Several months ago, before I knew how busy my summer would be, I scheduled a trio recording in the east of Iceland in August, about a day's drive from Reykjavik (where I live). The other members of the trio, Þorgrímur Jónsson (pronounced Thorgrimur or just Toggi) and Scott McLemore had played at a church in the town of Seyðisfjörður and thought that the acoustics were amazing. We got ourselves booked on the church's concert series and planned to record the day after. Well then summer hit. I was releasing "The Dream" and touring in the US, my girls were off from school and before I knew it it was August and time to go record. Where the hell did the time go? I'm not ready! I have been playing on swings and slides lately and not the piano.
I was about to cancel the recording session when the recording engineer called me and said he was going to be in the next town over, so I didn't have to worry about a flight for him. That's great but then I found out that the piano hadn't been tuned since early June, with no plans to have it tuned before our concert. That is a good reason to cancel a recording session.
Knowing that the tuner travels the country a lot, I decided to give him a call before I called it off… maybe just so that I would feel less remorse if the concert turned out to be the greatest I ever played. Can you imagine my surprise when he told me that he also was scheduled to be in a neighboring town and had made plans to tune the piano at the church for my performance there? Absolutely mind-blowing! I thought he was kidding at first. So is this a coincidence that both my engineer and tuner will just happen to be in the area where I wanted to record or what?
I have no excuse to cancel so I will be making my first trio recording since I made Far Far Away in 1997. The material is less cultivated than planned, but the positive factor is that there are no preconceptions of what we are about to do as a trio. I look forward to the spontaneity of playing fresh material and to the inspiration that the beautiful countryside will, without a doubt, offer.
It is often called "strange coincidence phenomenom"; something happens that, not only defies the odds, it also seems to hold a purpose. It's up there with "disappearing objects" and "sleep paralysis". I've had my little share of all those. I once returned 3 books to my nearest library, but the librarian lady insited that i had a 4th book overdue. I told her that it was impossible, since i only had taken those 3, i was positive. I asked her what book it was, she told me (some book by Regine Olivier) and right after that a book fell from a shelf. Strange… nobody had touched it. I was kind enough to grab it. Surprise! It was the book she was talking about. I told her "see? is this the book you said i had?". She rechecked the book number, it matched. I was right. But what were the odds of that?
great story Jimmy.
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