Dear Friends:

Glorious summer!  Our air conditioner repair guy is our best friend (thanks Kevin).  But our investment in the new AC system proved to be a wise one.  Now the clubs are cool-as-caves, cellars of swing.  From the baking heat and sun of noisy West 10th Street din, descend to temporary-blindness and let your eyes adjust to the blackness.  Feel the comfortable cool and settle in - maybe a cold beer. You finally focus on what's happening in the room- just a crowd of chilled out jazz lovers and a band grooving on stage.  Welcome to Smalls summertime!

This is an exciting week for me.  I'm bringing in one of my favorite jazz musicians and a good friend, Ryan Kisor, to play at the club.  If you haven't had a chance to hear Ryan you should take this opportunity - he's a virtuoso player with a broad musical imagination.  There are few improvisors playing today at this level of creativity - this is not something that I would say lightly, believe me.  But, I think that the cats who know Ryan and his music would whole heartedly agree with me - Ryan is bad.  Ryan will play with Ian Hendrickson-Smith's group on Tuesday and then his own group with Orrin Evans on Wednesday.  He'll also be at the Django on Saturday night for the first set.

On Thursday night I am proud to announce that I am doing a show of my own at the highly esteemed jazz club Smoke, on 106th street and Broadway.  My sextet includes Ryan, Joel Frahm, Peter Bernstein, Tyler Mitchell and Anthony Pinciotti.  I want to give a shoutout to Paul Stache, owner of Smoke, for inviting me to do a show there.  Smoke has a huge place in my personal musical history.  In it's previous incarnation it was known as Augies, where I and many of my esteemed colleagues (including Ryan, Joel, Pete and Tyler) all played for years (and for pennies, I might add).  Paul, who also played at Augie's, had the initiative to take over the bar and to remake it into an important and elegant nightspot that always features the very-top players in jazz and has served New York's jazz community for more than 20 years now.  Here's the link to the club - www.smokejazz.com

I urge everyone to stay cool, deep breaths.  Come by the clubs and hang with us - I'd love to see you there.

Regards,

Spike