...but with the film wrapped I finally made it to the Mecca of Jazz tonight. Elsa's brother and his wife are in town, and on our last night together we caught the subway to Christopher Street and walked up 7th Avenue to one of the few remaining fabled jazz venues in Manhattan - The Village Vanguard!
Being a Monday night, it was Big Band night, and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, successor to the long-time Thad Jones-Mel Lewis band that blew the roof off of this tiny basement club for decades.
The good news is the apple hasn't fallen too far from the tree - even in The Big Apple - and the traditional Thad Jones sound and many of his arrangements were featured in the set we saw - alongside a superbly harmonious arrangement of a Jimi Hendrix track including a bass trombone solo!
The Vanguard was smaller than the room I carried in my imagination all these years, but the intimate space was steeped in so much history that you could almost feel the ghosts of Lydian chromatic scales past soaring over the walking bass lines of all the improvised solos that have been played in that
hallowed space.
I know it won't take me another 52 years to get back. If I lived in New York, I think you'd know where you could find me on any given Monday evening!
Enjoy!
william
I used to live on Christopher Street and go to Sweet Basils. Sadly, now gone. But The Blue Note is still around? And I would check out the Lenox Lounge in Harlem, if only for it's great Art Deco decor.
Posted by: Diane | November 15, 2011 at 05:14 AM
I guess I'll listen to my "live at the Village Vanguart" CD.
Joan Chandler
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