A Long, Long, LONG, Strange Trip

This was easily the worst travel week of my entire left.

The best way for me to go about this is to take you day-by-day. So let’s begin:

FRIDAY
Carrie and I leave for Des Moines from the Burbank Airport for the wedding with a layover in Denver (remember this).

SATURDAY
The Wedding Day. Good times. Carrie and I both had a lot of fun and a lot of alcohol.

SUNDAY
Time to fly back to Burbank. This is where the fun starts. We get to the airport and find out our flight to Denver has been cancelled due to a huge snow storm. I immediately start to stress out. My flight for Moscow leaves at 7AM on Monday morning and I cannot miss it. We are put on standby for a flight to Dallas then back to Burbank. But the standby list is too long and we miss the flight.

The only way we could get confirmed for a flight that would get us back to Southern California on Sunday was to fly in the wrong direction to Chicago then fly from Chicago to LAX. We had no choice; we had to do it even though we wouldn’t get back to LAX until 11:45 PM. But we didn’t fly out of LAX; our car was at the Burbank Airport! Luckily my good friend Vinnie and his wife agreed to pick us up at LAX and give us a ride to our car.

But here’s another wrinkle in the story. I didn’t have my passport yet. The Russian Embassy was late mailing them back to us in LA. I realized by the time the passport would arrive at my place both Carrie and I would be in Iowa and no one would be around to pick it up. So I told our tour manager to mail my passport to our piano player’s house.

But in one of the many ironic turns of the week, our piano player was in Denver over the weekend doing another gig. He was stuck there and in all probability was going to miss the flight to Moscow. Luckily his wife was at his house and drove my passport and ticket to our trumpet player who would give them to me at LAX in the morning before we left.

We roll in to LAX and get picked up. By the time I get home and pack it is 1:30 AM. I have to wake up at 4AM to get on the flight to Moscow.

MONDAY
After very few hours of awful sleep I leave for LAX. When I finally get to the airport it is around 5:30AM. We have a flight that leaves for JFK in New York at 7AM; from there we go to the Russian airlines to leave for Moscow.

The Airport is packed beyond belief. With all of these cutbacks the airlines have made, passenger check-in service has really suffered. Anyway, I had asked our tour manager the night before if we had to do international check in at LAX or JFK, to which he said he did not know. Well I waited in the e-check-in line at LAX for 45 minutes until I’m told that I can’t do that since I have an international flight. I get in another line but it is too late. Myself and our guitar player miss the flight to JFK. Luckily I had run into our trumpeter who gave me my passport and Moscow ticket. I was so pissed at our tour manager for not knowing the details. As if I hadn’t been through enough the day before, here I am missing another flight and trying to get on the next plane standby which leaves for JFK at 8AM. And if we don’t make that flight, we will miss our flight from JFK to Moscow.

Luck finally starts to change. Both the guitarist and I are selected for special security screening. This is usually a big drag but this time it was actually a good thing. We got to skip the enormous security line which would easily have been an hour wait (making us miss our 8AM flight) and we were at the gate for the flight by 7:30AM. And we get on. I can’t tell you how relieved I was. The flight was really bumpy but I didn’t mind.

We get to JFK and have to take a train then walk and incredibly far distance to get to Aeroflot, the Russian Airline. We get there, check in, and meet up with Mr. Tyrell, trumpeter, and our tour manager. I’m exasperated but happy to know that I’m going to make the plane to Moscow. We have a bite to eat and are off.

TEUSDAY
The 8.5 hour flight to Moscow was fine really. The plane was relatively empty and I had three seats to myself. My doctor had given me a prescription for Xanax so I was able to sleep for over three hours, which is good for me. My Game Boy was a helpful time suck as it always is on planes.

We land in Moscow and are met by the concert promoters and translators. The language barrier is tough. Not many folks speak very good English and we sure as hell don’t know any Russian. The promoter takes us to dinner and that night I walk around the city with a couple of the guys soaking the place in. Moscow is a different world, that’s for sure. The best word to describe it is stoic. The buildings are stoic with Spartan decoration and façade. The people are never smiley or gregarious but are all very nice. The whole place just has a very stoic vibe to me.

