It's on.
So the gig on Thursday went really well. That was the first time I ever did traditional music with a spoken word artist, and it felt really good. Sherita was off the CHAIN with her lyrics. She did one piece on Iraq, and another about observing a bad situation on the El one day. It was strong, and tight. And I felt like it sounded really good over me and Maninder. So that’s awesome.
Saturday I want to Edwardsville, or sumfin like that, to dance with Funkadesi. That was fun. Before and after Funkadesi’s set I was helping sell their CDs out in front, and I ended talking to this one guy for like 20 minutes: “Yea, my wife really enjoys this ethnic kind of stuff, and I do to, but i’m more into jazz.” “Oh yea? What kind of jazz are you into?”
BOOM, that sparked this whole conversation we started having about how he plays tenor sax, and he’s into John Coltrane before and after the quintet, although he didn’t really like the quintet outside of the fact that Coltrane was in it. And how he was in a jazz band down at U of I when he was going to school there in the early 60s, and how he met Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, and whole bunch of other jazz artists. And how there was all this anti-black stuff going on at the campus at the time between white fraternities and black organizations. And how some kid blew himself up in the basement of his dorm trying to make a pipebomb that would have eventually been targeted towards him and his peers. Stories about him getting arrested for stupid reasons. How he helped run a program that helped 500 black high school kids get into white colleges. The guy was really interesting and had so many interesting stories. I probably could have talked to him for longer, but I had to cut cause we had to hit the stage. Worthless.
So all this week is prep time for the gig on sunday. It’s on.