Greetings Earth-tet fans,

First of all, thanks to all of you who came to yesterday’s Smart Cafe brunch gig featuring me, Taylor Swift, and the gang. With the exception of the one guy (you know who you are) who demeaned Taylor with heckles and cat-calls owing, presumably, to his own insecurities*, you guys were great and we couldn’t have felt more warmly received. To all of you who had to stand in general admission, and particularly to those for whom there was no room whatsoever, we salute you for your efforts and, next time, we’ll suggest to management that they put an extra table by the kale bin: 20 fans should be able to comfortably soak up the funky goodness we throw down.

Not that I expect there to be a next time. As you’ve heard me say in earlier posts, the Earth-tet’s mission is to climb steadily though a succession of bigger and more illustrious venues, until new venues have to be built to support our fan base.

We are off to a good start.

Just think about the fact that yesterday morning, for the first time ever, sizzling hot jazz-funk-fusion was melded with leg kicks and other maneuvers not normally associated with the genre. Sure, we had the benefit of a pop icon fronting the band, but I’m not so sure she stole the show. If I do say so myself, I lent a certain gravitas to Taylor’s enjoyable but somewhat whimsical compositions. And the coolest thing is that even her most die-hard, teeny-bopper-ish fans seemed to get it: I’d say at least a third of the audience (the table of 6 by the bathroom) were teenage girls, and yet when I broke into chromatic, jazz-rock flights of fancy in between Taylor’s verses, they didn’t all immediately start texting. The texting happened more in a wave, and there’s no way to know they weren’t texting their friends about how I was blending blues, rock and jazz within individual licks, many of them delivered as part of a call-and-response with Taylor’s more arresting lines. I distinctly remember three standout moments in this vein: 1) “It feels like a perfect night to dress up as hipsters, and make fun of our exes …,” to which I replied with a country/suburban major pentatonic lick that, I’m pretty sure, translated as, “Yeah sister” 2) “And the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now, ” to which I sexily bent a high F# to an A, with a vibrato that went from sultry to wicked fast in well under a second; and 3) “But I got a blank space baby, and I’ll write your name,” to which I handed her a giant inflatable pen.

So we have two more gigs coming up in Nyack, both surprises that I can’t comment on. Done. Moving on.

Looking ahead to the next rung in the ladder, beware of a seriously big Long Island gig later this July with Billy Joel.

Yes, him. I asked. He said yes. I can work magic. More soon. Thanks for checking in!

*You/he (heckler at the gig) apparently didn’t recognize that Taylor has been doing her jazz homework and was bending notes and adding chromatic passing tones, to create a more organic and free-spirited sound. If you are still resistant, you little shit, meet me in Memorial park next Wed at 3pm and let’s see if you can sing a whole-tone scale while doing a split and twirling a microphone. And looking hot. I think you already know the answer.