Here's a great email we got from Pat yesterday. Read on to learn what he is up to!...

Vince,

Exciting times for me and my Mandala - I have three gigs, on three continents, improvising with three different outfits, so it's a perfect time to go nuts with your drums!

First up: A week in Sweden with the IB Expo. It's a great experience. The Swedish band "Isilders Bane" imports guests and we spend about a week learning each others' tunes, then play a couple shows in the local Arts Building. It's a wonderful chance to improvise and experiment with great players. IB regularly works with two great drummers, Kjell Severinsson and Klas Assarsson, so I am really free to chase color more than beat.

Here's this year's guest list:

Mick Karn (from Japan, Polytown, Rain Tree Crow, wow!)

Pamelia Kurstin (Pamelia is a killer Theremin player and her and I have a new duet CD called "Tunisia" (link)

Jan Schaffer (Swedish session guitarist, living legend in his country, played with ABBA, Bob Marley and Zappa briefly to name a few)

Valgeir Sigurdsson (Icelandic producer who worked with Björk, Kimmo & The Kronos Quartet, etc.)

Luca Calabrese (wonderful Italian trumpet player that I have had the pleasure to work with before)

Christian Saggese (Nostradamos of classical guitar)

Isilders Bane (link)

Then I go to Mexico to do two shows with TU, my duet with Trey Gunn. I expect lots of room for Mandala since we will be improvising in a huge outdoor space and as always we invite other duos to join us for some spontaneous composition.

Then off to Japan for a week with Terry Bozzio. Tony Levin joins us for all the shows and Alan Holdsworth will join us for the last three. I'm having fun building Mandala patches since these are total improv shows. (link)

...May the bootlegs be full of the Mandala!

p@

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