Jason Parker Quartet Tour: Day 7, San Diego

The Jason Parker Quartet hit the road for a two-week tour in May 2010. We were equipped with audio, video and cameras to document the whole experience. You can find all posts about the tour here.

Evan & Josh at Swami's Beach, San Diego

Day seven of the JPQ tour was our second day in San Diego. After a good night’s sleep at my Aunt & Uncle’s house and a big home-cooked breakfast there was only one thing to do…get Josh on a surfboard!

My new hat!

But Josh didn’t have a board. He was going to rent one, but in usual surfer fashion, a perfect stranger agreed to loan him a board for the day! So we headed Encinitas where Josh rented a wet suit, Evan bought some shorts, I bought a new hat, and we hit Swami’s Beach where the surf was up!

Josh was like a little kid in a candy store he was so excited to get in the water. While Evan and I took a run and then lounged on the beach he headed out and spent a good hour or so riding the waves. I was so glad he had a chance to do it, as it obviously brings him so much joy.

After a relaxing beach day we got cleaned up and headed to play at Dizzy’s in the Gaslamp District of downtown San Diego. It’s a gorgeous room that sounded really good and we had a great time playing for friends old and new. Our buddy Donovan, a drummer from Seattle, just happened to be in town on business so he came to the show, as did my Twitter friend Phoenix, who was instrumental in getting the word out about the show. There were even not one, but two brides that we’ll be playing for this summer in attendance, not to mention my Aunt, Uncle and Cousin. All in all we had a great time.

After the show we headed out to find a jam session led by the amazing trumpet player Gilbert Castellanos, who I had met a couple summers ago. He leads a great session at a bar called El Camino. Not only are Gilbert and his band killin’, but when we walked in the legendary saxophone player Charles McPherson was there tearin’ it up! What a treat to see such world-class musicians do their thing. And Gilbert let us take over the bandstand to do our thing for a song, so we laid a pretty meaty version of “Bashert” on them. It was a great hang!

Here’s the video highlight reel for day seven: