Jazzahead!

This past weekend I went to the Jazzahead! trade fair and festival in Bremen, Germany.  The primary goal was to hopefully make some connections ahead of the new Samba Azul record, which will be out later this year, and to help Joy Ellis in the same pursuits with her new album which I am drumming on and co-producing.  I've always hated pitching myself to people, though, so I ended up just roaming around trying to find friendly people who had similar interests to me, and I did end up meeting some nice folks who might be up for collaborating with Samba Azul or Joy in some capacity.  But, much to my delight, it ended up being quite the drummers hang as well.

 

Three or four different people recognized my name from the blog and stopped me to say hello, which was very cool.  I see the analytics, and it does seem like there are quite a few of you out there reading this blog, but it was wonderful to get to meet some of you face to face and chat drums.  Among them was German drummer, Michael Griener.

 

And after more than 10 years of swapping the occasional e-mail and interacting on blogs and forums, I finally had the pleasure of meeting Todd Bishop from the Cruise Ship Drummer! blog face to face.  He was there with his brother, John Bishop, and Evan Woodle, both drummers who respectively own and work for Origin Records.  Todd brought a selection of Cymbal and Gong cymbals which he, Michael, Evan and I spent some time checking out.  There was talk about bring Todd to London with a collection of his Cymbal and Gong pieces, so if you're London-based and that might be of interest to you, please do let me know. 

 

L ro R: Todd Bishop, Michael Griener, Evan Woodle

 

Also hanging about was Peter Primus Frosch.  Peter is an Austrian drummer, based in Switzerland, who is very active on social media.  He's a great player who posts a lot of really handy material.  Check him out if you're not already hip.

 

Throughout the weekend, there were numerous gigs and showcases, with some great drumming.  Standouts (at least that I heard) were Larnell Lewis with the Jeremy Ledbetter Trio; Renato Galvão Santos with Brazilian bassist, Michael Pipoquinha; and German drummer Christian Lillinger who is one of the most unique drummers I've seen in quite some time.

 

A blurry Larnell Lewis, with the Jeremy Ledbetter Trio

  

Going in with pretty low expectations for my own sanity, it ended up being a great weekend.  I could see myself going back in the future.  But for now it's back to the grind.