Eddie Palmieri

I saw Eddie Palmieri perform in duet with Brian Lynch last summer at the Newport Jazz Festival, and that show was one of the highlights of the whole festival for me.  Donald Harrison, an alto player who came up through Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the 80s, was at the festival with McCoy Tyner, and he ended up sitting in at the end of Palmieri's set, since the three of them have apparently made some recordings together (I think "Palmas" is one of those, my music teacher in middle school played some of that for us but it has since gone out of print).  Harrison was very busy that whole festival, as he also sat in with Christian Scott (his nephew), Dr. John, and even Chris Botti (which really livened up an otherwise horrifically self-indulgent set on Botti's part--what a hack he is).

I'm looking forward to playing with the All State Jazz Band, which gets to open for Eddie Palmieri at DJF.  We opened for Ahmad Jamal last year, so I didn't get to use the piano, as they were concerned about tuning and would have to retune the piano an extra time if I played on it.  I'm just hoping Eddie Palmieri isn't quite as picky about his instruments!