Category: Music

Back to New York this week to participate in the heatwave.  This picture of a sunbather on the front page of the New York Times reminded me of the headlines in Scotland when we were there during 80 degree temperatures a few years ago warning the public to stay well hydrated and avoid the midday sun.  It was hot but a pleasant change from the snow and wind a few visits ago.

On Wednesday night I tried out a new jazz club that I heard about from a gentleman at the table next to me at Dizzy’s a few weeks ago for the Christian McBride Big Band show.  The Jazz Standard is located at 28th and Park Avenue and an easy subway ride from the Wall Street area.  It’s in the basement beneath the Blue Smoke barbeque restaurant and is structured as a supper club similar to Birdland.  They had a number of my favourite whiskey drinks on the menu and I paired that with a yummy shrimp etoufee.

Here are some pictures of the club both facing the stage and from the stage looking back towards the bar.  I’d guess the capacity is around 150 guests and the seating is comfortable and not too packed.

I enjoyed browsing the pictures on the stairs down to the club.  Here are Louis Armstrong and Ben Webster (my current favourite tenor saxophone sound).  I just watched a documentary about Ben Webster titled “Brute and Beautiful” – apparently a tough man who made a beautiful emotional sound.

I enjoyed the drink coasters and agree with the message.   There’s also a nice mural by the entrance.

The entertainment was by the Kenny Barron quintet.  Barron has appeared on hundreds of recordings and is considered one of the most influential pianists since the bebop era.  He taught piano and keyboard harmony at Rutgers University for over 25 years and now teaches at Juilliard.  Some of his best albums were recorded with Stan Getz in the late 1980s and I highly recommend “Bossas and Ballads – The Lost Sessions”.  I was very fortunate to have decided to investigate the Jazz Standard on the week when Barron was playing.  Here’s a Brazilian themed song he played – I really wasn’t in that bad a seat but recording is highly discouraged and I needed to be stealthy with my phone resting on the table.

I loved the drumming by Jonathan Blake – some of the most innovative, creative, and musical since I heard Joey Baron for the first time.  It was interesting that his cymbals were much lower than you normally see – almost at the same height as the snare and tom toms.

I chuckled at this billboard outside an Italian restaurant right next to the jazz club – Italian bubbles and $1 oysters – right up McD alley.

I had a pleasant post concert walk down Park Avenue to the 14th street subway station.  The good weather had a lot of folks out eating later and I made a particular note of a restaurant named Barbounia for my next visit with Diana.  A very fun looking Mediterranean place on Park and 20th in the Gramercy area.

After a long and successful work day on Thursday, I headed up to the Chelsea Market to search out something that Anne wanted but didn’t buy on her trip there with us.  This was a funny experience – after two complete tours around the store and asking artists manning booths about the stand Anne had been at and getting no help at all I caught sight of one of the items in a display case with a name on it.  Consulting the website told me that the stall had been a one week only “pop-up” store.  I was able to order online – what a lot of detective work for what I thought would be a simple purchase.

I had dinner at a French Bistro in the market, a nice pate de campagne, and then headed back to the 14th street subway station.  On the way I passed the Village Vanguard jazz club and couldn’t help but stop in right as the 8:30pm show was starting.  I got one of the last seats at the bar in the back of the club – actually one of the more comfortable seats in there and one that always reminds me of Diana sharing her champagne with Joshua Redman on another impromptu visit we made.

The band was the Eric Reed quintet and I enjoyed them very much.  The music was quite similar to Kenny Barron the night before but with more slower, lyrical and emotional content.  I really enjoyed one of Reed’s compositions named “Wish” that he wrote after the death of his father about all the things he wished he could still discuss with him.

Here’s a more up tempo composition:

I narrowly avoided a trip to Brooklyn on the subway – apparently the number 2 train runs on the number 1 line later at night and I noticed the Rector Street stop just in time to hop off before the train headed under the East river to Brooklyn.  On the different than usual walk back to the hotel I took this picture of the New York Stock Exchange with colorful illumination.

