By Ellery Eskelin

Soundcheck. All equipment is exactly as requested in the rider! Nice dead room. I generally prefer a room a bit on the dead side as I can hear better. The timbers of sound tend to blur the more reverb a room has. We workshopped a few tunes before the gig, fine tuning for just the right texture and degree of interaction. The staff is very efficient and helpful and we do a very good concert. Great meal after the concert, more escargot. Andrea orders oysters. Everyone (except me) has wine. Conversation is energetic and upbeat.

November 18th, Bordeaux, France
The next morning I sleep until 11 am. Andrea and Jim go on a wine tasting expedition at a castle in the country side with Phillip, a writer for Jazz Magazine. Sounded like a fun afternoon although I find out later that Andrea threw up and Jim forgot his bag and had to take a long cab ride back to retrieve it. I gave up on drinking well before I ever had the chance to travel in Europe. I just sniff at the wonderful beers and fine wines. Oh well, I'm better off for it in the long run. I spend all afternoon looking for a currency exchange, walking to the center of town in the rain. Exchanges are either closed, don't have enough US dollars or the rate is terrible. I could lose as much as $250 if I don't do this right. As a bandleader in Europe I'm playing the currency traders game so I have to shop around. I get absolutely no flexibility from the one exchange place that is willing to do business with me so I decide to wait until we get to Switzerland. By now all the good restaurants are closed so it's back to hotel for a two day old cheese sandwich, some vacuum-packed store-bought cous-cous I've been carrying around since Paris and a chocolate bar. I have a solo concert to perform this evening and gearing up mentally is turning out to be not so easy. Called my booking agent regarding the upcoming travel in Spain which I'm a little apprehensive about. I have to do some laundry as well so there's little time to think about repertoire for tonight. I also realize that I may be running short on reeds. I must constantly keep breaking new ones in, which is a three day process.

The concert is in a small gallery for contemporary African Art. I get there early enough to warm up and refamiliarize myself with my solo set and eat some cheese, fruit and juice. Nice space for a solo saxophone recital. It's a little more reverberant than I'd be comfortable with for the band but for saxophone alone I'm very happy with it. Played for an hour or slightly more with an encore. Small but appreciative audience and they seemed to really enjoy it.

Afterwards we all go to a new restaurant on the river with a fantastic view of Bordeaux where I enjoy an excellent fish meal. Pretty soon the conversation turns to tomorrow's travel and I hear one of the promoters say something about flooding in the south and that we may not be able to make the trip to Barcelona by train. I feel a mild shot of adrenaline shoot through my system and my stomach starts to twinge. After the meal, Carole (one of the promoters) takes me to the train station where she speaks with a couple of guys at the train information booth and translates for me. There is indeed flooding and we must reroute. A long trip just got longer as our 6 am departure becomes a 430 am departure. It's now about 2 am and there will be no sleep for us tonight. Instead of heading due south we must now go north back to Paris and then to Montpellier and Barcelona. If all goes as planned we will arrive just hours before our concert having had no sleep and little food.

November 19th, Barcelona, Spain
So from Bordeaux its the TGV (again) to Paris, catch a cab (which takes us a half an hour), transfer to Gare d' Lyon, get in line for tickets and buy new reservations. It's a full train and we have no choice but to sit in the smoking car. Change trains in Montpellier, and now we're on the Spanish TALGO to Barcelona. Sergio (the Spanish promoter) meets us at the station and it's straight to the club for soundcheck. We're pretty whipped and beyond hungry but the equipment is good and Sergio does his best to make sure everything runs smoothly, having picked up some cheese sandwiches to hold us before dinner. We're on a double bill tonight with bassist Mark Dresser's band with Denman Marony and Mattias Ziegler. We do a fast PA check, have a fast dinner and are back to the club within an hour ready to play. Mark's band has already started, is still playing and should have finished by now. I'm a bit worried since Sergio impressed upon us how important it will be for us to stop at midnight or the club owners will really come down on him. The entire places transforms itself in to a discotech (which one assumes is where the real money for this venue lies). It's now almost 11pm and we should be up there playing by now but Mark still has another tune to go. They sound great but I'm getting the impression that maybe no one told Mark what the deal was. To make matters worse, due to the fact that her sampler accidentally got unplugged at the sound check Andrea must reload her samples before we can begin, a process that takes at least a good ten minutes. I can see that we're getting squeezed but there's nothing I can do except get set up and going as soon as we are practically able. We're ready to start at ten after eleven and play till five past midnight. The set feels very short and unsatisfying although the audience response is good. Jim said he felt like we only got to 10% of our stuff, to which I can only agree. It impresses upon me that there is really no one or two or even three tunes that sum up our sound or what we do. Our real message becomes clearer over the course of a variety of compositions and approaches. Mark was apologetic afterwards but it was hard to share in his general "hey, we're on the road" enthusiasm given the distance we covered and the circumstances involved in getting here. On the other hand I remember the first gig I did with Andrea and Jim at the old Knit in New York five or six years ago in which I forgot all about the time and was confronted with a hallway full of brooding, bugged looking musicians (Zorn and company) afterwards. I felt horrible and apologized profusely although John was very nice about it. On this occasion however there was a cut-off time, we got cut-off and I was bugged. Mark and I have put in some serious road time together, most notably with Gerry Hemingway, and we know each other well enough to recognize what's what. I know it wasn't intentional on his part so now it's simply water under the bridge.

