The Email Special - Barcelona, Spain and more

In 2012, The Email Special gathered for its 18th gig at Casa Orlandai, Jaume Piquet, 23, Barcelona, Spain. This was a great, intimate spot, despite the fact that the piano couldn't be hoisted on to the stage.  Almost all the usual suspects appeared: Tony on vibes, John and Outi switching off on guitar, Hans on trumpet, Jeremy Kinney on bass, Sue on vocals and a welcomed newcomer from Finland, Panu Nykanen on saxophone.  A local Spanish musician filled in on drums, and as is becoming routine, Vassily Borisov stepped in for a couple of vocals.  All around great fun!

2011 found The Email Special in Glasgow, Scotland, playing its 17th international gig at the Queen Margaret Union on the campus of the University of Glasgow.  We had a fine turn-out, with Tony Stranges on vibes, his brother John Stranges on guitar, Hans-Jochim Braun on trumpet, Friedrich Naumann and Jeremy Kinney taking turns on the bass, Sue Horning on vocals, Chris Whitehouse from Glasgow filling in on drums and James Williams on piano.  As an extra treat, Vassily Borisov from Russia joined the group to sing a couple of songs.  Our next gig will be in July 2012 in Barcelona, Spain.  (More photos)

In 2010 Tampere, Finland was the site of our 16th international appearance.  We were a bit shorthanded, as our Friedrich Naumann (bass) and Michael Farrenkopf (drums) couldn't make it, nor could our vocalist, Sue Horning.  So we were down to the core group: Tony Stranges on vibes, Hans-Joachim Braun on trumpet, James Williams at the piano.  We were also joined by ICOHTEC member Outi Ampuja on guitar.  Outi has played during our breaks before, doing her signature rock and roll and blues, but this time she played our regular sets, and it was lovely to have her steady rhythm guitar!  And we were joined by two wonderful local musicians who filled in: Petri Makiharju on bass and Tyko Haapala on drums.

The Email Special returned to Budapest, Hungary, in August 2009.  The Jazz Cafe, a tiny little cellar jazz club, was the site of our first gig in 1996.  This year we stepped up a bit to the Budapest Jazz Club, and played a solid evening of standard jazz tunes.  Hans-Joachim Braun on trumpet, Friedrich Naumann on bass, Tony Stranges on vibes, and Michael Farrenkopf on drums.  It was a wonderful treat to return to our starting place, but we really missed Sue Horning, who was with us in '96.
(More photos)



In 2008, we met in Victoria, B.C. the first week of August 2008 to play the Thursday night jazz party at the ICOHTEC meeting. According to all who heard us, it was a fine gig, everybody playing tight. Dik Daso joined us for a second time on drums, Jeremy Kinney played bass, and Friedrich Naumann picked up the guitar. Tony, fully recovered from an illness during the past year, was hot on the vibes, Hans played a solid trumpet, and Sue sang brilliantly as always. Paul Ceruzzi sat in for a tune or two on harmonica! (More photos)

In 2007, we played two gigs. One in October was in Washington, D.C. for the Society for the History of Technology. We were short a couple of our regular members. Our European-based drummer and bass players couldn't make it, but Dik Daso sat in on drums and Jeremy Kinney took over on bass. Tony Stranges was scheduled to play vibes, but had to withdraw because of illness at the last moment. Vibe players are hard to come by, but we did find Robert Muncy, a brilliant local D.C. sax player to join us.

On August 17th at Munkekæelderen (Le Cannibal), the old faculty cellar restaurant and sometimes jazz club at the University of Copenhagen in central Copenhagen, Denmark. It was a great hit, with our core group all present - trumpet, vibes, piano, drums, bass, and vocalist - plus John Stranges on jazz guitar. And, as an added plus, friends Outi Ampuja and Jeremy Kinney played some fine rock-blues during our breaks the breaks.

Our international group of musicians, all historians of technology, have played for the past eleven years at an annual international symposium. Playing jazz, we got our name, The Email Special, for two reasons: because we largely decide what to play and rehearse via email, and as a variation of "Air Mail Special," a tune made famous by Benny Goodman.

The roots of this reach back to the annual symposium in Dresden (then East Germany) in the summer 1986, when I sat in with Roberts Jazz Gesellschaft, a dixieland group from Karl Marx Stadt (today Chemnitz) as they entertained our conferees on a steamboat excursion on the Elbe River. The banjo player of that group, Frieder Naumann (see photo left), eventually joined The Email Special in 1998 playing bass and sometimes guitar and has missed only a couple of gigs since then.


Six years later, at the first European meeting of another history of technology group in Upsalla, Sweden in 1992, I played with a pick-up group of folks in a pub that the conference took over as its "hospitality suite," and there played for the first time with Hans-Joachim Braun from Hamburg, Germany.







Hans suggested a couple of years later that we organize a jazz group, a task which he took on with great success. We debuted in 1996 in Budapest, in a jazz club that Hans had arranged to take over for the evening. I still have the recording that one of our friends made on a little portable tape recorder.

Thus far, we've played seventeen cities in fifteen countries in fifteen years - in Summer 2012 we plan to play at the ICOHTEC meeting in Barcelona, Spain.

