Last Weekend

I had a nice weekend, starting with Thurs night. I went to Jazz Standard for the Dafnis Prieto Absolute Quintet. It was excellent afro-cuban with a great groove. Thurs night consisted of Yosvany Terry, Dana Leong, Christian Howes, Jason Lindner, and Dafinis Prieto. It was really great and I knew I’d have to come back for the Sextet later in the week.

Fri night I went with some work friends to Brighton Beach for the Russian experience. It’s an all night drinking, eating, dancing extravaganza. We had a couple of Russian friends with us, so we got some cultural information. There were tons of appetizers on the table, waiting for us to arrive at 8:30. As soon as we got there, a team of waiters descended uncovering the food, taking our bottles of wine to open, etc. One bottle of cheap vodka was included, and some of our party sank to that level after they finished off the 2 we brought. After about an hour of jazz and lots of gorging on delicious apps, it was about time for the show. It was interesting. The best part was the fire dancing with bare feet. The show was kind of fun, but nothing that great. The jazz was ok. I was disappointed when the dance music started because there was only a drummer, sax, and singers, that played in conjunction with the Euro Techno music. Not my thing. After several hours, I was completely sick of it and made a big deal about how I need some soul. Still, it was a fun night and quite an experience. I’d like to try it again sometime, but with the authentic live music.

Sat was a hangover day. I finally emerged feeling better at around 6pm. I went and got a ticket to Las Rubias Norte at Joe’s Pub 9:30. That was pretty good. I was kind of up for something mellow and I enjoyed it. They are a pan-latin group who does other people’s music in an effort to expore latin music and to bring awareness to it. Then, back to Jazz Standard for the sextet: Avishai Cohen, Yosvany Terry, Peter Apfelbaum, Manuel Valera, Yunior Terry, Dafnis Prieto. Really excellent! I enjoyed that even more than Thurs, which was awesome!

Sun night I went to the Brecht Forum for Steve Coleman and 2 other horns. It was excellent, but was wearing me out after a while. He's composing a piece for the American Composer's orchestra at Zankel Hall later this month and he and the other 2 horns are going to improvise on top of it. Sounds like another ploy for the concert halls to get the downtown crowd.

After that, I caught the 2nd set of Stacy Dillard at Cachaca. I loved it. It gave me back all the energy I lost toward the 2nd half of Coleman's 1.5 hour set.