Category: Jazz Or Bust Tour

(September 10, 2012) MONTREAL — It sometimes amazes me that I’m still standing.

Take tonight, for example. Here’s the scene: I’m in Montreal (I’ll fill in the rest of the day later), and I left my host’s place to find a bite to eat before meeting a Twitter friend to go see music. I knew the surroundings of one subway station a tiny bit, so I got off there and walked a block or two. I’ve mostly been eating pizza for the past week cuz it’s cheap, but I was feeling like it was time for a break from what my friend Jack Mindy calls “nature’s most perfect food.” There was a sushi place down the block. I had $5 in my wallet but I was pretty sure there was a decent (for me) amount of money in my bank account. So I went in and ordered.

I ate my small amount of veggie sushi, drank my tea and asked for the check. It came and I took out my bank card. In this restaurant, the server brings a little card reader over to the table. She slid my card through, then handed me the machine so I could put in the tip. I handed it back. Then the lottery began. Round and round it goes, where it stops … DENIED. Oy.

I’ve had difficulty with my card at other places in Canada, so I was hoping it was just that. I went to the ATM in the front of the restaurant and tried to take out enough money to pay for the meal. I tried $40. Nope. I tried $20. Miracle of miracles, $20 came out of the ATM. The bill was $28 and change. (Much more than I expected, fool that I am.) I had $5 in my wallet and I remembered that I had two $2 coins and a $1 coin in my pocket. So I paid in cash, left a tiny tip, apologized for the tip, and exited into the Montreal night with $0. There was some chance a PayPal transfer would be in my bank in the morning, and I have a Starbucks card with some money on it, too, so one way or the other I knew I could eat in the morning.

And there you have it. That’s how I travel. The thing is, I’ve been in this exact situation — far from home, completely broke — so many times in the past two to three years that I’m just used to it. That’s probably not good, but it’s better than panicking.

After the sushi fiasco, I met my Twitter pal David Ryshpan and we went to Diese Onze, a club that has jazz seven nights a week. David is part of the Kalmunity collective, a large and impressive group of musicians of all kinds who collectively improvise music together. On the bill were David on piano, Jahsun on drums, Eric Hove on saxophone, Mark Haynes on bass, and Malika Tirolien on vocals. Their set was totally improvised, but completely melodic and funky and danceable and fun. Like a great R&B band with no set list and tons of creativity. I was impressed. And Malika? Damn. She had an incredible voice and an equally good ear.

I stayed for a set before fatigue got to me. I went back to the place where I’m staying and chatted for a while with my very talented host, the singer and songwriter Sarah MK.

/ / /

And now, back into the past a bit…

I spent the past five days in Ottawa with my friends Renee Yoxon and Craig Pedersen. Judging by the time I spent with them, they’re two of the hardest-working musicians on the Ottawa scene.

Ottawa is nice. I walked eight miles the first day from their house to downtown and back. Lots of lovely architecture downtown, although for some reason I took no photos at all. I also did two interviews while I was there, one with journalist and pianist Peter Hum and the other with bassist and educator John Geggie. You’ll hear both of those in the next couple weeks.

While I was in Ottawa, I desperately needed a book of poetry. I can’t quite say why — it was just one of those things. I went to several small bookstores but they had almost no poetry books, so I went to Chapters, which is like Barnes and Noble. I spent a looooong time deciding before eventually buying a paperback copy of the collected poems of Philip Larkin (not the huge new one that just came out). It’s a book I already own at least one copy of, but sometimes you just need some Larkin to carry around.

One other smart thing I did in Ottawa was to lock myself out of the house with no shoes, wallet or phone. I went on the porch to read and to write a poem and forgot that the door locked automatically. Luckily Renee and Craig came home between gigs and let me in.

I took a Via Rail train from Ottawa to Montreal. It was a two-hour trip through very lovely countryside. An attendant came down the aisle with a refreshment cart, too, just like on Amtrak. Cough.

Montreal is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been in. I came here once before in 2000 with a fellow union organizer. We had a day or two off from our campaign and we were in Concord, NH, so we hopped in a car and drove up to the city. I remember how much I loved it then and I feel the same way now. It’s like going to Europe without flying. I’ll write more about the city in a later installment.

