Roomies

The balance of my last day in Vancouver went much better than the morning and my mood was pretty good by the time I started the gig Friday night at 1067. We ended up with 9 performers, and it went really well. We had Dawn Zoe (accordion/piano), Fabienne Lacroix (clarinet), Pessi Parvanien (guitar), Lisa Butel (voice), Blythe Polreis (trombone) and Joe Rzmeniak (trumpet), augmented by Soressa Gardner (voice) and Dave Chokroun (bass). I played one instrument only, tenor sax, which was unusual for me at an improv gig. I like to have a variety of instruments at hand, but they were all packed up for Banff. I want to find some more gigs for this particular group - it has a really nice sound, and everyone is a really sensitive musician.

I told everone that I wanted to wrap up by midnight, however, the music was just too damn good, so we went until almost 1:00 am. It was pushing 2:00 before I got home. I needed one more hour to complete packing. In the end, I only got about 2 hours sleep before heading to the airport for my 7:00am flight. The last couple of days have been good preparation for Banff - there's time to sleep when you're dead.

I was met at the Calgary airport by my cousin Valerie, whom I haven't seen in about 8 years. She is totally charming, but I'm still getting my head around the idea that she's a grandmother now. She filled me up with coffee and lunch and then insisted on driving me to the Banff Centre. We had a wonderful talk on the way out, as our colourful family has no end of source material.

Immediately upon stepping out of her vehicle, the first person I saw was Ken Hoffman. And we're roommates! There are no coincidences up at Banff.

I've always been very lucky with my roommates up here. I was on my own the first year. The second year was Bill Mahar, next year Mark DeJong, a fine alto saxist and also a student of Stan Karp. I count all of these guys as some of the better friends that I've made up here.

I was so tired, I managed to lose my room key within 5 minutes of registering. Ken and I hung out for a while. He told me that his time at Banff two years ago totally changed his life. He changed his appearance - he's looking way more hip now with long hair, changed girfriends and dedicated himself totally to music.

We ran into Hugh and Lorae, then Marianne Trudel arrived - she'd had her pre-Banff trials as well and just needed to lay low and rest up for the coming days. At dinner I met a couple of the other composers. I figure I already know almost half of this year's participants.

After dinner, I blogged a bit then headed up to the music building for a little practice. I need to check out all of my instruments and make the necessary adjustments due to the altitude and dryness. I just worked on my tenor for an hour or so. My sea level reed sucked up here, so I ran through reeds until I got one that worked. It's one that I had rated pretty low in Vancouver - one of these years, I'll figure out how this all works.

Then off to the bar for a quick drink with Hugh, Lorae and Natalie, a fellow Nova Scotian and composer. Hugh gave his blessing for me to write this blog.

All in all, it's been a pretty great day. I'm here, I'm caught up on the blog and I'm ready to dive in tomorrow. Now if I could only find that key...