JazzTrax Guest

Cooking with Keiko
 

Just about 99% of the time the JazzTrax Guest has a Brand New CD coming out that week. But not this week. Lovely Japanese keyboardist Keiko Matsui joins us this week because she's about to do something she's only done once officially before... and the before, was on Christmas Day in a Tokyo Church. She's about to perform Solo. Just her to her keys. She's a little nervous. But she's doing it on her favorite place on Earth...Catalina Island. Keiko will tell us her plans, including drawing Art Good into her Oct. 15th Unplugged at the Wrigley Ranch performance to chat together a bit on stage. This weekend she'll tell us why she e-mails at 3 a.m. and what she's cooking at her home outside Tokyo. We'll find it a bit 'americanized'.

Archive Album

Norman Brown Spotlight **

 

** The JazzTrax Archives Album Spotlight takes a brief break until after October's JazzTrax Festival as Art presents Best Song Spotlights by some of the brightest Smooth Jazz stars set to step off boats in Avalon.

Norman Brown's been pumping out incredible guitar albums for nearly 20 years now - but always on his own, every 3 years or so, pace. This weekend as we get set to welcome the Kansas City brewed, but long time Los Angeles based, Grammy Winner again back to Catalina Island and the JazzTrax October Stage, we present a JazzTrax Norman Brown Best Songs Spotlight. Classic Norman songs like "Up 'N at 'Em", "Just Chillin", "Outa Nowhere", his early early favorite, "Lydian", and his most recent huge No. l hit, "Let's Take a Ride". Celebrating the tunes of one of the coolest dudes on Earth this weekend on the JazzTrax Airwaves..

Well folks, we just passed 6 weeks out to the First Day of October's start to Three Weeks of JazzTrax on Catalina Island for a 23rd Year. Our big double sided JazzTrax Festival Banner (by City Ordinance, six weeks out) just went up across Main Street, just outside the famous un- forgettable Catalina Cantina where the long drinking table looks straight out across the Avalon Beach and stretches from the entrance to the far wall. Everyone has 'their spot' they go to for their very first drink immediately upon arrival in Avalon for JazzTrax. For some it's the little tiny bar on the Green Pier. The Landing historically was 'the place' on that layered patio that stares straight out to sea over the harbor loaded with sailboats and yachts. When we were younger it was Laua Larry's... but that's for the first time tourists now. Too nutsy. Marlin Club is for later, after performance. Oh... Descanso Beach Bar. It doesn't get much better than that. I sat there just a week ago and it was packed... loaded with bodies. I thought about all of you who will be rockin' on the dance floor to DJ Jonathan Phillips at Midnight each Saturday Night, there along side the Pacific Ocean's waves. for me it's the Country Club Bar with the pictures of the Chicago Cubs arriving for Spring Training in the 30's and 40's all over the walls and the famous Hollywood Stars who used to make the Island their getaway.

 

The tiny seaport village of Avalon, that each October turns into the Center of the Smooth Jazz Universe, is already buzzing about the approaching arrival of the JazzTrax Festival and the festival goers that now come from all over the world for three weekends of Live Smooth Jazz in the Avalon Ballroom. This October we're celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Ballroom and the Casino it sits within... looking out to Sea. If you golf, bring your clubs, or rent some for Sunday Morning JazzTrax Golf at the Country Club. Try and come early on Thursday to see either Peter White, Mindi Abair, or Keiko Unplugged at the Wrigley Ranch including the breathtaking 45 minute ride across the very top of the Island with a stop for hors d'oeuvres at the world famous Airport in the Sky. Maybe stay through Monday Night and catch a Hollywood movie in the 1929 Casino Movie Theater. Almost all the movies I've watched this year I watched there, including 'Up'. It's getting close. The Island is waiting for us. Start packing. 

- Art Good
   JazzTrax Show and Festival Creator