The Whole World in Her Hands just completed the first tour – five days of concerts from Philadelphia to West Virginia – 1,000 miles + of driving and lots of new friends. Thanks to everyone who helped make it possible. Here is a picture diary of the five days – soon we will have a video from the Charlottesville concert.
Day 1 – we arrived in Philadelphia at The Farmhouse, a retreat center operated by vocalist/ counselor Barbara Montgomery. I drove 11 hours from Indiana, Jamie Baum, Reut Regev, Adi Meyerson, and Rosa Avila drove in from New York. The Farmhouse is an incredible space and we are extremely grateful to Barbara for her hospitality and for joining us that evening for a concert at Chris’ Jazz Cafe in Philly.
Day 2 – after a delightful breakfast with Barbara we drove on to Washington for our evening performance at Twins Jazz on U Street. We found an AirBnB apartment for the night – significant savings to the Washington hotel prices, but a bit of a compromise in terms of neighborhood – but it was a great opportunity to reunite with friends and the music was coming together nicely! Thanks to good friend Harry George for taking the pictures!
Day 3 – we drove on to Charlottesville and spent the afternoon at the beautiful Virginia Museum of the Arts. The Richmond Jazz Society hosted us for their Jazz Cafe series. Unfortunately Rosa had to drive back to New York for a gig with her band, so we played an acoustic set. It worked out fine, Adi can hold her own on the bass and audiences listened and supported intently. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures from the night – send them over if you have any.
Day 4 – right after the Richmond performance we continued on to Charlottesville where we spent the night. In the morning, I joined the Community Radio hosts for an interview and music from the new release. In the afternoon, Jamie led a workshop for a local High School on Improvisation. The evening concert was on the University of Virginia grounds in Brooks Hall – a space in the Anthropology Department that works really well for concerts. In fact, we got standing ovations and played an encore for the paper mache Mastodon in the back – “Pink Elephant Magic” by Joanne Brackeen.
Day 5 – We drove around the Appalachian Mountains to Morgantown, WV. The WV Jazz Society has been very active in organizing special jazz strolls in different WV towns where bands are placed in different venues and audiences stroll around to enjoy the music and support the economy. We were placed at Jameson’s in Morgantown. Even though the hosts were very welcoming, the sound crew had abandoned us with no sound system, a rock’n roll drum kit with a broken Hi Hat stand, all in a sports bar with partying students. It took us a while to find a sound person, screwdriver and screws to repair the stand, microphones to amplify the music, and duct tape to get the piano heard. But as jazz musicians you learn to improvise and eventually we were rocking it out with our hits. Energetic and creative Reut blew them all away with her trombone and when we ended the night with a chocolate brownie sundae all was good!
Videos are coming soon – in the meantime find The Whole World in Her Hands on Facebook and like and enjoy the large amount of pictures.
It’s great to be Back Home in Indiana, but it sure was a great and most successful trip!
Monika, Rosa, Reut, Adi, and Jamie