Plateau in Philadelphia or Twin Peaks in San Francisco. This was absolutely the best thing to do on the final afternoon, catching the sunset as I walked back down the hill and over the bridge adjacent to the Ponte Vecchio. It was wonderful to soak in the city that one last time, taking it in from a new vantage point.

Looking across the river towards San Miniato (right) and Piazzale Michelangelo (plateau at left).


Ponte alle Grazie


La Chiesa di San Frediano peaks over the Ponte Vecchio, as seen from Ponte alle Grazie.


The steeple of Santa Croce sticks out above the city along with the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale


A monument at Piazza Nicola Demidoff


Re-entering the dense city streets on the south side of the Arno


Gates at the south end of the city


Climbing the hill towards Piazzale Michelangelo


The Rose Garden just below Piazzale Michelangelo


Approaching San Miniato



Taking in the city from San Miniato




I look towards Fiesole with David


Many people enjoy the view




Palazzo Vecchio rises above Florence


The Ponte Vecchio at sunset


Approaching the girls' apartment on Via Pier Antonio Micheli


I then made another attempt to get into the Florentine synagogue, but it was closed on that Thursday evening, so I continued on towards the girls' to meet up before dinner that night. We were going out to Dante's Pizzeria, a nice joint just over the Arno half a block from La Cité. Obviously, they are known for their pizza, but the one other time I was there, I wasn't particularly impressed by the pizza, so I went with "gnocchi con salsicia." I'm glad I chose pasta because it was a really excellent dish. I'm not sure anything will compare to the gnocchi I got in the south of France, but the dish was extremely tasty, and the Italian sausage broke up the monotony of the cream sauce pasta.

We took our time with the meal, spending probably an hour talking before we even got our food. Our usual crowd of the Mercato Centrale guys and Via Micheli girls (along with a few of our close friends from Via Cavour) was joined by a whole slew of students who live on campus that showed up for the latter half of the meal. A few people made speeches saying how much they were going to miss Italy and all of our newfound friendships. My roommate Sean made a particularly awkward one where he criticized some of the teachers that I, along with most of the music students, have really enjoyed. We were all done by 11:00 though, at which point we had our first prolonged session of goodbyes.

The group then splintered into three, and I walked back towards the girls' apartment with Kate and Brittney. Along the way we got separated somehow from most of the group, as they hadn't informed us they were stopping to take a ride on the merry-go-round at one end of Piazza della Republica. We all sat around in their apartment for another half-hour or more before Kate and I departed. It was at that point that the tears really started flowing. Everybody had kept on their best spirits for the better part of the night, but as our time dwindled, it was harder to repress, and both Jen and Marielle were sobbing as we left.

I stopped at home briefly after walking Kate back to her hotel—she was hanging around for another week or two with family. I then went back to Dante's where the large Via Mafia (muh-fee-uh) apartment was celebrating the end of the semester. A lot of the music students were in that apartment, so I went to see them one last time, hanging around long enough to chat a bit and discuss some plans for the future before saying my goodbyes. Apparently Antonio had been there some twenty minutes before I showed up, who is the person I most wanted to see one last time, but he'd disappeared quickly.

Originally I planned to stay up and with people, drinking wine, and watching the sunrise over the Ponte Vecchio. If there was ever a time when sleep didn't matter, with several hours on planes the following day, that was it. It seemed like a great idea for the final night, but the people who were initially interested had all gone their separate ways that night, and I gave up on the idea, heading to bed a little after 2:30.

The moon and the David


The Duomo


Ponte Vecchio


Palazzo Vecchio


Santa Croce


Piazza della Republica


The Arno, as seen from the foot of Ponte alla Carraia

Wednesday Wrap Up

10:00AM May 21

Wednesday morning I had my oral exam in Italian, and I am pleased to report that it went very well. After my oral exam at the midterm I felt really confident with my Italian. I was able to go in and speak for five minutes about my trip to Venice, and then I answered some on the spot questions afterwards. I find it ironic that my presentation for the final on my negative experience was about how immediately after that I lost a lot of that confidence in Italian, as I left Italy for ten days over spring break. There I was again, having a conversation with my teacher, telling her about my summer plans, knowing full well that I was about to again leave Italy and likely lose a lot of the confidence I'd built up again.

