Jazzin' Down South
by Eric Mintel
Jazzin' Down South
Table of Contents
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Live!
2000
Reviewed by
David Nathan
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Swingin' Down South, Part 1-3
By Eric Mintel
On May 11, I flew with my trio from Philadelphia to Savannah for our
first tour of the South. The three musicians on this tour included
Jeremy Berberian on drums, John Gaffney on bass, and me, Eric Mintel, on
piano. I usually work with a quartet, but sax player Neil Wetzel
couldn't make the gig. This tour had been in the planning stages for
almost a year.
The Arts Council in Gainesville, GA first contacted me in late
July of 2000 to ask if my group could perform there. But just doing one
gig and then coming home wasn't going to get the word out, so I began to
call various arts centers in Georgia. Several showed interest in my
group and wanted us to perform. Now we were finally ready to tour and
play new music from our new CD Live!, which features new
arrangements of jazz standards and the music of my mentor in jazz, Dave
Brubeck.
Our first stop was the Savannah Arts on the River Festival on
Saturday. Then we were on to Cordele on Monday for the Crisp
Area Arts Alliance (who had special bottles of wine labeled with The
Eric Mintel Trio, and who gave us rooms in the same hotel where the
performance was to take place). Then we were headed to Moultrie
on Thursday for the Colquitt County Arts Center, and finally Friday to
Gainesville (GA) for the Arts Council. We arrived in Savannah
late on the night of Friday, May 11 and picked up our rental car, a Ford
Explorer. We logged 700 miles that week on Firestone XT tires, and I
managed to push my heart from my throat back down to my chest. This is
the story of our very successful tour of the South.
on to part 2...
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