Adam’s report on Jazz Mafia East Coast Tour Part One; NYC, Montreal
Time: 1:45pm. Still in bed in my hotel recovering from what has been by far, the most intense, exhilarating, stressful/relaxing, loving and incredible couple of days in my entire life. Last week's NYC Jazz Mafia debut along with many days of kickin' it in NYC for me was already one of the highlights of my musical experiences but once we got to Montreal on Saturday, things kicked up about 10 notches - turbo style.
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The LPR show went off without a hitch. Sound check was smooth, the band was on fire and the venue was beyond cooperative with us. We featured special guest Dana Leong on trombone, cello and electronics. Dana grew up with our drummer P Dub and is now one of the heaviest hitters in the New York jazz and beyond scene. Dana is a very inspiring performer to me so having him with BBB brought many smiles to everyone including me. We rocked about a 70 minute set, played for a full, energetic house, and then commenced to take on loading out all our stuff which is quite an effort with a band that size.  We have three 15 passenger vans, one of them hauls a huge trailer with “Covergirl” advertisements on it. Very strange. (Something about the guy who rented it to us got paid grips of $ to have the banner on there for a tour and now it’s kinda peeling off on one side, or maybe he tried to remove it and it was just too much trouble.) Anyway, after our show in New York all 30 of us are out in a super busy street with the van/trailer loading up – It was a sight! (See pics) Luggage and instruments everywhere all over the sidewalk on a busy Friday night in the West Village. Awesomeness. Of course an impromptu street jam ensued, but this time instead of being instigated by the horns it was the strings that started it by playing some Swedish Folk songs, then some “Beat it” then I don’t know what. It was crazy. Then we stumbled across the street led by our friend Chris Pastena, to one of his favorite spots “…something Castaway, fun place. We took it over, chaos happened and we left for Montreal at 1 a.m..Getting across the border with 30 musicians the next morning was one of the most stressful moments of the trip. Add to that difficult task, a list of musicians with a less than sparkling record and now you have the potential for questioning, searching and yes, thousands of dollars in FINES $! I wish I could say that none of that happened, or that all of that didn’t happen but I can’t. Fortunately we made it to Montreal just in time for Jazz Mafia to absolutely take over The Montreal International Festival De Jazz on Saturday June 26th.
Saturday featured 3 Jazz Mafia bands on 3 different stages. Joe Bagale, Crystal Monee Hall and The Shotgun Wedding Quintet/Symphony played and I’m in all three. Also special props to Joe Bagale, Brandon and Jon Monahan for putting in double duty.
The stages we were featured on were considered “small stages,” but for us, some of the largest crowds we’ve gotten to hit for. There were definitely a few thousand at Joe’s stage, probably over 5K at Crystal’s and Shotgun’s stages. We just did our thing, the best we knew how to do! We were blessed to have incredible cooperation from the musicians on that day. It was insane at times. Also a frequent bass face with us, Uriah Duffy came along at the last minute when his NYC gig with his band got canceled. Having Uriah out here was the icing on the cake and he really added a lot to Crystal’s set that day. All three bands performed at their peak and were received by the audiences with possibly the best reaction we’ve ever had.
Saturday night we all went to a few jam sessions – The first was the “official” festival afterparty/jam. As I walked in the club that reminded me a lot of Yoshi’s, Mike Olmos and Evan Francis had already taken the stage and were smokin’ it along with the Canadian house rhythm section. After each song another member of the Jazz Mafia would join the group on stage, including Joe Cohen, Colin Hogan and the crowd favorite for the night, Matt Nelson (sporting his backpack on stage the whole time he played!)
After blowing minds at the jazz club we decided to check out this place Seneca had been told to go to, a spot that a group called “Kalmunity” perform at. I know this might sound kind of silly but, they are very much like the Montreal counterpart to Jazz Mafia, they even hold down a Tuesday night residency that has a very similar vibe to our Tuesday parties. Seeing their rappers, singers, horns all vibe together in very similar ways that ours do immediately drew obvious comparisons. We all got to be pretty tight that night and the following day and we’re glad to say that we’re homies with the Kalmunity crew.
