April 20th gig at The Palms

Opening tonight for Jerry on guitar, Bad Boy John Wedemeyer!

Again subbing for Rochon, Cirque's incredible Derek Jones!

Gonna be a great hang. Be there. No cover, no minimum.
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POST-GIG REPORT

Jerry brought Eric Tewalt out for a bari ride during "Wishing Well." Then he started motioning to me, pointing down with his head and eyes. Jeez...

Cat came dressed for comfort. Yep, he be stylin'. LOL! Jerry Merra and his flip-flops a while back, though; those took the cake.

We were delayed getting underway just a bit. Phil opened his alto sax case to find that one of the rods had come detached, the screw at the bottom missing, nowhere to be found. Lenny pulled some coiled wire out of a small spiral-bound notebook he had, cut a couple of inches off using a little wire cutter tool he had, straightened it by hand, and then they jammed it up into the screw hole and taped it into place with some white tape they found.

The rod was wobbly, given that it was not a snug, tight fit like a screw would have provided, but it held all night, and Phil just played his ass off right through the problem, no holding back whatsoever.

FANS FROM SWEDEN

Below, L to R: Lasse, Paula, and her husband Mikael. They came all the way just to see Santa Fe.

Mikael got introduced to The Seat of Funk forthwith.

Great fun.
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Below, L to R, my niece Sarah, her Mom, my sister Carole, and my other niece April (whom many of you know). They came out last week to hang and see our mother. We've had the best time. They're all doing very well. My nephew Mark (Carole's younger son) and his wife Meredith were here as well, but had to return to Altanta on Sunday.

As I write this I'm about 2 hours away from taking them to McCarran for their flight home to Marquette, MI (where it's still snowing).
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MORE SHOTS

Above, Mike Gonzales subbing ever so ably for Jamie Hosmer.

Below, John Wedemeyer. What can you say? The cat rips!

Below, Jerry Lopez. What can you say? The cat rips!

Above, Jerry singing the stunning "Si Te Vas."

Below, Derek Jones subbing again for Rochon. The cat is off the scale fine.

Nice crowd tonight, very nice. Thanks to all of you for comin' to hang.

CODA

Additional peeps to shout out. Thanks to Chicago alum Dawayne Bailey for comin' to hang. Dawayne will be guesting soon with Santa Fe.

Also, props to Jeff Tower for comin'. According to Rob Mader:

...the guy that got me started on saxophone and turned me on to Jazz and good music...Jeff Tower was my High School Band director and had an amazing program. The guy is retired and is a legend in the teaching circles. Still does a lot of playing in LA area.

Here is his site:
www.jefftower.com
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Very cool.

Lots goin' on later this week. I will follow up, so check back in. I'm goin' to Walnut Creek on Friday, Cheryl's back from Asia, and I been seriously missin' her. I'll post updates prior to heading out. I'll be back for the Palms gig on the 27th.

HOT CLUB OF LAS VEGAS, APRIL 22ND

Also this week...