We hit the hotel bar for a nightcap and I’m off to bed.

WEDNESDAY
This is the day of our first concert. I wake up at 4AM due to the jet-lag. I just can’t go back to sleep. I read, play my Game Boy, nothing helps. At 7AM I decide to go to the gym and get on a treadmill before breakfast. A few of us meet up for breakfast (which is really good European-style buffet with Russian and Japanese food thrown in there too …caviar for breakfast—nice!) and afterwards walk to Red Square.

It was fantastic. Seeing all of the old buildings and churches with spires … I don’t really know how to describe it. But it was breath-taking. I’ll have some pictures soon. I heard a lot of rumors before I left about crime and danger in the streets of Moscow. None of that seemed to be true.

Moscow traffic is awful, maybe even worse than LA’s. In the afternoon we head to the sound check at the theater. We realize that the drive is too long due to traffic and by the time we get there we have to turn around, go back to the hotel and grab our suits as we realized we wouldn’t have time to do it after the sound check. Another organizational snafu! Frustrating. We do the sound check which is tough since the sound-man doesn’t speak English and we have to communicate through a translator. But we get through it. And our piano player makes it to the theater just in time for the sound check. He finally made it out of Denver and got himself to Moscow. Everything was shaping up.

We did the show in this enormous theater and I think the turnout was a bit disappointing. The place was less than half full. During our performance it was tough to gauge weather or not the audience liked the show. They were respectful but didn’t applaud as much or “get in” to the music in a way we usually expect from our crowds. And Tyrell talks a lot in between songs. He had to do this through a translator of course. Who knows how that came off?

But by the end of the show it was obvious that the people dug it. We did two encores. After we were done playing a bunch of folks ran up to the stage to get Tyrell’s autograph or a picture. They were all quickly turned away by the security. They wouldn’t let anyone stay in the theater once the music stopped and ushered everyone out quite abruptly. What a drag. Here we had all gone through so much to get there and give the concert and we couldn’t even talk to the fans afterwards. Disappointing for sure.

The next day we were supposed to give a concert for a private audience of 50 people or so. But the show was cancelled as the Russian government required the venue for some reason. The promoter told us that when the government wants something, they get it and there’s not much negotiating with them. So the show was canned and it looked like we had a day off in Moscow before heading back to LA on Friday.

But Tyrell starts to get nervous about the flight. We have a really big show today (Saturday) in LA and he doesn’t want to take the chance of missing it. So instead of a day off in Moscow, we have to fly back a day early. Bummer.

THURSDAY
So we get up and leave for the airport. Our tour manager had bumped all of our tickets up and we were flying back to JFK a day early.

Here’s the problem. We didn’t know if we could move up our JFK to LAX flights. In all likelihood we would have to spend the night in NYC. Great. Instead of a day off we get an added travel day.

This time the flight from Moscow to New York is 10 hrs and the plane is packed, fairly uncomfortable for me. We finally land at JFK and indeed we can’t get on a flight to LA. We sit in the airport for over two hours while our tour manager tries to figure everything out.

I’m convinced that there is no worse feeling than waiting around in an airport and stressing out because of the uncertainty of your travel plans.

It was awful. At this point I was about ready to break. We realize that we are indeed going to have to stay over that night and we head to the city to get a hotel. By the time we get there the flight plans are worked out. We are going to fly our Friday morning at 11AM. We get to the hotel and I ended up having a really good night. Our guitarist and I had dinner with a friend of his who is a great guitarist as well and a musician who I’ve admired for years. It was good meeting him. Afterwards I went to a new jazz club at Lincoln Center to hear my friend Quincy play. It was a lot of fun. This layover certainly wasn’t as bad as the one in Des Moines.

FRIDAY
We get to the airport and in one final slap in my already bruised face I don’t have a seat assignment meaning I could miss the flight if it is oversold. I get to the gate and am ready to go postal on somebody when I’m finally given a seat.

The flight back home was fairly easy. And I’m finally here with my wife and my dog. What a good feeling.

In a little while I’ll be leaving for another gig with Tyrell. Thank goodness I’m driving to this one.