On Friday morning I headed out for a leisurely breakfast (trying to follow the Jazz Standard coaster advice) and was amazed at the backwardness of the trash bags stacked up on the sidewalks – apparently Friday is trash day in the Wall Street area.  It’s also interesting that it’s acceptable to dispose of small appliances with regular trash.

 

 

The first weekend of my birthday month got off to a great start as D and I headed down to Deep Ellum for brunch at IdleRye.  This was a new place I found online after finding that the Lebanese place I was hoping to visit for brunch wasn’t open for Saturday lunch.  We sat at the bar and enjoyed amazing tater tots and eggs benedict with pork belly along with some nicely mixed brunch cocktails.  We both look forward to visiting again soon.

Our post brunch crossword stop was a short walk down Elm Street to our favorite Deep Ellum spot – the Twilite Lounge.  As usual the patio was a perfect oasis and the jukebox was playing great New Orleans music – “Exactly Like You” by the Rebirth Brass Band.

Now we were ready for a coffee and found a new place, Drugstore Cowboy, just around the corner that had good coffee, a full bar, and a stage that hosts performances and movies in the evenings.  There was a mariachi band playing just outside the stage for Cinco de Mayo.

 

After coffee we made the quick drive to Oak Cliff for a visit to the Wild Detectives bookstore.  All of the books that we picked up seemed either a bit too out there or too depressing.  The only one I found that sounded appealing was one that Diana reminded me we had bought on our last visit and I haven’t read yet.  We moseyed across the street to Boulevardier and watched the Kentucky Derby (neither of our picks won) and enjoyed their amazing tartare (complete with quail egg).

Sunday was a lazy day of workout, crossword, and pool time.  I put a new tablet stand that Amazon had just delivered to good use in watching the New Orleans Pelicans versus Golden State Warriors basketball playoff game by the pool.

The busy week didn’t afford me too much time for reading but I did make some progress through John Irving’s “A Prayer for Owen Meany”.  One section describing the two main characters participation in a church Nativity play had me laughing.  It reminded me a lot of my experience at St Columbas church in Stewarton and the classic tale of my wise man outfit completed by socks with holes in the toes to horrify my Mum.

 

When I was doing some research on Eric Reed, I found a few albums that he recorded with the trombone player Wycliffe Gordon that sound great.  Gordon has recorded a number of albums of New Orleans style brass music that sound excellent.  Gordon plays trombone, trumpet, tuba an didgeridoo (a good spelling bee word).

I also heard a new release from the Scottish electronic band Mogwai.  I first heard of this band in the acknowledgments section of an Ian Rankin novel and decided to give them a listen.  It’s great background music when I’m trying to focus on something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oopsy, it happened again.  Another year when we were definitely taking a break from the New Orleans Jazzfest only to be unable to resist at the last minute.  We had so much fun with Denny and Anne in New York that we booked flights to New Orleans sitting at the airport for our flight home on Sunday afternoon.

The visit started on Wednesday afternoon with the girls making their regular happy hour visit to Pascal’s Manale for oysters and bubbly.  This restaurant has been open for over 100 years and is the originator of barbecue shrimp.  I heard the comedian Amy Shumer interviewed recently and when asked about her favorite place to eat she said that if she ever had a couple of days free she flew to New Orleans and had barbecue shrimp and bread pudding at Pascal’s.

Meanwhile, the boys dropped off kids for soccer practice and then visited a new place for me, Vessel NOLA.  This is an old church converted into a beautiful restaurant and cocktail bar.  A very nicely done place with great drinks afforded me the perfect opportunity to catch up with Denny, Thom and Alex.

After our respective Happy Hours we met up at Marjie’s for dinner.  We had tried to visit once before on a strong recommendation from the New York Times food critic and Denny but hadn’t made it.  Thom and Alex joined the foursome and we sat on the patio to share wonderful smoked meat dishes.  Marjie’s combines smoked meats with Southeast Asian flavors for great results.  We enjoyed cornmeal crusted yardbird and charred pork shoulder steak among other treats.

