Up at 7. Meditated 15 min. Graded truth-tables. Quick breakfast/coffee, finished Xamissa — the conceit is worked out well, but I don’t have anything to add to yesterday’s note. Improvisation/composition workshop w/ Roscoe Mitchell in the museum atrium. Timed solos, then duos, then an attempt to get an instrumental balance (long tones, paying attention to quietest instruments as dynamic baseline) then somewhat general/cryptic directions about listening and responding — he emphasizes “development” without “following.” Not enough time to get into the nitty-gritty, but the last full-group improvisation did seem to “go” somewhere (in the direction of a mass crescendo). He also got out his soprano to duet briefly w/ a tenor player who was evidently more advanced than some (inc. me, w/ my sad wheeling melodica drone). Glad I did it. Went back to bookstore, bought Brenda O’Shaunessy’s new The Octopus Museum, and a used book on smart-note taking with a semi-GTD angle, by a German sociology/communications type. Read that off and on. Thumbscrew: Herbie Nichols’ “House Party Starting” was a highlight. Ran into Eric and Ann going into Carla Bley. Completely different set than at Jazz Standard — on the quiet/moody side, but ended with a fantastic arrangement of Monk’s “Misterioso,” w/ some clever variations/counterpoint and straight blues playing. Tim Berne’s Snakeoil, w/ Oscar Noriega, Ches Smith, Matt Mitchell. What you’d expect, but v. solid — I hadn’t heard Mitchell before. Bought the CD. Jack DeJohnette trio w/ Ravi Coltrane (sax) and Matt Garrison (bass, electronics). Seemed improvised, w/ no breaks, but I gather they were passing through material from a new ECM record. Funkier than most of the festival’s offerings (at least those on my docket); DeJohnette also an interesting, impressionistic pianist (on Miles’ “Blue in Green”) — unfair, in a way. Caught up w/ Eric & Ann for dinner, joined by Dan Sharp, a Tulane U. academic who writes on Brazilian music. Enjoyed conversation, no need to detail here; bent Dan’s (receptive) ear about bridges for just a bit walking back to hotel. Rested for an hr, went back out to Sons of Kemet (standard bearers for a new generation of UK jazz — tenor/tuba/2 drummers), but didn’t stay long — also funky, and I almost felt I heard an English Beat cadence at certain points, but kinda leaden, and the sound was boomy. Might have just been burnt out. Back to room, read the note-taking book ’til my eyes closed, about 1.