Tucker settles in with the NSJP All Stars

Crazy career that Mike Tucker has: You just never know where the Beverly saxophonist will turn up — or whom he'll be playing with. He's on the road, often out of the country, three or four months every year, sometimes stomping through Europe with red-hot soul act Robin McKelle and the Flytones, managing to slip away just long enough to play the Toulouse Jazz Festival with Mike Tucker Organ Trio, one of the dozen of bands he plays in or leads — a slight exaggeration there, but only slight. Or in Japan, where he tours — and teaches — with jazz trumpeter Tiger Okoshi, a bud from Berklee. Or suddenly packing his bags for Vienna, for three unexpected fill-in dates with Gansch and Roses, the seriously entertaining Austrian "little big band." Or playing in Rio with Mingus Bingus, the Brazilian version of his regular trio — playing the music of jazz icon Charles Mingus, natch. Or, much closer to home, when schedules jibe, you might find him sitting in with Dub Apocalypse, the experimental dub band with musicians from John Brown's Body and Morphine, among others, tricking out his tenor with electronics to create a wild new sound. Or, these days, playing with Classic Headshaft, a back-to-the-future incarnation of the old Dodge Street Bar & Grill house band, whose rotating membership represents the cream of the North Shore. The travel? Yeah, it gets to him, especially these days, but it goes with the territory. "Local gigs don't pay what being on the road pays," Tucker says. Or get you the kind of numbers you get in Europe. Over there, you'll get maybe 3,000 people in a theater. Here? Not so much. "It's all part of being a musician," he says. "It comes with the job title."

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