The evening concluded with some good story telling at Dos Jefes cigar bar on Tchoupitoulas Street (I double checked to make sure I spelled that correctly).

Thursday began with a visit to the new car wash that Denny and Anne are opening in Algiers.  It’s the prettiest of the empire so far and we enjoyed exploring and taking pictures while Denny conducted some business.

 

After the car wash excitement we picked up Denny’s Mum, Diane, and had a lovely lunch at the Red Maple in Gretna.  This was an old school New Orleans restaurant with delicious pecan crusted catfish.  It was a treat to catch up with Diane whose social calendar has been too packed to squeeze us in on the last couple of visits.

Effervescence, a new “bubble and bites” restaurant on Rampart Street was our destination for Happy Hour.  Denny and Diana both ordered tasting flights of bubbles from the menu of over 40 choices by the glass and we sampled some superb small plates.  Anne joined us in time to enjoy a glass of the champagne that Denny had selected for her from his samples.  We sat in the courtyard and agreed that this was McD heaven.

It was a pleasant saunter through the French Quarter on Ursuline Street from Effervescence to our dinner destination, Trinity on Decatur Street.  This was another new place for us that Denny and Anne had really enjoyed on a recent visit.  The food, decor, open kitchen and service were all outstanding.  I can’t wait to return.

 

 

Can you tell we all loved our meals?

From Trinity Denny led us to Gasa Gasa music club on Freret Street to listen to the Rayo Brothers band.  I really enjoyed this club – great sound and space.  The band was a cross between the Avett Brothers and the Band of Heathens and we all enjoyed them very much.  They play at Jazzfest next weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

Some very creative art on the Gasa Gasa patio wall:

Friday was Jazzfest day and we got a nice early start to get set up at the Gentilly stage for the day.  The stage has a new logo on top since this is Fats Domino year.  After an opening set from The Deslondes, a local Americana band, we enjoyed a strong set from Eric Lindell.  The initial 30 minutes were a bit sleepy but picked up with a cover of Cinnamon Girl and several more strong songs.

The musical highlight of the day came next – Jon Cleary with a great set of New Orleans piano and funk.  He really irritated me by playing some great guitar in addition to his normal outstanding piano – some people are just too multi-talented.  Here he is with a great Meters cover (Just Kissed My Baby).  At some point around here Alex and Thom and Libby showed up to join the party.

After Jon Cleary, Diana and I went for a wander around the festival grounds.  We got our usual frozen cafe au laits and sauntered through the art and jewelry tents.  The most interesting to me were custom made turntables with beautiful wood bases:

 

 

 

 

 

The Rythmporium where they sell LPs and CDs had a great sign celebrating New Orleans’ 300th anniversary and an interesting stage.

I heard some great music coming from a small tent that I hadn’t been in before and went to investigate – turned out it was the kids tent where the next generation was doing a great job:

As we continued round the racetrack we came across great performances from the New Orleans Nightcrawlers on the Jazz and Heritage stage and an emotional dirge for Charles Neville by the Dixie Dozen Brass Band on the Congo Square stage.  Neville died the day before the festival started.  He was the saxophone player with the Neville Brothers and well loved throughout the New Orleans and world music communities.

We returned to Gentilly to see Lukas Nelson (Willie’s son) and the Promise of the Real band.  I was anticipating this to be a highlight of the day but was underwhelmed – the music was fine but just didn’t interest me as much as I’d hoped.  My spirits were lifted when Denny returned with a meat pie for me.

 

The day finished out with Sturgill Simpson who entertained the crowd with a set that spanned many musical genres – straight ahead country, Americana, blues and some jam band influence.  He won everybody over by having the 610 stompers (a local group of men who do silly dances in the Mardi Gras and other parades) take the stage to start the show.

 

 

 

 

We had hoped for a full brass section similar to the one that joined him for his Saturday Night Live performances but had to settle for a much smaller one – great show nonetheless.

We waited for the crowd to clear out and watched the sun set on another amazing Jazzfest day.

