Thursday 26nd March 2015, Photos of Incognito US tour
Days after returning from three weeks in Asia, I left for the USA, firstly spending three days in Atlanta and then a further nine cities, including San Francisco for the first time in 12 years. As well as having family in the US, I have made lots of friends and connections over the years, so in each city I'm looking to meet up with people that I haven't seen for a while. Atlanta is always a blast as that's where I have the most family, but also I got to hang with fellow bassist Sean Michael Ray, singer Latrese Bush (who I first met working with Gloria Gaynor in Dubai), the very talented keys and bass duo of John and Jeremiah Moore, Khari Simmons and Darren Benjamin and others. My family normally have a cookout for us but there wasn't time to organise it this time, so they brought food to the Cobb Energy Centre and fed about 25 people backstage!
Other cities on the tour included Charlotte (more family), New Haven, three days in San Francisco, Chicago (Chicago, Chicago…), Detroit, Annapolis, New York, Washington DC (yet more family) and Reading. The response in SF and Chicago was amazing as it's many years since the last time Incognito performed in those places. Both promotors are keen to have us back as soon as possible - let's see if that happens this year or next year! Other highlights were Detroit, NY and DC.
We were lucky enough to have Maysa on nearly every show of the tour and also the fantastic Deborah Bond of some shows. This meant that we were able to perform 'I See The Sun' for the first time with her, a song on Amplified Soul written by Deborah, Bluey, Matt and myself. Another notable moment was having Najee come and sit in with us in Reading at the Berkshire Jazz Festival (he also sat in recently on our London show). This is the longest I've spent on tour in the US since 2003 and it may well have been my favourite tour of the USA since then FH
