Well it's been a while since my last blog but here's what's been happening.

I joined up with my China Plates Manhattan Transfer for a week at the Jakarta Jazz Festival which was an absolute blast ! Not only did we perform but I got to hang with and see some of my musical heros such as : Steve Gadd, Harvey Mason, Pat Martino, Lee Ritenour, Jeff Lorber, Earth Wind & Fire, Babyface, James Ingram, Najee, The Crusaders with Joe Sample and heaps of others. I loved it ! Then we were off to Japan to do the 'Billboard Live' in Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka....always a treat !

After returning from  Jakarta and Japan, Anita and I went on a weeks holiday in Hawaii - and had a great time ! Then it was back to the studio to finish Charity Turners CD and continue on with Skii Harvey's CD - which has been going on for a year so far ! It'll be worth the wait.

Live wise I had an absolute ball working with my friend for 18 years Neil Sedaka - we did an Aussie tour in May with the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Western Australian Symphony Orchestras. He brought great buds Jim Varley (drums) and Steve Carroll (FOH) and we had local pal and great bass player Leon Gaer join us.

In September I'm doing two weeks in Melbourne with "Rocky Horror" and then returning to Sydney for "Priscilla" at the Lyric theatre.

Hopefully Skii's CD will be out before I head off to Melbourne so stay tuned......

The European tour with Manhattan Transfer was awesome and very eventful. Firstly our beloved MD Yaron broke his ankle in Italy which laid him out for a few days. We picked up a pianist to fill in for the gigs in Finland -   Pesi did a great job.Yaron joined us again (on crutches) for the St Petersburgh and Moscow gigs. Speaking of Russia, I was totally knocked out by the place - the architecture is incredible, Red Square and the Winter Palace, the Hermitage and St. Bazils......all amazing. I'll add some photos shortly.

Next on the list is most of January at the Sydney Opera House playing "Le Grande Cirque". Should be fun with some cool music to play.

Just returned from two weeks break in the states with Anita - we had a ball and bothe fell in love with New York.We had 3 days in L.A at the Beverly Hills Hilton., 2 days in Las Vegas at the Belagio, 2 more days in L.A. staying at our good friends Jim and Judy Varley's place in Agoura Hills, then over to New York for a week.There we caught up with the lovely Janis Seigel,Yaron and Dorrit Gershovsky and friends and the very hospitable Emily Bindiger.It was LOT's of fun !

One can easily see by the dates of these blogs that I'm not a regular blogger ! Anyway, I think a year between blogs gives you something to talk about ! Well, after being firmly entrenched in the world of musical theatre for the past year, not a lot has happened on the touring front. Having said that however, last month I had another fantastic tour with my favourite group, Manhattan Transfer in South America. We performed in Buenos Aires, Rio and Sao Paulo. As usual, I had a great time and it was fun catching up with the Americans ! The audience in Buenos Aires was amazing, sounding more like a soccer grand final than a concert. We also had a young couple perform the Tango across the stage during the song 'Vibrate'....it truly was a fantastic moment. Anyhow, life goes on. We have only a few weeks left of 'Priscilla' and I must say I'm looking forward to playing something that doesn't smell of 'Disco' !!!!! At the moment I'm producing tracks for Nathan Foley, David Cooper and just finished an EP for a great young singer/songwriter, Georgia Purcell. So, all is good. I'm looking forward to my U.S. trip in October where we'll be visiting L.A., Vegas and NYC. So till then, bye for now.  

   Back from the Asian tour with Manhattan Transfer and it was, as usual ....great !!!  I had a fantastic time and the music was superb.

 For the next couple of weeks I'll be wearing my producer/engineer hat mixing Nathan Foley's live album recorded last week at Cantebury Hurlstone Park RSL. There's a lot of fixing up and post production to do as we had a problem with the piano slowly slipping out of tune during the set .... as well as certain other acoustic instruments 'slipping' out of tune. Anyhow, should be fun pulling it all together. Thanks to Mark Allchin for his help with the audio and Paul from Turramurra Music for helping me out with the Alesis HD24.

Well, we're now in Cebu, Philipines and only Manila to go , then home. It's been a great tour - especially the 3 Blue Notes gigs. I really enjoyed the Tokyo Blue Note - it definitely had the best sound and the staff and food were exceptional ! (plus having Anita there was a big bonus !!!) The Transfer were great as usual, always keeping it fresh by adding new songs and 'Borat' quotes during the show........but why ? I'll be posting some photos on gallery 2 when I get back to Sydney....till then, stay cool !