Taro Tour Part 2 - Bris and Melb sessions

It's been ages since I've blogged, because I've been touring the country with my good friend, a great bansuri player, Taro Terahara. Now at last I can share some of the great moments we've had...

Brissie Sessions:

Taro joined in my weekly session at The Forest, along with ney player (and in fact all-round Persian multi-instrumentalist) Cieavash Arean. This was during Taro's "goggles phase" (see the last post for that story).

Pictured L to R: Marcello, Taro, Tenzin, myself
I have a monthly event called "Global Soul Music" at Core Yoga Studios in West End. For December I decided to make it an "EthnoSuperLounge Xmas Party" and invite all the musicians I've been playing with this year. It was a great night, including: Yani (vocals, harmonium), Marcello (vocals, guitar), Taro (bansuri), Tenzin (vocals, dranyen), myself (tabla), Asim Gorashi (vocals, oud, violin, whistling), Robert Wells (jazz piano), Ravi Wells (jazz guitar), Alicia (mbira) and Velvet (vocals)

Melbourne:
My sister Jacki invited us to Melbourne, mainly to see my family just before Christmas, and also so that I could buy her car. She organised a small concert to help pay our way - unfortunately I don't have any photos of that gig... It turned out to be a rainy day and 3 days before Christmas is always going to be a difficult time to draw a crowd. Anyway, it was nice to show Taro Melbourne, introduce him to a few people there, and share a genuine Aussie family Christmas.

We visited tabla player Glen Kniebeiss and had a great session. Glen's wife Norina is Japanese and they will visit Kyoto in March-April 2008 - I recommend my friends in Japan to check Glen out.

After weeks with the mostly vegetarian folks of Rosecliffe St, Taro really enjoyed the meaty fare of a Flindell Christmas dinner!