I didn't have any other classes on Wednesday, but I hung around with Antonio for most of the day. At first I went to his office to get a DVD of the Blue Note performance. He then showed me all of these amazing pictures that a professional photographer—Downbeat Magazine's go-to guy in Italy—took at two of our gigs. One of those was the final limonaia performance, of which I already posted pictures from. The other was our first big gig in Bologna at Take Five Jazz Club (seen at top). I definitely remember there being photographers at that gig. At one point in that show, I was about to stop playing to give Dave some room on one of his solos, and at that moment one of them came up to take a picture of my profile, so I just kept playing along without making much sound in order to still be in action for the picture (below). Having the photographer come is just another one of the great things Antonio did. I now have a handful of great-looking shots that I can use in a press packet.



After lunch I went right back to see Antonio, and at that point he gave me the recording of our gig in Fontanafredda. As expected, the engineer who mixed the recording really played with each of our sounds. The sax on the other group's tracks had a lot of unnecessary reverb, giving it almost a smooth jazz feel. Everything was recorded really loud as well, to the point where the keyboard and guitar occasionally distort. We were fortunate though, to have been given the raw mix as well, so I copied all of the files on my computer to take back home and remix myself. A few of the tracks were cut short in what I was given, so I haven't been able to finish that up yet, and I'm waiting to hear back from Antonio as to whether he has or can get those full files.

While I was copying files, Antonio and Tryson were brainstorming about ways to improve the program. This was only the second year of the music department's existence at the Florence campus, so they're still getting a lot of things together. Some of the problems result from Antonio not having any support staff or even a room he can always count on having available. A lot of that is in the works of being resolved, but we talked more about how to get other students involved, how to reach out to the Florence community, and how we can communicate better as a department. In New York, we have a zero credit class called program meeting where we catch up as a department once a week. I think Antonio is going to implement that now, and it may also become a venue for students to perform pieces they're working on, get feedback from peers, and possibly have guest speakers or master classes.

When I got home, I put on the new recording from Fontanafredda, and in the hour that it took to play through, I packed most of my belongings back up in my suitcases so I wouldn't have to deal with that on the last night. I then practiced some of the atonal singing exercises for our aural comprehension class the next day and later headed over to Jazz Club for the last jam session. The guitar player who usually runs the session wasn't there, so after his backing trio played a tune or two, I became the default guitarist for the night. There was one other guy I know who sat in for a few tunes, but then I got to come back up and close out the night. I played particularly well that night, which was a great way to go out. All in all, I played on five tunes, and Isamu recorded the show, so I got a copy of a few tunes from him (two of them are below in the form of YouTube videos.)

Here is the first tune I sat in on at the Jazz Club session. This is Horace Silver's 1964 hit "Song For My Father," whose bass line was knowingly copied by Steely Dan for "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" ten years later. The first slide is the sign behind the stage at Jazz Club. The rest of the video features pictures from the Bologna Take Five Jazz Club gig by the Afterthought Quartet and Andy Gravish, with special guest Tom Kirkpatrick, another ex-patriot from Ohio living in northern Italy. The second half of the video features pictures I've taken at our La Pietra campus estate.


This is the funky jam we played to close the night. I love that Gianluca, the Italian sax player, speaks English up front to get everybody clapping their hands. Most of the crowd was Italian, but I guess that line goes beyond languages. This video is accompanied by pictures from the final performance at the Limonaia. Isamu McGregor, the pianist from the other NYU ensemble, Origin Blue, plays on both tracks.

Finals In Florence

4:30PM May 15

The final week of school began with a practice final in Italian. Like the quiz that we'd taken the week before, it was pretty straight forward. Nothing was out of the ordinary, and my confidence was again boosted for the actual final. Curiously, I heard "To Be Determined," a tune written by our pianist, coming from down the hall. John Bishop and I were both tapping out the hits in the tune as we finished the practice exam, but mostly we were eager for class to end so we could check out what must have been the Blue Note Milano video in Antonio's office.

Before I went to see Antonio though, I went to the school administration office to fill out my last teacher evaluation form. As I entered the room, all of the staff there perked up, and one of them said, "hey, you're the guy from that video," to which I kindly replied, "yes."

