Jazz postcard from California

On tuesday, April 26, I attended a jam session hosted by the Nick Mancini trio at the Blue Whale, a jazz club in downtown LA's "Little Tokyo" district. It was also Nick's birthday so I got to play Happy Birthday after Bye Bye Blackbird (in the same key). Here's a non exhaustive list of other standards performed that night:

• Isfahan
  
• a duo version of Lôro featuring pianist Otmaro Ruiz
  
• an arrangement of a tune (I forget the title) in 2+2+3+2+2+2 clave
  
• What Is This Thing Called Love at an extremely fast tempo
  
• Softly As In A Morning Sunrise
  
• Cheek To Cheek

I met Otmaro and we had a wee chat. He recommend me to check out Brazilian pianist and composer Fabio Torres, who leads the Trio Corrente.

On sunday, May 1, Mark Levine was playing at The Jazzschool in Berkeley in a quintet setting. They performed Stella By Starlight with a latin twist at the end (instead of the original last 4 bars) that went "C#mi7 F#7 ⎢ Cmi7 F7 ⎢ Bmi7 E7 ⎢ Bbmi7 Eb7" a couple of times I think before hitting the Emi7(b5) chord at the top. I thought that was hip. Anyway, on the next day, I was lucky to hang out with the author of the famous Jazz Piano Book. He was really cool and drove me around San Francisco.

On wednesday, May 4, I returned to the Blue Whale to hear Boorbaar, "a percussion ensemble that's actually not lame" as Mike Robbins, member of the wicked trio, defines his own band.

That's about it!