Last night was rather syncopated and Latin.
After work I went all the way next door to the White Rooms where Rob, Gareth (hooray! finally!), Lossie, Kim, Winston and I jammed some salsa rhythms from 6 to 8pm. I was worried Kim might get bored with only the clave to play, but she said the time flew by! Looks like she shares that obsessive quality that Rob Gareth and I have, and probably most percussionists do to.
After that a few of us popped to Bobolobo for “latin jazz night” to see what was going on and whether there happened to be a brass section there waiting to find a percussion section. What we found was instead piano, saxophone/flute, snare drum/hi hat, and bongos. Some girl apparently from the general public got on the bongos at one point and I noticed a few authentic sounds. Turned out she had been taught the basics by the drummer from Santana. Good credentials!
After their first rest break I chatted with Chris the pianist and got invited to play the Guiro on the next track (ooh that’s handy, I seem to have a guiro in my bag!) … I proceeded to whore it up for the rest of the night on guiro, bongos and cowbell. Lots of shaking of hands and hobbing of nobs went on - there I was with a bunch of dancers who were looking to become musicians, talking to a couple of musicians who wanted to learn about the dancing! If we keep this up, York will become a hotbed of Latin music and dance!
Was a bit dead today. I think it was the smokiness of the venue. The dancing crowd doesn’t really smoke.