For anyone interested in how my music is going, I have a blog on my website now that talks about past performances, has pictures and info about upcoming stuff and past stuff, a blog about all that: www.robbennion.com/blog. I have about 10 posts so far so check it out !
Also this saturday at 4pm and sunday at 2pm is the airing of a KJZZtv show that I was musical guest on . . . www.cookingdelight.tv, check it out if you’re not busy and in town.
Cheers!
Kenji, Denson, and Hayley were there with me . . . I always feel lucky to play with such great musicians.
Today my band had the opportunity to perform as musical guests on Jennifer Burns’ KJZZ tv show “Cooking Delight. We performed jazz classics and Hayley sang with us for the final two numbers.
Please check out their website and this Saturday November 1st at 4pm or Sunday Nov 2nd at 2pm see the show (http://cookingdelight.tv/Past-Shows/Nov-1-2/nov-1-2-spa.html)
Larry Marshal, pictured above playing drums, is an incredible player. Listen to some of his past recordings (along with Phillip Strange on Piano) here.
Kazuki Iida was incredible on the keyboard. Hi intuition as a musician anticipated anything I wanted to do, and he created beautiful canvasses of chords over which the solos and melodies came very naturally. Check out his myspace page here, and his website here.
Toshiya Kasamatsu performed exceptionally on bass, laying down the groove with Larry.
It was great to perform with Alicia Saldenha. She’s an up-and coming vocalist from Trinidad who’s lived in Japan long enough to learn the language, and we talked a lot about her first album which is in the works. She has great talent and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her name in big places somewhere down the road. Check out some of her youtube performances here.
This past week I headlined the Okayama Jazz festival in Japan, it was great. I love how appreciative Japanese audiences are of Jazz music . . . they listen intently to every song, and applaud after solos . . .
Here’s an article with more pictures from the performance (Be forewarned it’s in Japanese).
We got to stay with the Nakashimas . . . our Brazilian friends from Marugame. They were so nice to put us up for the night and it was definately the highlight of our trip to see them and Miwa . . .
Miwa ate with us in the hotel restaurant . . .
Okayama castle. . .
Azinete made an amazing Brazilin lunch for us . . . so good! Nothing compares to home-made food “feita com carinho”
We got to go back because I was invited to perform at the Okayama Jazz Festival in Okayama, more or less near where we used to live. I was the main performer so they treated me like a star . . . interviews, lots of pictures, they filmed the festival and I hope to get my hands on a dvd of the whole show in the next few months when it comes out.
Saturday night I performed with Alicia Saldenha in Osaka, very talented up and coming vocalist from Trinidad.
The place was packed, people standing behind and to the sides of the seated audience . . .
I feel very lucky to have performed with such high-caliber players.
After the show there was a line of people waiting for me to autograph their cds and take a picture with them!