November 20th, San Sebastian, Spain
Slept a grand total of four hours. Lifted my spirits in the morning with a visit to the local market. Fish, meat, vegetables, fruit and the absolute best pistachios I've ever tasted. The train today is second-class and will take eight hours to arrive in San Sebastian on the opposite coast, the consolation being that it's a really beautiful countryside. In some ways Spain reminds me a bit of Italy. During a lull on the train Jim and I try to conjugate verbs in Spanish. I studied Spanish for three years in high school but retained little. Some of it is coming back if I don't think about it too hard. Otherwise Jim spends most of the day playing his guitar. He seems very adept at almost any instrument I've seen him pick up and I think maybe he should do a solo recording in which he plays all the instruments. Saw a baby on the train, three and a half months old, named Liza. I managed to muster up a few Spanish phrases and converse with the parents a bit. Liza smiled and I almost got teary thinking of Rami back at home. Today Andrea has another stomach ache. Jim says that's because she had wine, olives and a coffee before bed.

I tend to zone out on these long rides. I enjoy the chance to process my internal psychodrama with few distractions. I don't usually read since I tend to get motion sickness and I tend not to listen to music since I don't like to carry the stuff around (although Jim made a very strong case for the mini disc player on the road). Jim asked me how I can stand just sitting there for hours with no diversions. "Dude, do you really dig being with yourself that much?" he asks. Quite a nice little zinger but I tend to enjoy the open ended, no agenda head space while traveling, especially as a leader. I really need to let the brain dust settle. I also tend to be able to hear my creative voices more clearly this way. Rather than trying to devise a new project along rational lines I need to get into a very quiet space in which I can simply listen to what's going on inside me. Once I can hear the sound it's simply a matter of follow through and running down the details. As a sideperson on the road it can sometimes be a bit harder for me. I notice a common tendency for us musicians to get into our "jazz bubble" in which we block out our surroundings with a lot tour schtick and a certain amount of self absorption. The worst was some years back in which I did a European bus tour with a big band made up of mostly Americans. Something about this type of arrangement easily lends itself to a jock mentality in that everything revolves around us and there's almost no notice of other people. Touring with Andrea and Jim has been great in this respect as our dynamic is quite different than most. Probably due in some measure to the mixed gender concept but it's really about individuals in the end.

So I try to achieve some equilibrium on this long day. Still, I must anticipate upcoming maneuvers (it's like chess in which you must look six or more moves ahead) but every time I look at a train schedule my stomach ties itself in knots. Due to sleep deprivation and general travel stress I begin to notice that my perception of events around me is slipping. I recognize this sensation though and tell myself that I must not worry too much and simply rely on trust. I look out the window. It's snowing.

