The past month has been a big one for me here musically, with my new Brazillian jazz group Beladonna and the Shamans taking off (now playing every Saturday night at Ami Modo, a wonderful Italian restaurant in Puerto Viejo, the expansion of our very eclectic Sunday night band at the Loco Natural to include the great Canadian tenor saxophonist Gib Monks, and - just this past week - several shows with special guests Seattle jazz artists Marc Smason and Joanne Klein. The folks in this south Carribean community and visiting ecotourists have responded very enthusiastically to our bringing live jazz into their midst, so it's been a blast to help make that happen. In the next month, as the season slows down until summer, I'll be tapering off a little bit on the performing in town to put more time into songwriting and recording for awhile (not to mention more gardening and time at the beach!) That should be timed well with a possible visit from one of my favorite performing songwriters in a couple months - more on that later. Peace, Jim