Central Park – 4/10/08 – Poet’s Walk – Dennis Lichtman, Banjo – Jesse Selengut, trumpet – Stefan Zeniuk, reeds – Cassidy Holden, Bass
A very good hit. A truly beautiful Thursday. We did well. Big crowds. Great to hear Dennis on the Tenor banjo. He’s an excellent musician with great precision and an affinity for playing all kinds of quotes inside his solos. I had only heard play clarinet every Tuesday at Mona’s but I knew that his mandolin skills would carry over onto banjo. He had a great time too.
Fun to be outdoors. I brought 50spf sunscreen and Stefan still got burnt!
Next stop the old Shanghai Mermaid theater where we were performing in Veronica Varlow’s music video. Definitely a fun scene… Like all things film there is a hurry-up and wait element and for a large part of the time the main Tin Pan cats (Joe, Clifton, Stefan, and myself) were just hanging out and cracking jokes. At one point we were asked to sit in chairs and watch Veronica dance as extras. Clifton needed to know what his “motivation” was. It was all very funny. At one point I caught her bra that she tossed into the crowd.
When the time comes I will post the video that came out of this shoot. My hope is to make a full music video of it to post here and add to our press kit etc…
Final stop of the night was over at Barbes with Baby Soda. It was my first time playing there and I enjoyed it a bit. It was a very small room but it was full with avid listeners. Having been playing so much on the street it is a thrill to play for a listening room that doesn’t leave after just a few tunes. Also, acoustically we didn’t have to push as hard. A nice tin ceiling in their made the sound kind of great. Peter Ford on box-bass, Jared Engle on banjo, David Langlois on dishes, Adrian Cunningham on reeds, and yours truly on the horn and vocals.
Clifton and Cassidya happened to be in the audience and that was a treat too. I have no poker face when I’m on stage. If something moves me, I show it. If something is lame I make a surly face. Anyway, it was fun seeing Clifton and Cass who both know the music so well and their reactions. For the most part the exactly amplified and mirrored mine. It’s good to know, sometimes that the relative value I place on things has some kind of corroboration from my peers.
Mostly we are all moved Adrian. Adrian can play some clarinet. Turns out that that was his main horn for a long time. It shows. He’s got a great sound.
On the second set, Clifton sat in on guitar. It was weird for a little while. His time feel is so different than Jared and David. It took him a few tunes to figure out how to play with them. Eventually he moved the crowd with his great slide guitar playing on “Old Rugged Cross” The fast tunes are fun but its the slow, pretty ones that real grab folks.
At the end of the nigh I wound up back in my neighborhood, hanging with Clifton at Spike Hill drinking Magner’s and telling stories.