Arrival in San Sebastian and directly to sound check. Do not pass "go" do not eat dinner, do not change clothes, do not take a shower. Actually, tonight I'm pleasantly surprised to find a shower at the theater and I take full advantage. Everything is run very efficiently but the amps are really not good. This has a pronounced effect on many of our tunes but we manage. It's a very nice theater, with a dry sound. The audience is smallish (due to the rain, snow and cold) and none too effusive but I've learned not to let that affect my assessment of the performance. One of the good things about chatting with the audience during the break is that you often get a much better sense of what they are feeling. I've seen a lot of musicians get very bugged for what they perceive as being light applause. I certainly understand the issue of having traveled far and wide to play a concert and giving it your absolute all only to be met with what may seem to be a non committal response but I honestly don't think that applause in and of itself is a very good indicator of the audiences like or dislike of the music at all. This is of particular interest to me as I write more and more music that subverts audience expectations and sometimes leaves them scratching their heads a bit. That's not a bad thing at all really. I certainly like it better than punching those emotional buttons that I know will elicit whoops and hollers. That's fun if I'm in the mood but basically it's "been there done that".

Dinner comes afterwards. We are all completely exhausted and I'm almost hallucinating. Andrea warns us that she's about to become hysterical. She eats a bit and then decides to go back to the hotel so we leave Jim to his own devices with a large bowl of soup and a bottle of wine to contend with. He's probably happy to be by himself for a few moments. Touring Europe sounds glamourous to most folks and to be honest it often is. But those same folks often don't realize just how much work goes into it. Work that pushes you to your physical and mental limits each day. But I'm not complaining. I'll never take the opportunity to play this music for granted. And it is fantastic to be in so many beautiful places even if I am a total wreck much of the time. In fact, I almost never feel physically and mentally in good form on the road. That's touring though and I'm still trying to figure it out as I go along. One problem is meal times. Ideally it would improve my well being considerably if I could eat the biggest meal of the day at about 4 pm but restaurants in Europe are normally closed in the afternoons. I'm constantly faced with the choice of eating a huge meal either right before I play or right before I go to sleep. Anyway, the hotel tonight is very nice.

November 21st, Oviedo, Spain
Early bus departure to Oviedo. My previous apprehension about the travel was well founded. This bus sucks. No toilet, and the driver is a fucking drag. I have to convince him to wait and not pull away while Jim goes for a one minute piss break. We make all local stops (I find out later that there was an express bus we could have taken, but I'm not sure who to blame for that) and I'm totally afraid to eat or drink anything for eight hours in case I might need to use a toilet. Not a great situation for someone like myself who's digestive system is the first thing to go haywire on the road and who must keep drinking regular fluids in order to avoid kidney stones. Not only am I pissed off but I'm feeling a bit embarrassed on the leadership front having put Andrea and Jim in this situation as well.

We arrive in Oviedo, which is south of San Sebastian and are met by a fellow named Michael Lee who as it turns out is from Andrea's home town of Pittsburgh. Michael has married a Spanish woman and now has two children. He's a musician and promoter and is doing Sergio a favor by picking us up as Sergio is late due to the weather. Michael has a refreshing sort of tough guy sense of humor and when he sees me shuffling through my contracts and itineraries he cracks on me for not having a tour manager. "No musicians should ever touch those papers" he says with a smile. I say "Hey, back off" in mock indignation but in some measure it touches a nerve. My step father used to tease me about the fact that musicians do not always make the best business people and maybe it's because of this that I've put so much time into learning the ropes and running my affairs as straight and professionally as possible. I may not be the world's most savvy business person but I can organize and run a tour better than a lot of folks.. There's never been anyone else to do it for me so I've been forced into the roles of salesman, promoter, tour manager, booking agent and press agent after which I might have time to be a bandleader and if I'm really lucky I'll have a few minutes to think about just how I'm going to play my own music. Nowadays you can add husband and father to the list which in some ways has proven beneficial as it really forces me to cut through the bullshit. Sometimes maybe I analyze too much.

We're at the hotel with a few hours ahead of us so I go out and eat an entire pizza by myself. Sergio meets us at the hotel later. Sergio's an extremely nice fellow who's been keeping himself busy bringing some great music to Spain recently. He seems serious about building an audience for this stuff and he's already talking about booking the Bennink/Eskelin duo in March 2000.

Tonight's gig is in a club. It was reported to me that all of tonight's concert posters were still in the club owner's car today, the day of the concert. Seems there was a general lack of publicity and as a result attendance is poor. That's too bad since our attendance in general around Europe is getting better every year. Sergio is disappointed with the owner and of course I'm not thrilled with the situation but we forget about that for the time being and the gig feels exceptionally good. Sergio manages to enjoy himself even though I'm sure he lost money on this concert along with the club owner. I feel badly for him but it's not my fault.

