Musical Meanderings

This is a blog centered around some of the musical encounters and experiences that I come upon in my daily life as a musician.

My Photo
Name:
Location: Alameda, California

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Yoshi's in July

My new friend Anthony Blea has a Latin band. He invited me to sit in last night at Yoshi's. His band rocked the house. And the house was actually packed. There were people dancing all over the place.

Anthony is the new violinist in the Enchante' String Quartet that we found a few months ago through auditions. I am used to him as a classical violinist playing Mozart and Beethoven, so it was fun seeing him on stage with the guys, in front of the timbales, singing background parts in Spanish and doing dance steps with his violin. Yes!

Before the show, dinner was served in the dressing room and I was invited to eat. All the guys in the band were at one table, speaking in Spanish. The food was a hodge-podge of scallops and sushi and chicken and calamari. It was very tasty. I ate quietly, feeling as if I were in some sort of a strange dream, surrounded by men speaking Spanish and eating. Where am I?

A little later, after the band had played a few numbers, Anthony called me up to the stage and I put on my Schertler pick-up and played with them. Fun! I love their music and i need to do this kind of thing more often.

After my guest appearance, I snuck out the stage door with my cello and jumped into my car. As I was driving home, I heard Khalil Shaheed on KPFA talking about an Oakland Music Festival that's happening on Saturday. Khalil is a good friend and an awesome trumpet player that lives in Oakland. I taught with him at Oakland School for the Arts. So, anyway, Khalil was talking about the line-up for Saturday's festival, and he mentioned that Anthony and his band will be playing. He said that they are playing right now at Yoshi's too, so everyone should go on out to the ten o'clock show!

It's only four miles to my Alameda home from Yoshi's Jazz Club. That was the best part of the evening. I was able to play with Anthonythe first set and also make it home in time to read my little girl to sleep. I got the best of both worlds there.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home