Part Two: Russia and the UK

Tuesday, February 11

After months of preparation we all leave our homes for a four-week tour of Europe. Baron Browne (bass) flies from Boston, Frank Gambale (guitar) from LA and Tom Coster (keyboards) and I take a 6:20 pm flight out of San Francisco. We all find out as we check into our United Airlines flights that United and the Russian airline, Aeroflot, do not have a "baggage agreement." This means we can't check our bags all the way through to Moscow. After a nine-hour flight we are due to change planes at London's Heathrow airport, but instead of simply changing planes we now have to collect our bags, clear Customs and then stand in line at the Aeroflot counter and check in again.

Wednesday, February 12

We all arrive at Heathrow at various times, with Tom and I have a very short connecting time. We run from one terminal to the other just making the flight. After a three-hour flight we arrive at the Moscow airport at 8:45 pm -- Moscow is 11 hours ahead of West Coast USA time. We check into a very nice hotel, the Renaissance Moscow Hotel, and meet in the bar to relax with a little food and drink. Moscow's weather is quite cold with the temperature below zero, Baron says it doesn't feel all that different from the weather in Boston!

Thursday, February 13
Le Club V. Radischevskaya, 21 Moscow, Russia

Tom and arrive at the club first to setup our gear. Korg has provided Tom with his keyboards and Hohner has made him a new accordion for the tour and it has been delivered to the venue. I'm not as fortunate and there are no Sonor drums for this gig so I have no other choice than to use the house kit, what I call "Drums du Jour" (I have written extensively about this subject in "Drumtalk" on my website).

I do have a great set of Zildjian cymbals that I keep in the UK. Our UK based sound-man Saan Arthur has brought my cymbals, DW 9000 double bass drum pedal and a fresh set of Remo heads to Moscow. At least with the new heads the drums sound OK. Frank and Baron show up later because their gear takes less time to get working. We do a quick sound check and we're ready to hit. Le Club is a beautiful new jazz club with a great ambiance and an excellent restaurant. The club manager, Fania Antonova, is a gracious hostess and has been booking top jazz musicians from around the world into the club. The Russian audience is very receptive and we have a strong first-night-of-the-tour performance.

Friday, February 14
Le Club V. Radischevskaya, 21 Moscow, Russia

We've decided to rehearse some new tunes today so we get to the club at 4 pm to work for a couple of hours. The only time we rehearse is when we are writing new tunes or relearning some old ones. People ask me about rehearsing before the tour and they are surprised when I tell them we don't. We haven't played together for months, but it doesn't seem to matter. We all know the tunes so well we can get onstage and play and it sounds like we've been on tour for weeks. It's a combination of having played the music so much we know the tunes in our sleep and we have a good natural chemistry so we communicate well onstage and off.

We are very free with the music and we play it differently every night. Today we relearn some of the tunes from our newest CD that we haven't played live for a while, "Awaken the Hoodoo," "Brake Failure" and "Gingerbread Boy." We also have some new compositions that we are working on. We'll start working them into the sets and by the time we record them for a new CD, we will have developed them and know them well. Our second night at Le Club is completely sold out and the audience is very responsive. We have a hard time getting off the stage at the end of the night -- they want more encores!!

Saturday, February 15
Le Club V. Radischevskaya, 21 Moscow, Russia

Our lovely hostess, Faina, took Frank, Tom, our sound-man Saan and myself to Red Square. I experienced the coldest weather I've ever had to endure, I don't care what Baron says, it's definitely colder here than in Boston! We saw the outside of Kremlin and walked around and went inside of the unique church and famous landmark, the Cathedral of St. Basil.

We did a little tourist shopping and then made our way back to the hotel to rest up before the final gig at Le Club. The club was sold out once again and the audience had a lot of energy. One of Russia's best sax players is Igor Butman, who also happens to have a Russian jazz TV show and is a co-owner of Le Club. I did an interview for his TV show and we invited Igor to sit-in with the group. It turns out Igor went to Berklee in Boston and the bass player in his Boston band was none other than Baron Browne! Igor got onstage with us and BURNED!! (I also found out that the drummer in his band was the Hudsonmusic.com webmaster, Ed Uribe!!)