November 22nd, travel to Switzerland
Exchanged our existing tickets for express tickets for our travel to Hendaye which is just over the French border. That's where we'll catch our connecting overnight sleeper train to Switzerland. The express bus departs forty five minutes earlier than our original local bus but it arrives with two or three hours to spare. It's still dark and it's raining as we wait for the cab to show up. I always like to give ourselves a time buffer in case of problems but it's not far to the station and I don't want to overdo it. Often times we arrive at the station rather early but I prefer the chance to relax, buy a paper or some food and not have to run with all the equipment after we find out that our car is the last one way down at the end of the platform. Sometimes it's a LONG way.

This morning the cab is late. I start pacing in the hotel lobby and I'm giving the desk a hard time about the cab. I'm nervous and just as I'm about to make them order a new one the cab shows. We're about five or ten minutes behind now but we should still be OK. We pull into the station. I notice it's not the same place we were dropped off yesterday so I ask the guy at the information desk just to be sure. As it turns out we're in the wrong place. He points up the stairs and says it's only a few blocks to the right. This equipment is portable but not for running up steps in the dark and in the rain with only a few minutes to spare to find some bus stop in a country in which not many folks are going to be speaking English. Another bus guy comes over and says that we're OK, this is the correct stop. Well, that would save the day and it's exactly what I want to hear except that my gut is telling me something else. If we don't make this bus and the connection in Hendaye we'll miss our sleeping car and the first day of recording in Switzerland. After all we've been through I'm not about to let that happen. It's been snowing and I don't trust the toilet-less local to arrive at our connection city in time. I ask the guy if he's sure. He points to the bus lane and says, "Yes, this is it". I grab his arm and take him over to the information window to speak with the guy who told me to go upstairs. We have less than ten minutes now. They hash it out for a few moments and the guy at the information window wins. I shout "We're fucked" as I grab the bags and head for the cab as the driver is just about to head out. "Take us upstairs" I ask. "OK no problem" he says. Bags in the trunk, we jump back inside and away we go. Traffic is slow. We're behind several huge trucks that block our visibility. We sit. I know for a fact that these bus drivers do not fuck around and will not wait two seconds even if they see you coming. I am already beginning to resign myself to the fact that we've lost it. I'm feeling defeated when traffic slowly cranks up again and we're within site of the station. There's a bunch of buses idling on the street and I run inside to find out which one is ours. We've made it with about three minutes to spare. We locate our bus and begin loading our bags getting wet in the process. The driver gets mad at me for trying to bring my backpack on. He yells at me in Spanish. I yell at him in English. We come to an understanding.

We're on the bus now and I'm finally able to calm down a bit. I apologize to Andrea and Jim for getting uptight. I like to think that I'm good under stress but sometimes I can do better. It's often the case, usually when you're in some tiny town where the station is only five minutes away, that you're tempted to leave the hotel with ten minutes and invariably that's the time when there's road construction or you sit behind a tractor or wait for a herd farm animals to pass, getting to the station with just moments to spare. I vow that we will never cut it this close again even if we have to arrive forty five minutes early at every train station. Andrea and Jim do not protest. This bus is better than the last. It has a toilet. Food and drinks are served. There's a television (but it makes me carsick to watch). It's nature footage, juxtaposing dead animals with beautiful landscape footage. It seems really weird to watch nature on television while we're actually traveling through some of the most beautiful countryside I've ever seen.

One of the drivers gets mad at me for moving from my assigned seat. I criticize the stupidity of this policy but to no avail. Guess I'm not feeling too diplomatic today. Jim and I blow off steam by making up silly songs about whammy pedals and cheese sandwiches done in the style of Wesley Willis. Wesley is something of a cult figure having written hundreds of songs about music and current trends all with pretty much the same backing tracks. His delivery is compelling; "Rock over London. Rock over New York. McDonalds, breakfast of champions". Or "Liz Phair, Liiiz Phair, Liiiiiz Phaaaaiiiir!" Six more hours on the bus.