They continued, saying, "great job. You know, you're like famous? The Blue Note is the biggest club in Italy."

"Thank you."

"Have you seen the video?"

"No, not yet, I was just on my way..."

"It looks fabulous. You're going to be big."

At that point, I'd had enough of the gushing, so I took the evaluation over to Antonio's office to finish it up and where I might be able to see this video for myself. It did look pretty spectacular. We were shot from all different angles, mostly close-ups, especially on Dave, whose body was rarely shown in shots of the piano. For all we know, those hands playing the keys were disembodied like Thing on the Addam's Family. (The Blue Note still has the rights to the recording, so I can't post any of it, but Antonio and his film friend Domenico are putting together a six-minute video which will be on youtube. More details will come when I hear back from them.)

In the afternoon I had what was probably the most intense final of my college career, in music theory. I felt I had a good handle on the material, but our teacher is very demanding, and he often doesn't realize how challenging his assignments are for us students who are just taking on twentieth century music for the first time. I really enjoyed and got a lot out of the class, and the final was definitely fair, but I was caught second-guessing myself a few times.

Afterwards, I headed back downtown and off to ensemble practice. Before rehearsal, we met at the café across the street again for one last coffee. Actually, I remembered Andy saying that in the springtime we'd get proseco and sit outside, so with the glass walls of the café opened up to the gorgeous spring weather on two sides, I ordered a nice cool glass of proseco. It was a great way to recompose myself before practice. During rehearsal, for which we didn't have anything to prepare, we played through a few of the tunes that have become staples of our program, such as "To Be Determined" and "Tuesday Troubles," and then we closed on a new funk piece that Andy brought in. Andy is currently in the process of moving back to Brooklyn after five years or more of living outside Rome, so I'm sure I'll see him plenty more. At the time, John, Dave, and I made plans to meet up with Piero the following night to go out to dinner.

Later that night, for the first time actually, I went to the jam session at La Cité. They have a session there every Monday, but that is usually a long day for me, and I'm just ready to relax most times by 10:00 on a Monday night. I got to sit in on "What Is This Thing Called Love," which didn't go as well as I'd have liked. I felt several times that I came up just short of playing a good string of notes, but ultimately, I don't think my solo went anywhere. Isamu, John, and Piero all sat in on the next tune, so we got to play my original, "Happy-Go-Funky," and it went over really well with the audience. I stayed on for one more tune, "Beautiful Love," which was better than either of the previous two, and I was happy to end on that one. The piano player who runs the session came up to me afterwards and told me he liked the way I played, but he was surprised this was my first time there. It was the first and last, unfortunately.

La Cité Libreria Cafè


Because it was finals week, I didn't have any class until 4:30 on Tuesday, so I slept in, after staying out late at the jam session the previous night. I then gave my politics paper one last read and headed up to campus to work out what I was going to say for my oral exam in Italian the next day. We had to discuss one positive and one negative experience that happened in Florence. My positive experience was about the first weekend, the day that John, Adam, and I met the girls, walked all around Florence, and had a grand feast of a meal. My negative experience, which there were very few of, was about when I came back from spring break and felt that I'd lost so much of my Italian knowledge after barely using it for ten days that I couldn't even ask for stamps at a tabaccheria.

I handed in my paper and took the exam in politics that afternoon, which wasn't too bad. Our teacher didn't want us to spend lots of time studying, so he gave us the choice to answer three out of six essay prompts discussing ideas in European politics.

I then went over to the limonaia, where we'd set up a little party for Antonio. About three or four weeks before the end of the semester I said to Mimi, the student who helped Antonio organize the Gershwin Revue, "we should do something to thank Antonio for all that he did for us." We had opportunities to work with some of the greatest musicians and teachers in Italy, and we had chances to perform all of the time for the greater Florentine and Italian public. He went far above the call of duty, working for us on weekends and whenever else he got the chance. And beyond that, he had become a friend who cared about learning from and with us, giving us every chance to make a real career out of this Italian tour.

