Close of Service.................Open of Vice, Sir

I have been a terrible blogger, although one who writes too little is probably better than one who bombards you incessantly with insignificant details about his/her insignificant life.


If I haven't written in about five months, I guess I could say that I follow my muse, and she has been leading me to do other things beside sit in front of the computer and try to be deep or witty.



I have been keeping busy with school and music, my family's visit, and miscellany. Last week there was a fundraiser for small Peace Corps projects, and someone asked my help to find a salsa group. Since there really isn't one, and we couldn't have afforded it anyway, I answered "no problem". I invited a few cotonou musicians, rehearsed twice, and we played a set of jazz, and a set of jazz tunes played in a salsa style. It felt good to be on the bandstand playing jazz more or less on my terms.



Well folks, my time in Benin is almost up and I'm fixin to go to Belgium for a few months. I'm gonna play some shows with a Beninese group that does traditional rhythms and singing with bass, drums, perc, keyboard, 2 trumpets and (as of quite recently,) sax. They have one video and an album which hasn't been released yet, we're looking for the right people to help put it out. One day I'd like to play stateside with this group. You can check out some tunes on myspace

I'm looking forward to the luxury of playing my saxophone everyday and working a lot with the musicians. Actually, that has been one of the hardest things for me about being a volunteer-- not having enough time to play music. (Although I would say that about nearly any job)
I leave in three weeks and I should be back in Benin in September. Then I'll probably spend a few months wherever I have the most interesting possibilities for playing and studying (benin, mali or burkina faso, most likely)