When I arrived, David Ryshpan met me at the station and I interviewed him right there. Then I went to a coffee shop and mixed my Sonny Rollins interview, which you can listen to here. I took the subway to my host’s neighborhood, turned the wrong way and took a 40-minute walk around a very big block. As I later learned, if I’d turned the right way I would have been to her front door in three minutes. Well, at least I wasn’t carrying a 40-pound backpack. Oh wait.

Three Montreal observations: When the subway doors close, they play the first three notes of “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds.” The subway doors open and close before the train has stopped. School crossing guards are called by the awesome name “brigadier scolaire.”

French tip: In French, all the letters are silent. (Thus the title of this post.)

Today is my 39th birthday. I think I’m going to go walk around the old part of the city.

(30 August 2012) NEW YORK CITY — It appears I have reached the end of my rope.

Tomorrow I fly to Detroit for the 2012 Detroit Jazz Festival. The festival is sending me there and putting me up in a hotel, just like they did last year. They’re lovely folks.

I check out of the hotel on September 4 … and that’s when the truth of my situation will hit home. I’m not writing this to play on your sympathies. I just want you to all to know what’s going on with me and why the tour, which I’ve been promoting so heavily, can’t continue right now.

I asked for a one-way plane ticket because I had planned to spend another 2-3 months traveling on part two of my “Jazz Or Bust” Tour. But I’m out of money. I can’t afford the bus pass, and I probably couldn’t afford to be on the road even if I had the money for the pass.

So I have to put the tour on hold. Which still leaves the question of what I’ll do. I’ve got a few irons in the fire:

• I applied for residency at two Zen centers — one in Santa Fe and one in San Francisco. The one in San Francisco is full. I haven’t heard back yet from the one in Santa Fe. I’m in the process of applying for residency at two others. (UPDATE: I’ve heard back from three centers — all are full.)
• I’ve applied for dozens and dozens and dozens of jobs in the past two years, and I’ve got quite a few applications out right now. In all that time I’ve had two hits — both were on the West Coast, and at the time I didn’t want to move there because my kids are on the East Coast. But I can’t afford to make that choice now. I’ll go anywhere.
• I signed up for Workaway, a site that pairs volunteers with places that offer volunteer opportunities in exchange for room and board. I’ve got a couple applications for opportunities in the US. There are many opportunities in other countries but I can’t afford to get to another country.

Maybe something will come through while I’m in Detroit. If nothing does, I think my only option will be to come back to NYC and stay in a shelter while I look for a low-wage job. I make $600 a month from The Jazz Session, which just isn’t enough. I had unemployment benefits but those ended. And I don’t have any family who can take me in.

If I come back to New York, I’ll least be able to keep the show going. And who knows, maybe I’ll find a gig.

Again, I’m not writing this to play on your sympathies. But the rest of my life is quite public, so it seemed like this should be too. I do hope to get back to the tour at some point. I’m just not sure when.

If you’re reading this and you’re not yet a member, please consider supporting The Jazz Session. There are monthly levels ($10/$25/$50) and yearly levels ($110/$250/$500). You can join at http://thejazzsession.com/join.

(July 17-18, 2012) NEW YORK CITY to BELLEFONTE, PA — True story: “Bellefonte” is French for “Helvetica.” Look it up.

With my arrival tonight in Bellefonte, PA, part one of the Jazz Or Bust Tour is officially complete. In case you missed the numbers the other day, here they are again (updated with NYC & PA figures):

• Total miles traveled: 5,225 (through July 18). This is probabaly quite a low estimate. I used Google Maps to figure out the mileage between each city I went to. However, my route was longer than the Google Maps route because the buses stopped many times and often traveled miles out of the way.
• Days on the road (through July 18): 48
• Homes stayed in: 15
• Shows attended: 29. This isn’t counting any of the second lines in New Orleans, which weren’t official shows.
• Interviews conducted: 21 (plus two interviews for a freelance project)
• Interviews given: 8
• Poetry readings performed: 5 (You can listen to them here.)