Mimi and I talked to John Spencer, who had a great relationship with NYU Florence director David Travis, and we got permission to use the limonaia for a party with a budget for snacks and David Travis got him a bottle of wine as well. I knew that David Travis always liked an excuse for a party, and he got really into it, insisting that it remain a secret. He brought Antonio over to the limonaia under the pretense that the two of them had to "check out the scene of the latest crime." Antonio was pretty blown away when he saw us, and he thanked us for working to take all of the opportunities that he presented us with, far exceeding his own expectations. We snacked for about an hour before staff members from La Pietra told us we had to leave.

That night, Dave, John, and I met up with Piero, who drove us out to a favorite restaurant of his on the periphery of the city. The place didn't look like anything special. There was wood-paneling up the bottom half of the walls, and it reminded me of "Louis' Italian-American Restaurant," from The Godfather. To be more ominous, the signature dish which we all got would roughly translate as, "assassin's pasta." It was really fabulous. Piero insisted before coming that this place made a really simple pasta better than anybody else. It was just spaghetti topped with some chopped tomatoes that were barely even cooked and a nice helping of parmiggiano over top. It was everything Piero talked it up to be: clean, but ever so tasty.

We then went around the block to what was somewhere in between a recreation center and an old union hall. It was a place that a lot of people came after work to chill out instead of going home. They had foosball and ping-pong. Manchester United was playing Arsenal on the television for a packed audience. Oddly enough, Piero described it as a "dopo pensato," the correct translation for our group's name, afterthought. People go there when they don't want to think. We all shared a drink and chatted some more before heading back to Piero's car.

Rather than dropping us off though, we went for one more drink at La Cité, hanging out there for probably another hour. It was close to 1:00 before Piero dropped me off in front of my place, but it was a great night spent amongst friends, and an appropriate way to say "goodbye," at least temporarily, to Piero.

Members of the music department who came to the party surround our leader Antonio Vanni. In the back row from left to right are me, Nicole Haslett (voice), John Spencer (piano), David Travis (NYU Florence director), Adam Price (clarinet), Sean Huston (bassoon), Jeff Hatcher (drums), Isamu McGregor (piano). The front has Tryson Ajani John (voice), Alicia Barrett (violin), Mimi Parroco (voice), Yeaseul Lee (composition), Yvette Villanueva (loyal friend and fan), and Molly Gachigard (composition).

Final Firenze Weekend

9:00AM May 12

Saturday started out like any other weekend day in Florence. I finished a complete rough draft of my politics paper and ate up the leftovers of my arrabiata pasta from the previous night before heading up to campus. With access to the internet there, I was able to double check many of my online sources for the essay and catch up on my email. I also got a chance to practice piano, which I desperately needed to do for the upcoming final. There are only two rooms on campus with pianos, and it is difficult to find time in my schedule to practice, let alone at a time when other people aren't already using the rooms. On the weekends it is much easier to find time, as most of the music majors aren't up on campus.

It felt like a very productive day for me, and the girls were hosting a "Great Gatsby" party that night, so I headed home to concoct a dessert to take with me. I figured that my apple pie over Easter weekend was such a big hit that I'd try to work around that idea, although I didn't have time to put together a batch of pizza dough. Instead, I got a bunch of ladyfingers to make a doughy base to cook the apples over. I then whipped up a some mascarpone with sugar and cinnamon to lay over top of the baked concoction.

By 5:30 I headed over to the girls' for what would turn out to be quite a grand party. They did a great job of getting into character with their 1920's style outfits, and the apartment was decorated with stars and streamers hanging from the walls along with post-its of quotations from F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel. They were pleased to see that John and I also dressed up in suits for the occasion, but they jokingly dismissed Sean and Adam for not coming in costume. The two of them immediately left, disheartened, and I think Sean took it a bit personally, coming back in a full tuxedo—Adam didn't care that much and returned in his same street clothes.

The girls all dressed up for the "Great Gatsby" party. From left to right, Brittney, Yvette, Jaimie, Lauren, Rishma, Kate, Jen, Alex, Marielle, and Emily.


By 11:00, at national quiet hours, the apartment was filled with more people than ever before. I saw everybody that had ever been to that apartment on any occasion and then some. It certainly overwhelmed the girls and their expectations. At this point I brought out my dessert, and I got several comments from people I didn't know saying it was "really awesome," or "completely made the party." Some of our friends who live on campus had a little too much to drink, so John and I rode the bus with them back to campus to see that they got back safely, and then we walked back home in a light drizzle—the last bus of the night only got us as far as the bottom of the hill.

