February 2:

I was pretty tired from the night of martinis with Joe Jackson. We started out at the Regency Hotel uptown watching John Pizarelli play the Feinstein Room. Then we headed downtown to a neighborhood bar near Joe's place.

In the morning we got together at the studio. I ran over my version of ONE FOR THE ROAD and CYCLES. These sessions are about me doing the songs and not merely about the songs themselves. Everyone's already done these great standards, so it's not about me trying to do a perfect read of the songs. I'm trying to visualize the audience and do the songs with that kind of energy. You've only got about 10 good minutes to put the song on tape. When you perform it live, you have to do it great. But when you're in the studio you have all of these chances, so you tend to ease up. The energy and spark of the live performance gets lost. I know the old guys use to run through a song two, maybe three times tops.

We did a really good take of THE MOON IS MADE OF GOLD. I think its the best recording I've done of my dad's song. I did a nearly acapella version of ONE FOR MY BABY with the bass player. We'll listen to it all later and see if it holds up. John was excellent on guitar.

The studio is across town from where I am staying in the 40's. When I came out it was snowing. I was dead on my feet and Michael and I stopped off at a little Italian place for some dinner. I had a goofy dish with a cute name. It was more noodles than I wanted. They were long with curly edges. Outside, it continued to snow and on the way home I decided to not drink martinis ever again.

February 5:

The sessions are going very well. I'm working with Buddy Montgomery, Wes Montgomery's brother. Richard is playing bass. He played a lot with Ornette Coleman. I really liked him. I said to him, "Your parents are your map. They tell you who you'll love." And he said, "Your map? Well that's exactly right." It was like he heard me. Then there is Carl on drums, also on the phone a lot, as drummers always seem to be! John Pizarelli is superb on guitar, as I thought he would be.

A photographer came by and took some photographs of me and John out in the hall. He's from Chicago and took a lot of those great black and white photographs of mostly black jazz musicians. He lights them all quite well, better than most white photographers do when they shoot black people. He took one of those famous photographs...Dizzy Gillespie with the puffy cheeks.

February 6:

Today we wrapped up the first round of recording. Sixteen songs in four days. Not bad. We were wrapping up every night around 7:30, so one of the guys gave the OK to book the studio on the tail end of our session. Joe Jackson and I were doing Show Biz Kid and hurrying to finish because Mariah Carey was booked in that same night!

My friend Or was laughing quite hard visualizing me and Joe trying to finish Show Biz Kid and locking Mariah out of the studio while we hurry it along. "He said...Well dressed pop Icons lock bikini-clad rock star in alley... film at eleven." And Joe did really well...sounded great.

Afterwards Joe's friend from Brooklyn, and Hilton Als, and I went out for drinks to wind down. What a great week.

February 9:

Next month we will tell you more about the recordings, and all about the concert schedule for the summer. There are some interesting guests, but I will not mention them until the recordings are finished and it's a done deal. I think, concert wise, Seattle is on, and it looks like Europe will be, too.