Transmitting From Melbourne, Australia...
We arrived here this afternoon. Our show is tomorrow & then we're off for 3 days, all of which will be spent here.
I had an especially nice plane trip as I got into a conversation with a guy in my row who just happened to be into really good music. He'd mentioned that he saw Liza on the flight which prompted me to say that I was a musician & was here working with her. From there we started exchanging musical viewpoints & he offered that he was very excited about Wayne Shorter (one of my all time favorites) coming to Australia in March. To have a stranger (& non-musician at that) bring up Wayne's name in casual conversation happens pretty much never so it was quite refreshing. Jazz is my 1st love & I've been into it pretty much since I was a kid. He came to it a little more recently but is a fan of pretty much all of the greats of jazz history. He knew the real deal which impressed me. He turned me on to some African jazz-based instrumental music, 1 piece that I'd actually heard. I told him that I recognized it from a film & he said, "Oh yeah, Broken Flowers, Jim Jarmusch." Jarmusch is one of my favorite directors. Bottom line, he seemed to be one of "my people" as I call them & we planned to try & stay in touch.
My hotel room is the nicest so far. Beautiful wood everywhere. Lucky in that I'll be here for 5 days.
Shortly after arriving, I took a fairly long walk around town just to try to get a vibe for the city. So far it reminds me a bit of San Francisco. I found a fairly inexpensive Chinese restaurant that was quite good. I was the only non-Asian eating there so I thought that was a good sign.
Now I'm back in the room & starting to wind down. We'll see what the days off bring & I'll let you know of anything noteworthy.