I was still up early on Sunday, studying music theory terms for our final the following day. Around 11:00 I headed back over to the girls' to retrieve my pans from the night before, and they were still trying to recover from the mess the party had created. They've hosted many events before, but nothing had ever been nearly as big as that, and I'm not sure they were ready for that kind of responsibility.

I then went up to campus to work a bit more on piano and my politics paper, and I was pleased to find that there was a group of students from my music theory class there who were getting ready to study for our comprehensive exam. We headed over to Villa Ulivi (top), where I got to see the library for the first and only time. Our session was extremely helpful, figuring out the easily confused terms that go along with serial music and discussing how to approach the essay questions comparing different types of music we'd studied that semester in both conceptual and theoretical terms.

That night I met with my politics class in Fiesole for communist pizza. The Italian Communist Party runs pizza parlors and cafes—as does the Catholic Church—where they sell a good product for cheaper than normal prices. For that reason, they have good business, and the party gets to make money. We thought this would make a good field trip, and our teacher knew just where to go. As our teacher had informed us, there were no pictures of Stalin or Lenin hanging on the walls. It looked like any other pizza parlor, without any real attention to decor. The party did not use it for propaganda, but simply as a way to make money. I'm sure if you sought it out, you could get more information on the party, but that wasn't the goal of the place.

I ended up getting a pizza with Italian sausage, "salsicia," and onions, which was maybe the best pizza I got in all of my time in Italy. I was never particularly impressed with Italian pizza. I found it consistently very good, but rarely, if ever, great. This was that exception. Everything about it, from the sauce, to the toppings, to the dough, was stronger in flavor and tastier than any pizza I had in Italy, with the possible exception of the pizza I got in Venice.

As usual, I had a great time discussing politics with my teacher and classmates. Our class has only four students, and it has been a great forum for discussion. Given the chance, I also bounced off some of the ideas from my paper on Lega Nord to my professor, who always gives me good feedback and direction. I feel that I've been able to take a balanced look at Lega Nord largely because he always taught it that way. He introduced them as a radical party, but he always acknowledged the validity to their main positions, something I've never heard from a Tuscan. One of my classmates, from China, and I discussed the merits and demerits of communism on the ride home, and although I believe she took everything a bit too personally, it was a really fascinating discussion. It's nice to be able to share such ideas with people in a cool manner without getting into the heated arguments that have become all too common when chatting about American politics.

Fiesole (the clock tower sticks out at the dip in the hills), as seen from Piazzale Michelangelo, on the south side of the Arno in Florence.

Blue Note Milano

10:30AM May 10 (EST)

On Thursday we had our last quiz in Italian class, which was essentially a practice run for the final exam. This was comforting, as I felt really good about the whole test. There have been times this semester when we've crammed in a new concept or load of vocabulary right in before the quiz, and that has made it difficult, but this one went really smoothly. I'm feeling really confident with my Italian now.

Most of the Italian classes had gone out for gelato at least once this semester, but given all the singing we'd been doing, the gelato field-trip slipped right by. For the past few weeks we'd been trying to get our teacher to take us somewhere for gelato, and she finally gave in, saying we could do it after the quiz, a point when she rarely wants to teach anyways. We went down the hill on the backside of La Pietra, following Via de' Bruni past the elementary school our teacher's daughter attends. We waved and called out her name, Amanda, as we passed, as it seemed she was outside at choice time.

This gelateria which we went to would be out of the way for me if I were walking from home, it's very near to the recording studio where we played for the film scores, but I'd heard great things about it for a while. I hadn't been to many gelato places in Italy that I felt were better than gelato I could get in America, but this was definitely one of those rare cases that stood out. I'm not sure it was the best gelato, but it was completely different than any other I'd had before. The flavors were richer, and the cioccolato peperoncino which I got had a spicy kick to it that I was still feeling after I'd thrown my cup away. The key was the texture though, this gelato was much softer and creamier than any other I'd had. It was definitely great to get a different spin on the Tuscan tradition.

