10 June 2006

The first two days were spent checking out Lisbon, which was great- it’s an absolutely fantastic city. Pedro took me to the neighborhood of Alfama for dinner with his family and friends on the night that I arrived, such a relief to walk on irregular streets and view the nearly cubist backdrop after the even avenues and buildings constructed throughout most of Central Europe. I woke up on the morning of the 30th with the idea for a new piece set in my head, derived from the feeling of waking around the night before. I spent some time after breakfast writing it out so that I could bring it to the sessions starting the next day in Coimbra with Paal Nilssen-Love, Magnus Broo, and Adam Lane. Walked across town to check out the Trem Azul record store and was pretty much blown away by the shop, quickly spending too much money on cds that I hadn’t seen before anywhere else (and of course not thinking that they would take up too much room in my suitcase for the flight
home, this forced me to start abandoning dirty laundry on each move from hotel to hotel).

Then the insanity started. On Wednesday, the 30th I went back to the airport with Pedro to pickup Adam Lane, the van was packed with equipment (vibes and baritone, luggage and people), wondering where Adam was going to fit with his bass… but it all gets packed in. A couple hours hot drive to Coimbra, plans to rehearse with Paal and Magnus after they arrive from Porto, but it turns out that Adam is scheduled to rehearse at the same time with another quintet that is performing on the 1st at a concert directly before our quartet is going to play two sets at another club. Discussions lead to running the quartet rehearsal before dinner and the quintet afterwards. We set up in Trem Azul’s Coimbra store and get to work. Adam’s method of writing is quite different than mine, but at least Magnus and Paal have had the advantage of dealing with my compositions before. After all the logistical issues we basically ended up with about an hour of time together before having to head to dinner. On the way there we found out that we’re supposed to do a radio interview at 11:30pm, while Adam is at his other rehearsal. So we eat and head to the University station to discuss what a band that really hasn’t had a chance to play together is going to sound like for three nights of late night concerts at the Salon Brazil.