So, after being awake for almost 24 hours, traveling between 2 countries, playing 4 sets with three different bands and then two afterparties, it was time to get some rest for what would be the biggest day for the Jazz Mafia to date; playing the mainstage at Montreal Jazz Fest with Brass, Bows & Beats performing for a sea of people.
Yesterday was the day that a musician would dream of. For me it was the little things that really made it a touching day ; Woke up, actually had time to eat, while at the mainstage mapping out the orchestra layout, I heard a great band in the distance Went and checked it – It was one of our East Coast horn players/friend Mike Williams playing in a Bangra/Bollywood brass band called Red Baraat.Check out a clip of them here . A nice surprise! After that I located all my various belongings that just ended up wherever the night before, went swimming with Aima, Karyn, Anthony and Rita, then practiced the ol’ trombone. It was around this time in the day that I was walking to the mainstage, saw it from the distance and thought about how truly lucky I was to be there. I also thought about my Grandmother and the huge smile that would’ve been on her face if she was there to see it. It was such a beautiful moment to just sit there for a minute and actually have time to reflect like that. So far so good!
Since trombones were the section that was all substitutes in the band on this tour, we had a sectional to rehearse them and get them caught up on things. I have to say that the section sounded slammin’! Very good payers up here. Shout out to Matthew Vanvleet for playing great lead and helping us meet the musicians for the 12 positions we needed to fill on the road up here.
Soundcheck at this festival doesn’t really exist - bands just get a little line check and then they play. Ben Yonas was able to get them to make exceptions for BBB so we had about an hour which is about 2 hours less than we usually take with that band. Ironically it was the best soundcheck we’ve ever had. We want to steal their soundcrew and take them on tour but as you can expect, it would break our little bank!
 As we took the stage for what would be the biggest audience me and most of the musicians have ever played in front of, the situation was surprisingly calm. There had been so much hard work and planning for this moment, that somehow, miraculously, everything felt taken care of and ready. We got on stage, got situated, and took it in. After I got my music in order, I turned around to one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen in my life – people as far as the eye could see, with more people walking towards the stage in all directions -kinda like an ant hill. Weird. I still have no idea how many people were there but had to be around 30,000-60,000.
Of course the night didn’t end there – We went to a spot nearby called Metropolis and saw our Canadian trombone player Matthew play with one of his many groups which invited many of us up on stage for jamming until 3am (when the clubs close here). As we all were hanging outside getting ready to head back to the hotel I got my horn out and Brass Band mania begun! As soon as we started playing it started POURING rain! It actually felt really good. We paraded through the streets of Montreal with a big posse just being complete hoodlums making tons of noise at 4 a.m. People are sitting at Subway Sandwiches having a late night snack and BAM! in comes a brass band and 20 people dancing and partying…I’m so glad we didn’t get arrested. Other memorable images were Brandon Werlin’s hair when it’s wet and Shaina running barefoot through the water in the gutters.Of course that wasn’t the end…it’s blurry at this point but I remember being back at the hotel in one of the band member’s rooms for a huge party and Colin Hogan displaying his incredible talent for JUGGLING. I sat there staring at him for an hour! He has these awesome glowing juggling balls that change color and…ok, this is just rambling at this point. Time for me to get outta bed and get some food and play another show tonight! Oh ya and we decided we love Montreal so much that we are going to stay here for the next three days! We head to Toronto Thursday morning. Now we are just out with the “Jazz Mafia Circus” performing a revue of different Jazz Mafia bands – The Shotgun Wedding Quintet, Joe Bagale, Supertaster, Karyn Paige, Brass Mafia….just having a great time. More to come!
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Congratulations to Adam et al. Sounds like you guys and gals are carving it up! Great journal, Adam. It captures the true craziness I would expect from such a “colorful” entourage.Very happy for you all but particularly Adam, who is being rewarded for his boundless energy and positive spirit. You are de man, and so deserving of such an abundance of blessings.-Bill
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Wow Adam it all sounds fantastic! These are the days you’ll always remember…and they’re beautiful. Good for you and the entire band…enjoy!! We are all cheering you on here in the Bay Area!!
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Dude! So glad you guys are having such a killer time. What an experience!
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thanx Bill! Looking forward to having you back in the BAY!
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Thanks partner! : )
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Hey Elaine! Thanks for reading the update…It was such an incredible experience – I still can’t believe it all happened!
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