I’ve got some nice irons in the fire right now. Every so often I get called for a project that makes me dig into new (to me) music. I’m doing a short tour with Tom Easley’s Mingus Tribute and this is one of those projects. I’ve always keep Mingus’ music at arms length (with the exception playing Black Saint and the Sinner Lady years ago); I guess I was always confused by it…Now that I’m really digging into the book for the tour I’m realizing how much great stuff I’ve missed out on.  The cool part of this our is that we’ll be using Halifax as a base and running out from there. This leaves me free to record on Zoe Leger’s new project during the day time. Zoe’s a very tasty singer/songwriter that comes out of the jazz tradition. Her music has a fresh spin and  I’m looking forward to being part of it coming to life.  I think I’ll have a chance to use my new Facet Bucket Mute on it too. This mute is AMAZING. I just got it today and when I tried it out, I was blown away with how right it is. My other buckets (Jo Ral and Stone line) have way to many upper overtones present int the sound. The Facet dampens all the uppers and leaves only the “dark chocolate” bits of the sound left – perfect. As for my stuff: BiCoastal Five is set to be recorded in July in Dallas, and I have a new Quartet project (also in July) Happening in Chicago. Exciting time indeed.