Blu Jazz

I went to the Blu Jazz restaurant/bar twice in the last two weeks to play with the band. Aya Sekine is an amazing musician. The night I played she had in two guests who she happened to know - Joshua Wan on bass and someone else on drums i can't quite recall. What amazed me was that they didn't gig regularly together, but on stage they were so together it was almost telepathic. This is really creepy territory. I'm not talking about simply playing on time or stuff like that. Interpretation-wise, that band is able to turn on a dime. They can jump from a flying crescendo to pin-drop silence in the space of a bar, and it's entirely improvised. They just communicate somehow. Anyway that put enough of the righteous fear in me that i gave up comping and just quietly took my solo. Aya said she liked it (woot) and asked me to come back (woot.).

Came back the week after and discovered that there was a guest band i.e. Aya wasn't there. So I asked the guest band (michael stenton) whether I could play - well actually i mentioned that I played guitar a bit and Michael invited me on stage. That was scary. Luckily I called familiar stuff - a blues shuffle and then someone called Black Orpheus. Not a terribly difficult tune, I could've handled the changes probably, but Michael told me he'd give me the outtro. 3 minutes of A minor. That is a freaking dream come true for someone who's spent the last two years playing So What (7.5 minutes of D minor and 2.5 minutes of Eb minor) and the rest of the modal jazz standards. So it was good. I'm fairly happy about that.

Then of course got dragged to Xun's place and got smashed. I'm not happy about that, but that's another story for another day. God, I sound like Ringo Starr.

adam