Back From the Lunar Octet's Tour of California

A performance at Portola Valley Vineyards on August 21 completed our Lunar Octet tour in California. 

In addition to the vineyard concert, we played Mr. Tipples jazz club in downtown San Francisco, 

the Del Cielo Brewing Company, 

and had some delightful experiences sharing our music with kids and parents at several libraries.

I've been fortunate to be able to add original repertoire to build on our 2020 record release, Convergence. 

Back in the lineup are two tunes from our 1995 Highway Fun release: a ballad called All In a Day's Dream, and an upbeat samba number called "Yes! Yes! Yes!", the latter named long ago by an enthusiastic member of the audience.

We've also added some more recent compositions adapted from my Sustainable Jazz repertoire: Funky River, Sambus Interruptus, and Ruum to Ruumba. 

The band has many strong and original voices that were a pleasure to listen to all week: Ann Arbor-based Aron Kaufman, who tells stories with his congas, Brandon Cooper on trumpet, multi-instrumentalist Paul Vornhagen, bassist Jeff Dalton, who is based in the Florida Keys, pianist extraordinaire Murray Low, Toledo professor Olman Piedra on percussion, guitarist Sam Clark, and drummer, host, and organizational wizard Jon Krosnick. 

Formed in the fall of 1983, the group's been together 39 years by my count. Next up, a tour of England in September.