Athena

I will get this out of the way first:

For those interested:

Hotel Herodion

tel. 30 109236832

room 304

till Friday. Vc mail will pick up if I'm out.

Got in to Athens yesterday the 21st @ 10:00am or so local time - 9 hour flight. This post will register 7 hours earlier than I am act writing it, as I'm assuming the timeline will remain EST, absent my changing it (yes, it is 4:20 am!! - but I'm up).

First off I have to say, for whatever the reason(s), I LOVE this city. This is my third (technically fourth - once on a ship, for a day, hardly counts) time here and each time has been a different feeling. The first was just walking wonder at the ridiculous archeaological remains seemingly around every corner in the Plaka neighborhood we're in.

The second was a dedicated effort to walk around and get to know some of the streets that are around the hotel and the club (Half Note), which are about a 5 minute walk from each other.

And now this time, it really has a feeling of return - of visiting an old friend that I have missed and want to catch up with. It continues to blow my mind what you are constantly presented with here: Temple of Olympian Zeus, framed by Hadrian's Gate (Hadrian the ROMAN), the Acropolis (of course!), etc etc etc.

We opened tonight with Quinn Lemley - David Epstein on piano, Marcus McDonald on alto sax, Peter Retzlaff on drums and I'm on bass. Went well. We are sold out all 7 nights and have now added a matinee on Wed. They dig her here. We all heard a radio spot for her in the van on the way in from the airport, with clips of the gig we played here last time, now on a CD - pretty funny.

Eric Alexander's group was playing at the club last week, so we went and hung last night and heard them (David Hazeltine, Nat Reeves, Joe Farnsworth). All swingin'. I hadn't seen Eric in years and years. He did a couple of gigs with me at a restaurant 10 years ago (he was killing then too!). Funny to see those guys, who are fixtures at the club Smoke in NY, so far from home.

This is going to be a fun week. More to come...