Never Say Nix to Bix!

As I write this month’s column, Anne and I are in Scotland, performing at the Kirkcudbright (pronounced “Kir-coo-bree”) Jazz Festival (pronounced “Jazz” “Fes-ti-val”). It’s a beautiful seaside town in the south of Scotland bisected by the River Dee opening up to Kirkcudbright Bay, which in turn leads out to the Solway Firth. The festival itself has four venues, two of them being in the Parish Church and the Parish Church Hall across the street. The Scots are so hip! Although neither church-affiliated venue can sell alcohol, both will provide glasses so you can BYOB! Find that in the states! While it’s a terrific weekend—great music, even better people, fantastic whisky—our seven-week tour of the UK is wrapping up. One more session on Wednesday at the prestigious Concorde Club in Eastleigh (a venue south of London presenting jazz for 60 years; the list of who hasn’t performed there is shorter than the list of who has) and we’re homeward bound. So of course I’m thinking about what’s coming up back in the US. I’m looking forward to performing at two delightful festivals that couldn’t be farther apart in location or ambience, but that both deliver the best music around! First up is the Evergreen Jazz Festival (Evergreen, CO July 26-28), where in addition to playing with Hal Smith’s El Dorado Jazz Band I’ll be teaching clinics, lecturing on the prepon