Igor is a world-class player and I found out he has recently recorded and toured with Billy Cobham and will be touring the USA with Billy later this year – check them out if they are playing near you. To celebrate our performance, the club staff brought a huge 4'x5' beautifully decorated cake to the stage after we finished our last tune -- there was enough for everyone in the club!

Sunday, February 16
The Glee Club Arcadian Centre Hurst Street Birmingham, England

We start the day with a 6:45 am lobby call, after we all get a good solid 3 or 4 hours sleep! This is the part of touring that most people don't know about. As musicians we play late and like to hang out after the gig, but on tour we almost always have to get up very early in order to travel to the next destination.

Even though we do get to travel all over the world, it's not like we're tourists on vacation, it actually rare that we get to "see the sites" at all. It seems like many non-musicians that I talk to have a glamorized image of life on the road. We work hard and don't get a lot of sleep, so it's quite a grind after a few weeks.

At the Aeroflot Airlines counter they inform us we have 120Kg of excess weight and they want $9 per Kg – over $1,000! On United we had no overweight at all but Aeroflot only "allows" 20Kg per person, about 42 Lbs, United allows at least 100 Lbs per person. Faina negotiates for us and it ends up costing $450 -- under-the-table -- a real scam. After a 3-1/2 hour flight to London's Heathrow Airport we are met by Dominic who drives us the 3-1/2 hours to Birmingham, England.

Sonor has provided me with proper Designer Kit that is in primo condition – it's a pleasure to set-up and play a beautiful sounding set of Sonor drums. The venue is a local comedy club and the Birmingham Jazz society, who promoted the concert, had the place full of eager jazz fans. The club had the look and feel of 1960's club, with a “Shagadelic” light show and the music they played when the people were coming in was right out of a soundtrack to an Austin Powers movie. The people were serious listeners and let us know they quite enjoyed the concert.

Rab Zildjian came down to hang out and it was very good to see him and visit. Now that Rab lives in England, I have seen him more often than when he lived in the USA, as I've been playing in the UK quite a bit as of late. Rab's father, Armand Zildjian, a man who was a good friend of mine and a friend to all drummers, passed away at the end of last year. We all miss him and his love and enthusiasm for drummers and drumming.

Monday, February 17
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club 47 Frith Street, Soho, London

We get to sleep in a little and leave for London at 11 am arriving at our hotel at 2 pm. I'm met by my girlfriend Diane, her 21-year-old daughter Kasia, and my 17-year-old daughter, Liz. They had arrived from San Francisco on Saturday and are spending the week in London. My daughter Liz has the week off from school, and since we were playing a whole week in one place the timing was right for a family trip to the UK.

The band sets up and sound-checks at 4:30 pm and we're ready for a week in our favorite jazz club, Ronnie Scott's. Baron and I played here last summer with Buddy's Buddies and we recorded two live CDs during the week, they will be coming out in a couple of months on Tone Center: "Steve Smith and Buddy's Buddies, Very Live at Ronnie Scott's, Set One and Set Two."

The club has been open for over 40 years and has the vibe of a classic jazz club. The sound system is good and there are no bad seats in the house. During the weekdays the first set starts at 10:45 pm and the second set starts at 1 am; on the weekends the sets are even later.

We had a packed house for opening night and we played two strong sets. My friend Ed Bicknell came down for opening night. Ed is the former manager of Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits and is a drummer, jazz fan and a great supporter of Ronnie Scott's. Ed recently organized Elvin Jones' 70th birthday party which took place last September at the Blue Note Jazz Club in NYC. It was a star studded event and a huge success.

Diane, Kasia and Liz hung out at the gig until the wee hours. Since they are all suffering from jetlag it wasn't hard for them to stay up so late. We had a good start to what promises to be an enjoyable week.

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