Following gelato, Isamu, John Bishop, and I all walked back towards our apartments together, as we had to get ready for our gig at the Blue Note in Milan that night. I met Antonio, his girlfriend, Domenico (the camera man for our youtube videos), Andy, and my fellow peers in the jazz department at the train station a few minutes after 2:00. At times the school may skimp on providing us transportation and hotels, but that was not at all the case this time, for the prestige event of the season. Apparently we were even listed as significant news on the NYU website for playing at Italy's biggest club. To get there, we were taking the Eurostar on NYU's treat, and we then stayed at the ultra-snazzy four-star AC Milano Hotel—it has no relation to the soccer team owned by Prime Minister Berlusconi, but the AC hotel brand had the unfortunate luck of inhabiting the same name.

I tried to work on my politics paper, due the following Tuesday, on the train, but it wasn't the best environment to work, around all of my friends in the jazz department. Before long, I did get into a discussion with Antonio about the subject of my essay, Lega Nord, the radical populist party that wants to break off, or at least gain more federalist power for their northern nation of "Padania." I find the whole concept of a secessionist party in such a prosperous country fascinating, but the party is extremely divisive in their political tactics, stirring up strong sentiments on both sides of the issue. I have had a great time talking about it with Italians, who, in Tuscany, see them as crazy racists in the north. I believe that in coming from abroad, I've been able to look at the whole situation more objectively though, and I was even able to challenge Antonio's preconceptions of the party while talking to him. Yes, I believe they are crazy racists in the north too, but they take this position in order to draw votes and play with peoples' emotions. I'm not sure just how racist they actually are, but they pull on divisive issues like immigration, much in the same way as Karl Rove, cultivating an immobilized voting population and transforming the general electorate to their advantage—their polling as the third strongest Italian party for the upcoming EU elections. Also, Italy was never a unified state between the fall of the Roman Empire and 1861, and it has always been a collection of nations that share a language. I don't think federalism would be such a bad thing, as currently, the various regions have essentially no power.


John having fun on the train


Antonio and I discuss politics over Jeff (above right) and Domenico (below left).


They soon got tired of political discussion and retreated into traditional Italian sleeping-on-train pose.

The gorgeous sights of northern Italy and the Apennines


To give you an idea, this is one of Lega Nord's posters. It depicts the north of Italy, "Padania," creating all the wealth, laying the golden eggs, and sending that wealth down to Rome and the lazy south, never to return.


This one shows a very caricatured Asian man, a gypsy woman, an African man (brandishing a sword no less), and a Muslim, physically getting in the way and holding back a poor elderly Italian man.


When we got to Milano Centrale, we immediately departed for the subway. Two stops later, we were outside another big train station, but Antonio didn't really know where to go from there. Antonio has proven time and again that he's not good with directions, and we waited around for ten minutes as he tried to find which way we needed to go. This perpetual state of confusion makes trusting Antonio ever more difficult, but he rarely leaves us with another option. With little help from Antonio, we eventually turned the corner and noticed an 18-story building with large sign saying "AC Hotels" at the top.

We spent about half-an-hour at the hotel, dropping off our belongings and getting changed before heading off to the gig. It did seem that Antonio knew the way to the Blue Note though, as we walked right over without getting lost.


Milano Centrale


Approaching our swanky hotel


Looking up the side of the hotel


In our room


Entering the club was quite an experience, as we encountered a giant two-story room full of tables and a bar, three HD cameras set up on podiums to film us, and a grand stage at the center of it all. Our group was on second, so we sound-checked first, working in particular on one of my tunes, "What Now?," which had been a staple of our practices early in the semester, but we'd never gotten to perform. It was pretty special to be up there, and we just let it all soak in before the performance.


Walking through Milan to the Blue Note




"Maybe some day your name will be in lights sayin' [NYU Jazz] tonight"


Inside the club


Afterthought sound-check


We had a pretty good meal before the set began, and I got to talk a good bit with David Travis, the director of NYU in Florence, about the Eurostar and the goings on of TrenItalia. He came up for the performance along with Dave Schroeder, the director of the jazz department in New York. The meal was a buffet with at least two different types of pasta, and two or three types of meat. Little of it was memorable, but the turkey scaloppini was some of the best I've had.