Denny had to drive the boys to a soccer tournament on Saturday early.  The rest of us got to sleep in and then enjoy a great brunch at the Canal Street Bistro.  The lobster crepe and particularly the sauce was delicious.

From there we Ubered down to the French Quarter for an afternoon ramble that started on Frenchman Street with a visit to the Louisiana Music Factory to check out the latest music releases.

From there we wandered down Royal Street with a stop at Amelie which has a beautiful courtyard and at the Michalopoulos (checked the spelling on that one too) gallery to see if there were any new paintings that D had to have.  We finished up at a new place named Curio which had delicious small bar snacks.  Now it was time to head back to Webster Street to relax before heading to the airport for our flight back home.  I got this picture of the sun setting over the Mississippi which seemed like an appropriate closing picture for another amazing New Orleans visit.

Sunday was spent relaxing and assembling a new patio rocking chair.  While we were enjoying New Orleans Will was with his friends in Bali.  I haven’t heard much of an update but did get some interesting photos.

 

 

Diana just alerted me to a new Marcia Ball album and I’ve been listening while writing this update.  Here’s a great new song.

I’m closing with this tribute to Charles Neville which features some of his signature sax work.

 

Here’s a clue from the Saturday USA Today crossword puzzle for you to noodle on: “Beethoven’s homage to Napoleon”.  I’ll give you a few minutes to ponder this one and then we’ll come back to it.

Some good news on the Nils Lofgren front.  I wrote last week that his guitars had been stolen prior to the show that we saw at the Kessler.  Fortunately Dallas Police were able to make an arrest and return the 4 stolen guitars to Nils:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/police-recover-nils-lofgrens-stolen-guitars-worth-over-2410k/ar-AAvnZrM

Tuesday took me back to cold, windy and rainy New York.  The main reason for the trip was a visit to the Microsoft office at Times Square and so I stayed in the Sanctuary hotel on 47th street that I enjoyed on my last visit to the area.  For Tuesday dinner I tried a small Belgian restaurant that my boss had recommended – BXL just off Times Square on 43rd street.  They specialize in moules frites with 12 different sauces.  I stuck with the classic mariniere sauce and could only finish about half of the 2lb serving.

After dinner I went for a walk down 6th Avenue to 34th street.  Misty rain was falling which provided me this eerie looking view of the Empire State building just visible above Bryant Park and another clearer view from just across the street.

On the walk back to the hotel I saw some potential piano upgrades (kidding – that would be a huge waste of money) and a store that made me chuckle.  One of the great features of New York is how easy it is to walk around and find interesting sights.

After work at the Microsoft office, I walked up to 62nd street to Lincoln Center to see the New York Philharmonic performing at David Geffen Hall.  The ballet, opera, and orchestra all have their own custom buildings on 3 sides of the plaza at Lincoln Center.

I had dinner in the “Kitchen” at Geffen Hall – a delicious scallop dish with roasted cauliflower, raisins, and nuts and then took my seat for the performance.

The first piece on the program was a world premiere of “Metacosmos” by Anna Thorvaldsdottir from Iceland.  The conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, did a brief interview with Anna about the commissioned piece which she described as “finding the beauty in chaos”.  In the 12 minutes I heard about 11 minutes of chaos and 1 minute of beauty.

Next was Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 performed by the 25 year old English pianist Benjamin Grosvenor who first performed in a fish and chip shop by the seaside and won the BBC Young Musician competition at age 11.  I loved the precision of the string section in this piece – absolute unison from lead violin through double bass in the very quiet pizzicato sections.  Grosvenor shone brightest in the cadenza at the end of the first movement which I found very creative.  Here’s Glen Gould performing the same piece:

The final piece of the evening was Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3.  Back to that crossword clue – did you figure it out?  The answer is “Eroica”, the name Beethoven ultimately gave to the symphony.  I take umbrage with the clue as the Playbill for the concert says that Beethoven says of Napoleon after he declared himself Emperor, “Is even he nothing but an ordinary man!  Now he will also trample upon human rights and become a slave to his own ambition; now he will set himself above all other men and become a tyrant”.  He went to the table, grabbed the top of the title page of the score and tore it in half.  The first page was rewritten and the symphony was given the name Sinfonia eroica.  The symphony was very familiar to me as I heard my Mum play it in our home many times growing up.

