The best summer in Seattle ever, and it just doesn’t want to stop! I’ll gladly accept the sun for however long it would like to shine on our little parade. I’m hoping this talk about the weather will inspire me to keep this page semi-up-to-date. I’d hate to sound so flowery as the rains pummel for the 40th straight day (oh yeah, it’s coming!)…
So much to share in the half yearly “dear diary” update. Starting with record biz news – we had our UK distributor bag their jazz division just as our European distributor went bankrupt! Fortunately, we made some nice new friends at the JazzAhead Convention in Bremen and set up a way better situation than what we had before. Challenge Records is, besides being a top-flight jazz label, a top-flight distributor with offices in many countries and sub-distributors worldwide. We’re very excited to see how this all plays out. JazzAhead was a great experience and we’re looking forward to hitting it for the next few years at least, followed always with a trip to Antwerp to see our fine Belgian friends. Just wrapping up now the final 5 new releases for this year, making a total of 40 for 2013. I’m not sure how we keep up, but there is SO MUCH great music being made, I hate to miss out on whatever each new one adds to the label. Keep clicking on www.originarts.com so you don’t miss these pups either.
We had the great Ernie Watts in town for our 15th Anniversary (yeah, a year late) showcase at Bumbershoot. We reconvened New Stories and did 3 dates with Ernie in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC. A great time. Coming up this fall, after a vacation in Colombia, I’ll be with Hal Galper and Jeff Johnson in a swing through Texas (doing a workshop at my old alma mater, the former North Texas State), Oklahoma, and Kentucky and then race to Russia for a festival in Krasnodar with Chad McCullough, Bram Weijters and Piet Verbist. It’s all in my calendar. Come along!