I’m housesitting in Bellefonte till the end of July, then staying in State College for a few weeks in August. The tour will resume again on Labor Day weekend, probably at the Detroit Jazz Festival.

/ / /

I’ve been conducting some freelance interviews for an education company, as I mentioned back when I was in DC. Yesterday I spent time in the Garment District, where there’s a giant sewing needle:

And also a statue in tribute to garment workers, erected by the union I used to work for:

Both my interviews were canceled, though, so it wasn’t a productive afternoon.

I spent my last night in New York hanging out with the person whom you all must have figured out by now was my girlfriend for the past 10 months. We’ve been dealing with all my travel and its impact on our relationship, and we both have separate plans to travel in the months ahead. So it was a bittersweet night, realizing that we can’t really stay together, but don’t want to part either. Life seldom provides clean exits or transitions.

It wasn’t all sadness and moping, though. For example, we took a short cab ride (something we’ve never done together in New York) with a driver who was playing solitaire while driving:

And we heard some of the worst cover-band music ever wafting across the river from Hoboken. Three of the four songs we heard in ONE SET were “My Way,” Cee Lo’s “Fuck You,” and “White Rabbit.” It was like a set list programmed by a cat walking across a computer keyboard with iTunes open. Lots of long guitar solos, too.

Today I went back to the Garment District and managed to squeeze in one of the interviews that was canceled yesterday. Then I made a quick dash to the Port Authority Bus Terminal to catch a Greyhound bus. I went first to Philly, transferred there to Harrisburg, and transferred again to State College. My host picked me up in a red convertible and he was playing Stevie Wonder. Good start.

I’ll still be posting here while I’m in PA. I have more things to process about the tour, and I’ll be writing poems, too. I’m working on scheduling a poetry reading in August, and I’ll let you know about that, too. Meanwhile, head over to thejazzsession.com to hear all the interviews I conducted during part one of the tour. Thursday’s show, for example, will feature drummer Scott Clark from Richmond, VA. I recorded a lot of interviews and it will take me until nearly the end of August (and episode #400!) to post them all.

I’m gearing up for part two of the tour now. If you live anywhere west of the East Coast, I need places to stay, places to read my poetry, and people to interview. Let’s do it! You can email me at jason@thejazzsession.com.

(If you’d like to support my tour, you can make a one-time donation and get great thank-you gifts HERE. If you’d like to become a member of The Jazz Session and make recurring monthly or yearly payments, you can do that HERE.)

(June 12, 2012) ON THE BUS to BROOKLYN, NY — This is the conclusion of the Great Northbound Bus Trip, a story begun in yesterday’s diary. I left New Orleans on Tuesday morning, stopped overnight in Auburn, Alabama, then left there on Wednesday at 11:45 a.m., arriving at New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal 26 hours later.

All of my transfers had very tight windows, but I managed to make every bus. And my bus pass karma, which took a hit when I was unable to get on my preferred bus in New Orleans, was redeemded when I made it onto an earlier bus in Richmond solely by virtue of having a pass rather than a specific ticket for the next bus.

I sat next to a very elderly man who was traveling from Gainesville, FL, to Lynn, MA. He was moving to Lynn permanently, and he was carrying his possessions in two white garbage bags. I regret not getting more of his story. I was so tired and so absorbed in reading Game Of Thrones that I just wasn’t that talkative or inquisitive. But I’m sure there was a quite a tale to be heard.

Sitting behind me was a woman from Maine who was headed home after visiting her son in Georgia. She had an amazing Maine accent. Unfortunately, she also had a set of very cheap headphones and a desire to see how many decibels they could produce. She and I also had very different taste in music. Here are my tweets from hour 22 of the trip:

• Sweet Lord Jesus, make the woman behind me on this bus stop blaring Nickelback through her headphones. Amen.
• Jesus, you fixed the Nickelback issue. But I guess I wasn’t clear. Now she & the tone-deaf guy with her are singing along to Enter Sandman.
• A child just threw up. And the tone-deaf people are whistling along to Metallica. Hour 22 on this bus is not going well.
• Woman behind me just said, “I’ve got Creed on here, too.” Go Greyhound and leave the driving to us. You’ll need both hands to load your gun.
• And now she’s playing the Eagles. “Hotel California.” This is obviously a set-up. Which of you bastards hired her?
• I kid you not, she just asked Tone-Deaf Guy: “Lynyrd Skynyrd? Do you like him?” I’m praying for the sweet release of death.
• Could somebody Google “justifiable homicide” for me? I’m fairly sure there’s a Creed clause.

