Afro-Cuban Jazz at the North Side Cabaret

 

Yesterday Travalon colored another picture at work.

This morning he watched the Wolverhampton match with Rodrigo, Wolfie, and Wendy.

The Wolves won 1-0, and Crystal Palace won 2-0, so it was a happy Premier League day for Travalon. Unfortunately, the Badger men lost in basketball, which is surprising because they were ahead by 17 points at halftime. They lost by 4 in overtime.

Once the Wolves game was over, we drove to Spring Green for my gig at the General Store. Richard Bonomo and the Dairyman's Daughter came to hear us, and so did a lot of friends of other bandmates. We had a good crowd and got $19 each in tips. I thought I did pretty well, and Travalon actually recorded a lot of our songs, so it sounded like I wasn't imagining it. I could hear myself, and the fiddles (the bass couldn't make it), but I couldn't hear the guitar, which makes sense because she was cutting out a lot. It was like halfway through the gig she just, as Hardingfele would say, "de-plushed." On some songs I usually play melody or harmony, but today I played chords even on songs I'd never done it on before, just to make sure we had chords going on. 

During the gig, Travalon went to a dive bar in Spring Green, and he saw this in the bathroom:

Who can explain people? It's like a video I saw yesterday of three people dressed as chickens playing the saxophone. Right now I cannot remember what song they were playing, but I found it hilarious. So random!

After the gig, Travalon and I went to Sauk to see eagles. We saw one flying around, and a bunch of ducks that I think were goldeneyes. He took photos, but it got too late - I'll get them off his camera tomorrow. Then we took a short walk at Indian Lake County Park, and when we got home the sun was starting to set, so we went to watch it. The temperature was dropping, so Travalon went inside, but I stubbornly waited to see if the sunset would get more glorious. It did, but behind the trees, so we should have watched it from Warner Beach. However, I was rewarded for my patience because I saw a bald eagle fly over our dock and land in a tree across the river from us.

We relaxed at home for a little bit and ate at home, then we went to the North Side Cabaret to see an Afro-Cuban Jazz concert. It was the bass player's doctoral performance, and he was joined by a trombone, an alto sax, a tenor sax, a trumpet, a guitarist, a drummer, and now and then a cellist. To my surprise, I saw another cello player in the audience, one of the performers in a local early music group. Travalon and I got there just before the band started playing, so we had nowhere to sit and had to stand through the first half, but that's okay because I danced a little, and then it didn't feel like just standing there. Some kind people let us sit on their seats during the intermission, and then we were back to standing for the second half. The band did a couple of weirder, modern jazz pieces in the second half, and I didn't feel the beat so I just stood there and started to get tired of standing... and then they went back to the more salsa-flavored songs, and I was dancing again and thought, "I could do this all night!" It was a fantastic show, and Travalon enjoyed it too.

Famous Hat