UPDATE EXTRA!!!

I just looked at this section and the last update was last December and a lot of stuff has happened since then. I was called back to the Main Street Theatre for a few more performances in the Spring and I truly enjoyed that experience. The 35 or so times I did my one man, two act, solo performance art show was very rewarding to me as a performer. I thank Llew Rhoe and Helen for all their effort to make it happen.I also thank all of you who came to the gig. In the Spring, the Juan de Fuca Featival was a standout. Sweet venues and great audiences and a nice home-stay family. I also sold a Tappercussion Mark VII etap MIDI Controller exactly like my own to a lucky dancer in Gresham on special order. The Mark VII is a versatile electric percussion kit for the rhythm dancer. See my articles in this section for more details. I did a variety of summer gigs including those listed on this site and others. Go Gringo Go has been a lot of fun to play with- I could stand more of that. Baby Gramps has a new CD with me on it called Baby Gramps and the Back Swamp Potioners "Baptized in Swamp Water" We played songs from it at OCF and sold the first little batch. I also did 3 Shows at OCF with Leapin' Louie Lichtenstein. It was fun to be back in the role of one-man pit orchestra to a cowboy juggling act. The VonTap band has been smoking hot all summer, joined a couple of times by Artis the Spoonman. Check us out this Sunday at noon in Chinatown with our Trio Calzador guitarist Toshi Onizuka.(10/01/06) I am trying to get myself to edit a new CD from dozens of recordings I have made in the recent year. I am also producing demos with some adorable kid singers. I had a lot of inspiration last week from the performances of Savion Glover who tore up the floor at the Schnitz. Then on Friday I participated in the all night tribute to John Coltrane on KBOO 90.7 fm with an assortment of journalists,DJs and musicians. Drummer Carlton Jackson, bassist Andre St.James, Reed Wallsmith on sax and myself on sax and tap played Trane's EQUINOX live on the air, on the equinox, which coincided with the 80th anniversary of his birth. I am not sure how well it came out with no rehearsal and some technical false starts but it was fun. What was mind-boggling was the wealth of Coltrane recordings on hand, one after another, of different aspects of his playing, which kept me at the studio past 5 am! We humbly attempt to carry the flame. We know from first-hand accounts that that is what Trane would have wanted.

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