Europe Tour Part 1... London to Arte+Manha, Lisbon

i'm so grateful for times like this. last thursday the europe tour kicked off with a jazz trio set for jazz refreshed at mau mau in london. this was the first time i'd ever played trio in the UK. it's a format that i did in the mid-90s in new zealand, but only reconnected to it again since relocating to los angeles. it was something special to be able to share the trio vibe with the london fam that night - richard spaven on drums and rob mullarkey on bass joined me for a mash up of some favorite tunes in a trio setting. from thelonious monk to some freaked live breaks.



bembe segue came thru on some cosmic and totally unexpected bonus to me, vanessa freeman made it through and jumped up too. i've got the recording on right now and have a feeling that there's going to be music to share from that night :) the flipside of the jazz trio was remix:live on the second night in london with jazzhead chronic at the CLF warehouse in peckham. one of my favorite sound systems in london and a vibing space. great times!



day three and i was on the plane to lisbon, portugal for the live show featuring sharlene hector on mic at arte&manha. from the second we arrived we were so welcomed and at home. a club space in the basement, restaurant/bar on the ground floor, and residence and offices up stairs, arte&manha is the veracious creative's dream place. the live show was dope - amazing sound system, great people and plenty of fun. after the live set i dj'd with the arte&manha crew until well after sunrise - you know it's a quality night when you don't even notice the sun until it's already up!

the next day started as a day off, and somehow ended up being a 6 hour marathon session dj'ing jazz tunes with the arte&manha crew until the morning once again. that seems to be the way here! after a few short hours of sleep, we were up again and setup studio in the basement club space. the room is so perfectly dry sounding, the stage is all wood, it's a perfect space to create and capture music....



set up with the rhodes, juno, maschine and the laptop, i started making tracks and ended up with 5 jamming joints. then it was time to bring in local talent - and what a treat that was. we recorded renato on electric bass on one track and vocals by kika santos, susana travassos and sharlene hector on another before wrapping for the night. the next day we were planning on recording drums, percussion, vocals, horns... i was inspired all the way so changed my flight to brussels to allow us more time here. the second studio day a monumental amount of music was recorded.







i started the session making one more track for the project - a cover of the classic ronnie foster joint. brazilian drummer and percussionist juninho laid his vibe on all of the tracks bringing an amazing brazilian twist to all the music. the music was taking on a whole new life of its own. susanna and kika came back in on mic and brought some really great energy and voice to the music - they'd started writing ideas in english, but because i wanted everything to be in portuguese, they had to flip it and man, did they flip it!! the energy in the studio was infectious.



next came the horn section - ricardo, toni and eduardo on trumpet, sax and trombone respectively. the first track we recorded them on is a deep 6/8 afro vibe and by the time they'd finished with it, it sounded like a lost blue note recording from the past by way of some time in the future. beautiful stuff. from there we dived into a handful more of the tracks and had them bring different elements - from twisted free jazz to soulful horn section.



a couple of hours later and we had one more percussionist come thru - mickey "thunder" who absolutely smashed it on the congas. he brought a deeply african feel to the percussion which worked right in with juninho's brazilian rhythms and the electronic beats i'd made - hearing everything together was a real joy.



it's almost 7am a night later and i've been recording renato on bass on some more of the tracks and started editing all the recordings and twisting a lil this n that ;) the question now is to keep on going or get a few hours sleep before flying out to brussels today! i'm exhausted after the marathon the last week has been, but i feel so grateful and satisfied to be able to have that experience. meeting new people, getting together and making music, sharing a lot of incredible food (i mean... EVERYTHING has been unbelievable in that department!), and here we have a whole lot of new music at the end of it too. the arte&manha experience has been second to none - more to come for sure.