The lovely and talented composer and pianist Helen Sung, from Brooklyn and Houston but friend and cousin of Chilombicans worldwide will grace us on the West Coast for a too-scant five day window next month, October 4 thru October 7, with stops in LA at Blue Whale, Yoshi’s Oakland, the Berkeley JazzSchool for a clinic — and I thought there was something at Bach Dancing and Dynamite but they may have been bounced by a force majeur in the passing of Pete Douglas — they have October 4 and 5 as a set of tribute shows featuring 50 musicians. With due respect to Pete — with whom I had a lunch once I fondly recall — I might honor his spirit more by trying to catch up with Helen – – who is a Palo Altan indirectly in that her cousin Juliet Lee is married to Andres Fajardo — the founders of the Chilombican movement: part Chinese, part American, part Colombian.

October 6 is also my dad’s 90th birthday if that portends something dramatic and jazzy, as in Shakespeare when trees fly and strange noises fill the air. Or maybe I am dipping into too deeply my Monk branded Belgian ale.