7/19: Sonore played at the Molde Jazz Festival in Norway. Had a beautiful time trying to get there the day before: flight from Chicago to Vienna, Vienna to Copenhagen, Copenhagen to Oslo, Oslo to Molde, arriving around 8pm after about 21 hours of flying and airports. Not surprisingly, the airline lost my luggage but, surprisingly, not in transit- Austrian Air never bothered to put in on the plane leaving Chicago. A nice dinner of potato chips and a candy bar before bed since all the restaurants in town were closed by the time I got to the hotel. At least the gig with Peter and Mats made the journey worthwhile. And the festival worked hard to find me a clarinet to borrow for the performance, not ideal but much, much better than nothing. The music felt beautiful and, happily, we’ve got a few more gigs coming up in the fall, in Vienna, Berlin, and at a couple of cities in Sweden during bright December.
7/20: The Chicago Tentet convenes, unfortunately without Jeb Bishop who had previous musical commitments. It’s starting to feel redundant, but it was another bloody good show. The gig was recorded so maybe something will happen with it in terms of a release. Being involved with that ensemble over the last decade has given me some of the best experiences I’ve ever had in music. My belief is that I will be saying the same thing another ten years from now.
The next day the U.S. members of the band were supposed to be stuck at the Oslo airport hotel, but most of us took the train into town to have dinner with Paal Nilssen-Love, Heidi, and a bunch of friends, including Håvard Wiik and Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (who I know see more in Europe than in Chicago, despite the fact that we both live there). A fantastic time cut too short because of the fact that we all had to get up at around 5am to catch our planes home… You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do whenever you can do it.
-Ken Vandermark, Sonoma Valley, 7/30/07.
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