Thursday night was jazz night.  I took the subway down to the West Village and caught the early set at Small’s jazz club.  This is an aptly named tiny cellar club where the first few rows of seats are right on stage with the band.  The first show was a sextet with tenor and alto saxes, piano, guitar, drums and bass and fully occupied the small stage.  I appreciated the mirrors angled above the piano and drums that let you see exactly what the musicians were up to.

The menu at Bobo restaurant next to Small’s looked good and so I stopped in for dinner.  The food more than lived up to the promise of the menu and I enjoyed an absolutely delicious steak tartare with shoestring fries and a mushroom tart that was perfectly executed.

The admission ticket to Small’s also provides entry to the Mezzrow cellar jazz club across the street and so I decided to stop in for a short visit after dinner.  Monte Croft was performing on the vibraphone and is a real master.  The sound in Mezzrow is really great from such a small venue.  Here’s a short video of the vibraphone mastery:

 

Friday was another cold, windy and rainy day as I made my way to the airport to travel home.  The 80 degree temperature on arrival at DFW was a pleasant change.  Diana and I went to Keeper seafood restaurant for an early dinner as storms were forecast later in the evening and enjoyed their excellent calamari and lobster mac ‘n cheese.  We thought we left time to get home before the storm but were mistaken.  I navigated Penelope south from McKinney to avoid the tornado sirens, thunderstorms and potential hail.  We stopped for coffee and thought it was safe to head home.  Wrong – we drove right into a hail storm and had to make a quick U-turn to make sure Penelope didn’t get dented up – she took cover under an awning in front of a building and made it home unscathed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After our workout and crossword on Saturday, we stopped into Starbucks to visit Alicia.  It’s good to see how pleasant she is to everyone (even Mom) when working the register.

Dinner on Saturday night was at the Wahbas.  We got to meet Patty’s sister and her family, enjoy amazing Brent smoked meats, and enjoy a variety of live performances in Brent’s music room – so much talent in the house that night.

My main book this week was “The Names” by Don DeLillo.  This was recommended by Suzy Hansen in her book that I finished last week as a good tour of expat life in Greece.  I read DeLillo’s most famous novel,”White Noise”, a few years ago and was disappointed but decided to give him another try with “The Names”.  Portions of the book were compelling and enjoyable but the deep discussion on the origins of alphabets and language were too involved for my taste.

Here’s the Wikipedia summary: “The work, set mostly in Greece, is primarily a series of character studies, interwoven with a plot about a mysterious “language cult” that is behind a number of unexplained murders. Among the many themes explored throughout the work is the intersection of language and culture, the perception of American culture from both within and outside its borders, and the impact that narration has on the facts of a story.”

I picked up “Every Note Played” by Lisa Genova (a Harvard PhD neuroscientist) during my walk around New York on Tuesday night and it proved to have some unexpected links to my week.  Genova is best known for writing “Still Alice” that became the basis for a popular movie about a lady suffering with Alzheimer’s.  “Every Note Played” is about a concert pianist who is stricken with ALS and quickly loses control of his arms.  In one early section the pianist talks about how much he enjoys the cadenza in Beethoven’s third piano concerto (the one I heard on Wednesday night) and in another section his ex-wife talks about regretting having given up her career as a jazz pianist and particularly playing at Small’s (the club I visited on Thursday night).  Strange coincidences.

I heard a song by The Gaddabouts on Spotify Discover Weekly and enjoyed it very much.  Turns out the Gaddabouts is Edie Brickell (of the New Bohemians and seen at the Oak Cliff Music Festival), Steve Gadd (superstar session drummer seen with James Taylor recently), Pino Palladino (one of my favourite jazzy bass players), and Andy Fairweather Low (seen with Eric Clapton at New Orleans jazzfest and a relative of my Mum).  I’m looking forward to listening to the rest of the album this week.