We arrive in Hendaye rather relaxed and are dropped off right in front of the train station. Glad to be off the bus and looking forward to a nice meal in town before we depart on our way north, we casually go inside the train station in order to drop off our bags and double check the schedule before looking for a restaurant. I'm really looking forward to the chance to sleep for about eight or ten hours and the opportunity to be in one place for a few days.

Even though we have hours to spare I immediately take Andrea with me to the information booth to translate for me if need be. Maybe I'm just being over cautious but this time it's a good thing since the woman at the information desk informs us that our train has been canceled. Due to that flood between Toulouse and Narbonne we must again reroute. I had figured that that would have been over with by now but I had asked Gunnar (my agent) to check this out and let us know and I'd heard nothing from him. Even though we are going to Zurich we must again reroute via Paris as that is the only route that is currently open. It's the best they can come up with and we must decide this instant. The train is leaving in two minutes. I won't know until we get there whether we can even get a sleeper car from Paris to Zurich. Not much choice really and Hendaye, while quaint, is not a place I want to spend the night so we literally run to the train. The doors are closing on us as we board and I didn't see Andrea get on. The train is now pulling out of the station. Jim and I are completely out of breath. Did we get all the bags on? Where's Andrea? Moments later she enters the car from the opposite end having boarded the train a few cars back. She couldn't run fast enough with her bags and she barely made it on the train. She tells me that she was in tears but she seems OK now. She's no powder puff.

Me? I'm upset that we didn't know about this before hand. Now I feel drained and almost sick. My stomach hurts. The past three days have felt more like a week. It will take me most of the rest of the tour to recover my equilibrium. Just as I was thinking that the worst was behind us I left myself open and got zapped. I'm feeling a little vulnerable but again I rely on trust that I'm not as completely out of it as I feel.

We hit Paris (yet again) and are hanging out at the Gare d' Est for two and a half hours waiting for the sleeper train to arrive so I can talk to the conductor and see if there's a possibility of getting us on tonight. It's not possible to get a sleeper reservation on the day of travel and if we don't get on we'll be looking for a last minute hotel. I'd really much prefer to get where we're going. We find a little cafe in the station but I can't eat even though I haven't had a real meal at all today. I've been feeling borderline ill all evening. Jim said he's had his eye on me, half expecting me to fall down and bust my head. I decide that I'll be better off hanging out by the platform while getting some fresh air. The train arrives shortly after and the conductor turns out to be a very nice guy. He says it's no problem getting on. I tip him one hundred francs (about 15 or 20 bucks). He reassures us that everything is going to go smoothly. He strikes me as being very sharp and conducts himself with a sort of casual and relaxed professionalism. He gives Andrea her own compartment and tells her that she won't be bothered. Jim and I take the double bunk. I feel much better now that we are on and I sleep peacefully straight through.

In the morning however we find out that there had been a thief on the train. I heard the conductor speaking to one of the other passengers. Apparently someone's jacket had been stolen. The conductor caught the thief, who had a key to the compartments like the ones that only conductors have. If you lock your door from the inside no one can get in. If you don't then you're vulnerable. We had our door locked but it's still unsettling to know that someone may have been lurking. Time to get rid of this foreign currency and pay the band.

In thinking back upon the recent spate of travel-trouble I think it was the extended, drawn out nature of it that got to me. Just when I thought it was over there was yet another surprise. I must admit though that even at it's worst we still had some options and most everyone was very helpful. Compare that to a train strike in Italy for instance. That's really chaos. Imagine hundreds of people jammed into the waiting room clamoring for any kind of information at all. If you should happen to see a train official and ask them how you might get to your destination your lucky if they only laugh in your face without getting angry with you. That happened to us last year on Joey Baron's tour. "Don't you know this is a strike!" one driver bellowed at us. Luckily we still made our next gig. The only time I ever missed a gig was a couple of years ago with Mark Helias and that was due to snow. The Brenner pass, (the route from Austria to Italy) had become impassable and so we spent the next 24 hours on various trains rerouting our way towards Italy via Slovenia. We never knew our final destination as every time we asked one of the conductors they gave us a different answer. At 3 am we finally got off somewhere that looked populated and somewhat habitable and walked around until we found an open hotel with rooms. All this as I was getting over dysentery, but that's another story.

On to page 3 of Ellery Eskelin 1999 European Tour Diary