Friday 10/19

What a nice weekend! I'm really enjoying Bernstein's curating at The Stone. He was late for the first show on Friday, and I was a little worried. Turns out he had a lot of trouble with parking. He said this week is the first he's played in downtown Manhattan in 6.5 months. Hopefully this woke him up to get back more often. I'm sure no Tonic has something to do with it. I really miss that place.

I wasn't too worried when he was late to the first show because I could have seen any of them do a solo show. I do think Steven made a big difference when he finally made it, though. It was a very nice way to start off the evening.

Michael Blake's Hellbent
Michael Blake (tenor saxophone) Steven Bernstein (trumpet, slide trumpet) Marcus Rojas (tuba) Calvin Weston (drums)

Sexmob with Calvin Weston was absolutely fantastic. It was so nice to see them in a such a tiny venue. It was packed and toward the end, it was almost impossible for me to stay in my seat. It was just amazing from start to finish and definitely the highlight of the weekend for me. I still have Shanir's set the other night as my fav of the curation, though.

On to Joe's Pub for a great Marco show. I really like the drummer, Andrew Barr. I had to stand and dance in the back after sitting so much earlier. Joe's Pub does get to be a little too much at those SRO shows, but it was still excellent. I love it when he has a nice piano to play. It was really great from start to finish.

I needed more, more, more so I headed to Blue Note for a little of Pyeng Threadgill's show. It was pretty good. She had a percussionist that night. No Dana Leong, but the bass player was great. The trumpet was also playing some percussion from time to time. I left after she started playing the keyboard. It just didn't cut it after Marco and I saw no resason for her to even go there. She kind of drowned out everyone else just to hit a cord or something. Up until then, the music was pretty good and it got very boring once she sat down. Luckily, I got about 35 minutes before then, and that's all I really needed to cap off the evening.