NEWS - I enjoyed being at the Fresno Jazz Festival, though a lot of old friends were not there this time. I was very happy to chat with Riley Baker who has become a wise and talented musician. He was playing bass with the excellent Dave Stuckey group and sat in on trombone with the Bob Schulz band.

The pianists for the Piano Starts Here concert at the Royal Room are now set. I will be joined by Alex Guilbert, Kate Molloy and Andrew Oliver, with a concentration on music before Earl Hines. I am thinking of Whoopee Stomp by Frank Melrose, Scott Joplin's Something Doing, Paul Lingle's Dance of the Witch Hazels, Jimmy Blythe's Little Bits, Joe Sulivan's Just Strolling and a blues in tribute to the people who worked as blues singers' accompanists in the 1920's, wonderful forgotten players like Porter Grainger, Fred Longshaw, John Erby, Irvin Johns and Hersal Thomas.

Baseball season starts March 30..