After a while she settled down and the rest of the trip was uneventful. I arrived in New York an hour earlier than planned. I’m staying in a cheap hotel in Brooklyn for two nights, then staying with my sister till I leave on Wednesday.

There are a few things I forgot to mention in yesterday’s diary that I want to be sure to write down for the sake of my own memory.

One cool thing that happened because of Twitter was that I spent some of my time on the bus exchanging favorite lines from the movie Tombstone with Dirk Maggs, the director of the radio adaptations of the final three books of the Hitchhiker’s Guide series. Dirk is a brilliant radio producer and, thanks to Twitter, someone I now know a tiny little bit. And he, like me, would bring Tombstone to a desert island if need be.

The guy I sat next to until Richmond was a very interesting guy, too; a young, African-American truck driver who was traveling from Atlanta to Connecticut to contest a traffic ticket he’d received there. He didn’t believe it was warranted by the circumstances and he wanted to keep his driving record clean, so he was making the long trip. This guy, whose name I never learned, was a very observant person. He owns his own truck and has driven all over the country. He showed me gorgeous photos from Washington of frozen lakes, and a photo of the St. Louis arch taken while he was touching it. He and the guy behind us showed one another photos of their dogs, too. And when I snapped a shot of a rainbow (which he pointed out to me) he asked me to text it to him, which I did. And unlike almost every other passenger on every other bus I took, he disliked smoking and was vocal about it. When I told him what I was doing and that I had no home at the moment, he said he was the same way. “No kids, no wife, no apartment,” he said. “I sleep in my truck and spend most of my time on the road.” He said he’s planning to come off the road at the beginning of next year and start driving locally in Atlanta.

My seatmate also leant his phone to a guy sitting in the back of the bus. This man had just been released from prison that day, and he was using the phone to call the family of his cellmate to encourage them to visit the man more. He talked to a member of the man’s family and pleaded his case, then talked to the guy’s girlfriend and encouraged her to move closer to the prison. “But not to Atlanta,” he said, “or any place close to it. Move to one of the counties far away, where there’s nothing but grass and trees. Grass and trees.” He was headed for Baltimore to get away from the life he’d lived in Atlanta that had landed him in jail. He said he was born in Michigan, raised in New York and then moved to Atlanta, where things had gone wrong. Now he said he was headed to “a new life” in Baltimore. I wish him well.

I also want to share this bit of wisdom, sent to me by a friend who recites it to herself often: “All that you do, do it with love. All that you say, say it with love. All that you are, be it with love.”

And now to the numbers. Part one of the Jazz Or Bust Tour is just about over. It’ll be officially finished when I reach State College, PA, next week. Although I’m scheduling a poetry reading there, so I guess it’s not completely finished. Here are some numbers from part one:

• Total miles traveled: 5,225. This is probabaly quite a low estimate. I used Google Maps to figure out the mileage between each city I went to. However, my route was longer than the Google Maps route because the buses stopped many times and often traveled miles out of the way.
• Days on the road (through July 18, when I arrive in PA): 48
• Homes stayed in: 14
• Shows attended: 28. This isn’t counting any of the second lines in New Orleans, which weren’t official shows.
• Interviews conducted: 21
• Interviews given: 8
• Poetry readings performed: 5 (You can listen to them here.)

Part two of the tour will likely be even longer. It will restart in late August, probably at the Detroit Jazz Festival. Then I think my route will be to the Midwest, the Rockies, the Northwest, California, the Southwest, Texas, New Orleans. Or something like that. I’m planning that part now.

Thank you to everyone who helped make part one a success. The interviews I recorded will air through the rest of July and August, just in time for the tour to start again.

(If you’d like to support my tour, you can make a one-time donation and get great thank-you gifts HERE. If you’d like to become a member of The Jazz Session and make recurring monthly or yearly payments, you can do that HERE.)