Jasen Parker Project

Kai's letter to Jasen and Jasen's remarks:

Dear Jason,

Today we’ve had the chance to distribute your CD’s #76 to #80 from your 100 CDs Project in here Munich. Here are some comments on the distribution of the CD’s:

CD #76: Unterfahrt Jazzclub, Munich, Germany

We put the first one (#76) onto a board in the entrance area of Unterfahrt Jazzclub, the jazzclub with the most frequent programme here in Munich. The CD is a little bit out of sight of the main stream of visitors, I guess, but at least the people who come there should be very likely to be interested in your music. (Was it your brother who put one of the CDs outside of Village Vanguard in New York? Well, Unterfahrt isn’t Village Vanguard, but here in this town we probably couldn’t get closer to it). [Ed. Note: Yes, my brother did leave one outside the Vanguard. See here]

CD # 77: Bavarian State Parliament

Walking from this jazz club back towards the town center, we passed by the Bavarian state parliament (Germany has a federal structure comparable with the USA and Munich is the capital of the state of Bavaria, therefore hosting this parliament). We thought it might be a nice background for a picture of your CD (#77), so we put one there at the entrance gate.

CD # 78: Cafe in Hugendubel, Munich's biggest book store

After quite a walk in the town we needed to warm up a bit and chose a café at the top level of Munich’s biggest book store (Hugendubel). We couldn’t find seats there, so we just put one of the CDs (#78) onto a self-serving counter and kept going. That’s the last Saturday before Christmas, so there was quite a buzz there and I’m sure the CD would be picked up after a few minutes.

CD #79: Outside GEMA

We then headed for Munich’s biggest Cultural Center (called Gasteig), which is hosting some educational facilities, a university of performing arts, a library and the concert halls of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. We put the CD (#79) in front of a statue of a snake-like unspecific brass instrument – let’s say, it’s a trumpet. The house in the background of the picture is the headquarter of GEMA, a German agency for collecting performing royalties, comparable with ASCAP in the USA, if I’m not misinformed. (Sorry, maybe you feel this is not a good surrounding for your CD?) [Ed. Note:I think this is a great place for it!!]

CD #80: On the train to Munich Airport

While we took an urban train to get already a bit closer to our home, we were discussing where to put the last CD (#80). Suddenly I thought, it’s nice to send one CD onto a journey by itself, so we put it onto the seat beside my wife and left it there when we took off from the train. The train was supposed to go further to the airport via Munich main station. So again it shouldn’t take too long until somebody would find it.

We’ve spent quite some while outside today, not just for the CD, but also for walking, looking around and shopping. It was quite a wonderful Saturday. Not only me, also my wife liked to be part in your 100 CDs project very much. Somewhere on the way she suddenly exclaimed: “Kai, you’re finding such interesting things to do!”

Thank you Jason for letting us be part of this. We really hope that you’ll get quite a bit of response from here. Looking forward to follow the next steps of the project on your blog.

Kai