Travis (in Persian)

Rana Farhan

Last year I had the amazing opportunity to travel to London for a live TV show and show taping for BBC Persia.  I performed with Rana Farhan, an Iranian born singer who co-writes jazzy blues settings of Rumi and Hafiz poems with her boyfriend and guitarist Steve Taub.  Rana has developed an underground following in Iran, since it’s completely illegal in that country for a woman to be singing in public.  It’s an interesting approach to world music as well.  She sings in Farsi (which is an amazingly beautiful language) but the style of the music is completely Western. 

Our performance and the taping of the BBC documentary show coincided with Nowruz, the Persian New Year, and our live show was preceded by Barack Obama’s Nowruz greeting to the Persian community at large.  By the way, after watching this video really fresh into his presidency I can really notice that  past year has aged Obama (as it would anyone I suppose!). 

Here is the full 20 minute (in 2 segments) show about Rana.  Another interesting “15 minutes of fame” for the T-Man. 

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8DdBspksAE

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOQ7HeZI608

I’ll be performing a free concert with Rana Farhan next month, February 12 at 9:30pm at Cafe Vivaldi in NYC.  Come on out!

Travis on The Today Show next week!

I’m home today from work…happy MLK Day! Some exciting news…I’m going to be making my first network TV appearance on NBC’s  The Today Show on January 29th at 9:30am.   I’m playing with a great latin/soul singer Gemma Genazzano, performing her hit single “Take Me Away.”  I’ll be in the horn section, and you know how people love saxophone close-ups. Please tune in if you can.  At the very least it’s making my mom really excited because her little boy is going to be a superstar for a minute!

Today’s a nice relaxing day.  Some practicing, some yoga, meditation, a little bit of everything after a fairly productive weekend!