The IASJ meeting this year (25th anniversary) in Lisbon was particularly memorable, and congrats to Dave Liebman, Walter Turkenburg, the IASJ board and above all the whole Lisbon crew from Lusiada University and the Hot Club for pulling this off. Frost was admirably  represented by Bassist Dan Montgomery and saxophonist Tom Kelley, who both played their butts off.  I had a chance to coach one of the more memorable small combos of these summer meetings; young players from Austria, France, Germany, Finland, Portugal, Italy, and Israel. Great writers and very skilled at making their pieces work for the unique instrumentation of piano, bass, drums, guitar, harmonica, tenor sax, and violin. These guys  (and gals) were talented, creative, and very skilled.

As I write this I am on my way from Berlin to Strasbourg for the World Saxophone Congress. This is my first one – I must say it’s quite of week of activities.  I will be performing Monday evening at 6PM (18:00) with the Orchestra Symphonique de Mulhouse, doing my arrangement of Wayne Shorter’s ballad “Teru” for Tenor Sax and String Orchestra (info here). Also I will be presenting a master class on Saturday at 3 PM. Both events are at the Citi de Musique and Danse in Strasbourg. Also performing this week are Dale Underwood and two students from Frost, Nathan Mensink and Derek Smith. The entire schedule can be found on www.saxopen.com.

Next week I will be in Mainz, Germany teaching at Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) followed by a little RR in the Belgian countryside with my dear friend Francois Louis.

GK