April 1st came and went without much fooling. I was up in Dallas with the Seth Walker Band. We had played at J&J’s Blues Bar in Ft. Worth on March 30, and came into town early enough to survey some of the tornado’s aftermath. Quite impressive reminder of how strong Nature is compared to the works of Man. The bigscreen TV in the bar kept showing news footage of the trashed downtown buildings. By the time we got there, the locals were a little sick of seeing the same pictures paraded ad nauseum. But there were plenty of jokes about FBI files from the Cash America building being strewn across the Mid Cities all the way to Arlington.

After a couple nights at Sullivan’s Ringside in Addison, the band headed home. Sunday evening, despite occasional rain, I sat in with the Marcia Ball Band at the annual Swamp Rock/Cajun/Crawfish/New Orleans fest held this year at Waterloo Park. It was, as Marcia put it, “Truly authentic. Mud and everything.” People were slippin’ and slidin’ all around in front of the stage. Just good, dirty fun. Speaking of which, I’ll be playing with Marcia at Jazzfest in New Orleans this year. I believe the club dates are 4/28 at Tipitina’s, 4/29 at the Fest, and 4/30 at Storyville in the French Quarter. It will be like old times.

The Seth Walker band is gearing up for a mid-West tour in May. The new album, “Meet Me In The Middle,” will be out in another week, so we will be promoting it on stage and radio and such. Some of the tour stops include Kansas City, MO, Madison, WI, and Rochester, MN. You can see the entire itinerary at Seth’s website ( www.sethwalker.com.)

I am in the process of adding an archive page to my website, where you can check out articles I have written for various newspapers and magazines. I figured I should do something with all that college education besides play blues in smoky bars. My worthy associate Brant Leeper, who is currently touring with the W.C. Clark Band, is helping put together the archive. Hopefully, as you read this, it will be ready to view. Any and all comments are welcome (of course glowing praise is preferred; my fragile ego and all.)

It’s shaping up to be a busy spring. My Jazz History class through UT’s Informal Classes has had a large turnout, so I must shake off the road dust and put on my mortarboard. Sometimes I’m a little foggy-brained on Monday evening after a long weekend of playing music and carousing with drunks, but it’s all in a day’s work. I am including in the readings for this class a book by a fellow ethnomusicologist: Rob Walser’s Keeping Time (Oxford Press, 1999). He has taken articles from jazz journalism written over the course of the last century, and edited them with commentary. It provides a very interesting view of the changing attitudes toward jazz, as well as evidence of how issues in jazz continue to recycle from its early beginnings to the present day. I particularly liked Anne Faulkner’s 1921 diatribe in The Ladies’ Home Journal: “Does Jazz Put The Sin In Syncopation?”

My CD continues to sell, slowly but surely. I have it listed with various MP3-related music websites, one of which is audiopia.com. They had a flashy booth at the SXSW floorshow, complete with company windbreakers, monogrammed keychains, and posters with sexy models. Now that’s good music marketing! Check out their website; they have a lot of good artists on board.

Speaking of South By Southwest, I had a great showcase with a band called Mastica, over at our local hippie coffeehouse Ruta Maya. They have an eponymous CD out, available everywhere.

I also got to play recently with the salsa band Karison. Most enjoyable. I’m working on my salsa steps as I write. Ladies, if you need a dance partner, I am at your service…

Monsieur PKSAX