California Dreaming

Is there a better place to take a break from rehearsal than the Chinese Garden of the Huntington Library?

Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa! Miss Laurel and I have been somewhat remiss this summer in our blogging habits. I can assure we had the best of intentions, but somehow life got in our way. We’ve managed to have a few adventures this summer, mostly career related. As you can see from the last post Laurel has been busily promoting a new CD with her trio JaLaLa, which we’ll have more on in the coming weeks. And me? Well, I have been working like crazy to get ready for my big Hollywood debut. I got to spend a marvelous week in LA collaborating and rehearsing with my pal Michele Brourman. Michele is one talented cookie with flawless musical taste and a gift for writing songs that cut right to your heart. When you put two women with eclectic musical tastes in a room with a piano, it’s amazing what comes up. We spent hours trying things out and bouncing ideas off each other, and even the bad ideas seemed to lead us to some interesting places. I am so excited about the set we’ve put together for our gig at the Gardenia. We've managed to combine our musical sensibilities in a really wonderful way, and have roped Amanda McBroom into our merry band for a number or three. I am a very lucky girl to be thus surrounded by talent. I was so busy working that I almost got to experience nothing of LA save the freeway, which should be no one’s sole impression of that part of the world. Fortunately my friend Glen saw to it that I got a little non-freeway driving tour of the surrounding areas and a wonderful visit to the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in Pasadena. I even managed to see the ocean once from the terrace of the Getty Villa in Malibu, after that and a beautiful drive on Pacific Coast highway I went diligently back to work. I’m LA bound again on Monday to finish getting ready for the gig which happens next Friday and Saturday. If you’re in the neighborhood I’d love to see you. If you’re not I promise to try to remember batteries for the camera so I can have a snap or two to post here.