Origin Blue has been playing together for at least a year now, and per usual, they played a really solid set. I think I've seen them play better before, certainly with more energy, but it was still a pretty great performance. We went on directly afterwards and opened up with "What Now?." I usually take a really good solo on it, and I thought what I played was solid, but it had been a while since we'd worked on it, so it didn't quite come together as well as I'd hoped. This kind of feeling summed up the entire performance for me. I felt like I played pretty well because I really knew the pieces we were playing, but I rarely pushed towards anything original in my solos. A lot of this stemmed from the fact that I never felt completely in tune, so I was constantly adjusting, and that extra attention I put towards my intonation drew away from my focus on what I was playing. The last part of the set I finally started to get it together. I felt really good about what I was playing on my tune "Done," but again, when playing with Andy, we have stricter arrangements, and although I wanted to take an idea I was playing into a second solo chorus, we had to continue on to another part of the piece. The last tune, "Lotus Blossom," was the best. I really like what I played, and I'm glad that we were able to close the set on such a high note. At that point I just wanted to play an encore or two though, to keep the momentum going.

I wasn't at all nervous during the show. If anything, I felt a rush of adrenaline that I hoped would propel me to a great performance. The intonation issue really got in my head though, and in the end, I felt that I didn't play up to my potential when we got our chance on the big stage. In listening back to the recording later, neither my intonation nor my solos were as off as I felt in performance, but I know it could have been that much better had I in fact been completely focused during the show.

Origin Blue with Francesco Bearzatti


Afterthought Quatet with Andy Gravish


Afterwards, David Travis bought us each a drink at the bar—I know we're legal in Italy, but that's still an oddly pleasing situation. I got to see my parents briefly as well, as they'd come up for the gig after their week in Cinque Terre. We discussed some of what they'd been up to on the scenic Italian coast, but we knew there was plenty of time to catch up on all accounts a week later, when I returned to America. Mostly, it was really cool to have them there, watching me play at the biggest club in Italy. They had one more day in Milan before flying back to America themselves, so we said our goodbyes, and I went back to hanging with my peers.


The Blue Note Bar



Domenico tries to conduct a serious interview with us after the show.


Unfortunately, he delegated interviewing responsibilities to Evan and Isamu, so we couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculous questions, of which we didn't have any for each other.


So we took ridiculous pictures too. Clockwise from the top: me, Jeff, Evan, Isamu, John, and Dave.


The next day I got up fairly early and got to work in peace on my politics paper for a bit. It was nice to feel like I was finally getting somewhere with it. Then, when everybody else got up, I joined them for breakfast downstairs at the hotel cafe. Considering that it was a four-star hotel, the breakfast was pretty mediocre. I find it hard to complain about anything, as school was putting us up, but I'm more surprised that the hotel would have such low standards of food quality.

We had to check out by noon, but we all wanted to get back to Florence as soon as possible, so we were out just after 10:00 and headed back to Milano Centrale to see if we could exchange our tickets—arranged for a 5:30 Eurostar—for something earlier. Unfortunately, it was the Italian equivalent of Labor Day, and everything was booked, so we resolved to spend the day at a park not too far from the station. When they bought the tickets, Antonio and David Travis had figured that we would want to spend some time sight-seeing around Milan, but as I had my guitar and laptop, and both drummers had heavy bags with cymbals, we weren't exactly in a position to go walking all around the city. We spent nearly five hours in the park lying around and playing an epic game of Ghost (a spelling game).

On the way back I got some good work done on my essay again, and I made plans to go out to dinner with John Spencer and some other friends that night. Unfortunately, by the time I got back, he let me know that he wasn't able to get the reservation, so he was eating up at school. Being a holiday, most things were closed, so I had to buy my food at the ninety-nine cent store, where I purchased a bag of pasta and an arrabiata sauce. Ironically, the two items only cost a Euro and a half, but I didn't argue, and I went home to make my dinner, which I supplemented with some mascarpone. It was actually better than plenty of the pasta and sauces I've found at the normal grocery stores, which will charge you at least twice as much. By that point, I was pretty burnt out on working on my politics essay, so I just curled up, watched some of a movie, and then went to bed early that night.

The very modern Italian city of Milano


Milano Centrale, a grand fascist monument.


Isamu towers over John as he struggles to come up with a word in the finale of our epic game of Ghost.


Inside the great Milano Centrale terminal