Dear Friends, I finally made it to the cover of the Roswell Daily Record! After all of the trials and tribulations of this elongated guitar career the mother lode delivers! There I am, looking just like an alien, slugging through some medium tempo standards in a town that exists in another dimension. It was a weird trip and the Roswell ramifications continue…

(Click on the image to the right to check out the whole story)

Last weeks concert with Fred and I at the Chalice Church in Escondido was enormous fun including a most excellent performance space with high ceilings and superb acoustics. Blend that in with a medium large enthusiastic audience and this was kindling that stoked the madness between Fredrico and myself. We explored Spain, Brazil, NYC, Missouri Uncompromised, with a stop over in Roswell just to make sure that the aliens approved. Thumbs up all the way around and look for a duo show with the same intent in December. Paco!!!

In last months issue of Jazz Improv Magazine there is an extensive interview between Wolf Marshall, the question asker, and myself, the man whose looking for answers. The article also features a transcription of my guitar solo on “Kundalini” from the Taking It All In recording. Wolf and I had some fun talking about guitar details and the basic thought process of improvisation. “What do you think about when you’re soloing?” This question reminds me of a classic Metheny story that took place in the mid 80’s at the Guitar Institute of Technology in L.A.. Metheny would stop by once a year to teach a music clinic and for the last part of the clinic the audience would ask questions and Pat would fill them in. The questions would be all over the map but invariably someone would want to know what kind of picks Pat used or what kind of strings he preferred. Basic shoptalk. And then this question would always come up, “What do you think about when you’re soloing?” How do answer that if you’ve spent your whole life practicing and pursued the state of flow of non-thinking? So my friend, who knew how this quirky question was about to surface, snuck in this gem to Metheny before anyone else got to him. He raised his hand and said, “what do you think about when you’re NOT soloing?” Everyone busted up and the true wisdom of laughter and non-thinking finally had its proper day in court.

(Click on the cover to the right to see the article online. Click on the music to check out the twisted notes)

For this week vocalist Lisa Hightower, bassist Justin Grinnell and myself will meet up at the Inn for some evening jazz. Look below for the details and I hope to see you out there.

Adios, Peter