1996 Budapest, Hungary
1997 Pasadena, California, USA

1998 Lisbon, Portugal

                                                   1999 Belfort, France

2000 Prague, The Czech Republic

2001 Mexico City, Mexico

2002 Granada, Spain

2003 Moscow, Russia

                                                                    2004 Bochum, Germany

2005 Beijing, China

2006 Cow and Plough, Leicester, England

2007 Copenhagen, Denmark (photos)








                                                2007 Washington, D.C., USA (photos)







2008 Victoria, British Columbia, Canada (photos)




 2009 Budapest, Hungary (photos)

2010 Tampere, Finland

The core members of The Email Special are Hans-Joachim Braun (Germany - trumpet), Tony Stranges (Texas - vibes), Friedrich Naumann (Germany - bass & guitar), Sue Horning (Ohio - vocals & guitar), and myself (California - piano). Michael Farrenkopf (Germany) has joined us on drums for three of our sessions (for many of our sessions we have had a pick-up drummer from whatever country we are in). John Stranges (Niagara, New York) played jazz guitar with us in Beijing and again in Copenhagen and Scotland, and Jeremy Kinney (Washington D.C.) joined us in Leicester on bass and again in Denmark, Washington D.C. and Scotland.  Jim Kraft (Hawaii - guitar) played an early gig with us, and Outi Ampuja (Finland - guitar) has played with us as well as provided blues/rock break interludes at a couple of sessions. Others sitting in include Paul Cerruzi (Washington D.C. - guitar and harmonica), John Crosmun (South Carolina - violin), Alfonso Sanchez (Mexico - sax), and Bjorn Alterhaug (Norway - bass), Dik Daso (Washington, D.C. - drums), Robert Muncy (Washington, D.C. - sax), Petri Makiharju (Tampere, Finland - bass), Tyko Haapala (Tampere, Finland - drums), and Chris Whitehouse (Scotland - drums) .

Playing at Le Beliere Welcome in Paris...

On my birthday, I got to play at Le Beliere Welcome in Montparnasse, playing a couple of breaks with the Courdacher trio.  A fun chance, and the bass player and drummer asked to play with me on a couple of tunes.  My friend Tony Kay took a couple of hazy photos while his wife Lynn and my sweetheart Penelope enjoyed.








Good food, plenty of drink and great music.  What could be better?

Silicon Gulch Jazz Band gig ...

In early July, I went out to Stanford to participate in the Triple Helix Conference and got two chances to play with the Silicon Gulch Jazz Band.  First, I sat in on their regular Tuesday night gig at the Swinging Door Pub in San Mateo, and then they arranged for me to play at the banquet of the Triple Helix Conference ... actually, I got them the gig, so I suppose it was only fitting.  It is such a treat to play with these first rate musicians, and their leader Dave Kawamoto, whom I've known and played gigs with for several years, has extended me a standing invitation to sit in whenever I'm in the Bay Area. 

Night at the Swinging Door...

I got to play a night with Dave Kawamoto and the Silicon Gulch Jazz Band at their regular gig at the Swinging Door Pub in San Mateo while visiting California the end of June.  Always great fun, and it was nice to have Penelope along with me.

Also had another chance to play with my buddy Tony Oliver and a couple of other fellows at the Encinal Yacht Club over the July 4th holiday.  That was great fun as well! 

Hvide Lam Jazz in Copenhagen

I got the change to sit in with "Happy Hansen," a traditional jazz group at Hvide Lam, a small jazz club in the center of Copenhagen. My friend Jan Tapdrup and another Dane suggested we drop by after dinner.

When the "Happy Hansen" took a break I got into a conversation with the bass player, Paul. Originally from Australia, he'd been in Copenhagen for thirteen years or so, playing three or four nights a week. He played a solid double bass, and his slap style (on some tunes) reminded me a lot of Paul Matulich, with whom I played for some 15 years from the late-70s to the early-90s.


After I mentioned I played piano, Paul invited me to sit in, which took a bit of doing since we had to uncover the piano hidden up against the wall. It was a great set, and they had me singing Bill Bailey and Honeysuckle Rose before the night was over. It's really a thrill to play with other groups like this!

Article 19 gigs...

My quartet, Article 19, played Caltopia 2007 at the Encinal Yacht Club in Alameda on September 9th. Regulars were Dave Kawamoto on sax and clarinet and Randy Hunt on bass. Tony Oliver joined us on guitar, and Mark Ryan from the club played drums. Sue Rau and Carol Woltring, club members, did some vocals. Always a great time!








Roy Kaufmann joined Article 19 on drums and Sue Rau on vocals - for a gig at the Palm Room of the St. Claire Hotel in San Jose on October 27. The job was in conjunction with the 25th annual conference of the California Council for the Promotion of History (CCPH), which I used to head up, and it was open to the public as well. A great venue with really nice acoustics.

We played on September 9, 2006 at Caltopia, a Cal boats rendezvous at the Encinal Yacht Club in Alameda. Mark Ryan, from the club, joined us on drums for this one, and during the last set Tony Oliver from Alameda sat in on jazz guitar. It was a very hot night.






More photos

2006 at the Cats...

Played a number of Thursday nights in 2006 with The Swing Ambassadors jazz trio at the Cats Restaurant on Highway 17, just outside Los Gatos.

This was a very nice little gig, but the Cats closed down and we went our separate ways.











I played a lot of Friday's at the Encinal Yacht Club in Alameda between 2001 and 2008, and occasionally brought my quartet, Article 19 in for a gig.