February 2004

I returned to Chicago for a couple weeks in the beginning of October to perform with the VANDERMARK 5, Mat Maneri, and Joe Morris, then went back to Europe for a series of tours that lasted until the end of November: the reed trio with Brotzmann and Gustafsson; a couple of concerts by the TENTET in Tampere, Finland and Vasteras, Sweden; the VANDERMARK 5; and SCHOOL DAYS. It was an amazing series of trips, ranging from clubs to festivals, and taking place all over the continent and the UK. I’d like to thank all the people involved in making those concerts possible: musicians, listeners, presenters, and Erhard Hessling for co-ordinating the tours.

At the beginning of December FME hit the road in the States, playing ten concerts before returning to Chicago to record an album of new material with Bob Weston at Semaphore. Those recordings will be put out by Okka Disk in the end of April, in time for FME’s tour of Europe. Also in December, Peter and I mixed the TENTET material documented at the end of our last North American tour (2002), and played a concert together in Milwaukee with Kent Kessler and Hamid Drake. The new Brotzmann Tentet material will be released by Okka Disk in the end of March as two cds, including live material from the concert in November in Vasteras.

January has been of month of work finishing projects and getting prepared for what’s ahead. The ATOMIC/SCHOOL DAYS double cd, Nuclear Assembly Hall, was mastered for release by Okka Disk in the end of March. The FME album, Underground, was mixed, and the third TERRITORY BAND album, Map Theory, was mixed as a double cd for Okka Disk- this will come out in the end of summer to anticipate the re-grouping of the ensemble in Chicago in September. Another major project that reached finalization was the program for a new music festival in Athens, GA that I was asked to curate, ACME. With the extraordinary help of Julie Powell and Erik Hinds I’ve been able to organize what I believe is an exceptional lineup: