Since the first article regarding this new topic was successful let's continue with next one.
The second story is already the "bonus" one, since is not about a regular jam session but a special organized one. A little celebration that I want to share.
As reminder:
"This is a new topic in my blog. I'm going to share here my experience about some of the jam sessions around the world. I know, I'm not a professional writer but I'll do my best to describe and put some lights on what's going on around the mysterious world of jazz jam sessions, and finally to encourage all the places that are still trying to bring some good live music in town to continue in their mission. If you might have suggestions or comment feel free to post it here".
So, my second story is about Café Mercedes, a proper jazz concert room with bar service in the Russafa area of Valencia, Spain.
Here the jam sessions use to takes place every Saturday night, but as I said before, the story I'm going to tell was for a special jam happened Wednesday 11 February.
Let's start from the venue:
The club is divided in two main areas: at the entrance you step in to the front room, which is the one with the bar service, that allows the visitors to chill out and drink something before the concerts or during the breaks. If you keep going forward crossing the first area you'll find yourself in the "concert room", medium/small room with some tables, chairs and nice sofas where you can enjoy the concert from any side of the room. I think that you can probably fit a bit more than 50/60 people (guessing...).
As soon as you enter you realize that you're not just in a bar with "a" jazz jam session per week. You are in a serious Jazz Club.
The stage is beautiful, stylish, medium size, good view, and yes: you are not at all in the middle of the "toilette way", not even close by (from the fact that most jazz bars, because of their size, they always have the "stage" somehow in the toilette way).
Let say that this is a proper jazz concert place.
And...I can't hold anymore the fact that Café Mercedes have two gran pianos. Yes dear pianists friends: 2 GREAT GRAN PIANOS. Shocking stuff for the average jam session bars...
Anyway as I mentioned before, last week was a special jam session since we had the pleasure to meet here some of the musicians from the Berklee Global Jazz Institute of Boston together with the board of the department: Danilo Peréz, Marco Pignataro and Patricia Zarate.
The evening was really nice, first started with a concerts of the fellow musicians from Boston which I found original and interesting, beautiful and fresh compositions and great interplay. High level stuff guys.
The jam that followed was more like a welcome celebration, a lot of musicians from Berklee Valencia came to play and the party continued for about an hour until 00:15 if I remember correctly.
Last week I had the pleasure to share the stage with: Yuri Storione (Piano), Simon Moullier(Vibraphone), Noam Israeli (Drums), Lee Seung-Ha (Double Bass), Michael Wang (Trombone), Timotej Kotnik (Trumpet).
We played together: Bag's Groove from Milt Jackson
Thanks guys, was nice to meet you.
Thanks also to Andrew Marzotto on guitar, next time I hope we'll have time to jam together.
Here's a picture.
The second story is already the "bonus" one, since is not about a regular jam session but a special organized one. A little celebration that I want to share.
As reminder:
"This is a new topic in my blog. I'm going to share here my experience about some of the jam sessions around the world. I know, I'm not a professional writer but I'll do my best to describe and put some lights on what's going on around the mysterious world of jazz jam sessions, and finally to encourage all the places that are still trying to bring some good live music in town to continue in their mission. If you might have suggestions or comment feel free to post it here".
So, my second story is about Café Mercedes, a proper jazz concert room with bar service in the Russafa area of Valencia, Spain.
Here the jam sessions use to takes place every Saturday night, but as I said before, the story I'm going to tell was for a special jam happened Wednesday 11 February.
Let's start from the venue:
The club is divided in two main areas: at the entrance you step in to the front room, which is the one with the bar service, that allows the visitors to chill out and drink something before the concerts or during the breaks. If you keep going forward crossing the first area you'll find yourself in the "concert room", medium/small room with some tables, chairs and nice sofas where you can enjoy the concert from any side of the room. I think that you can probably fit a bit more than 50/60 people (guessing...).
As soon as you enter you realize that you're not just in a bar with "a" jazz jam session per week. You are in a serious Jazz Club.
The stage is beautiful, stylish, medium size, good view, and yes: you are not at all in the middle of the "toilette way", not even close by (from the fact that most jazz bars, because of their size, they always have the "stage" somehow in the toilette way).
Let say that this is a proper jazz concert place.
And...I can't hold anymore the fact that Café Mercedes have two gran pianos. Yes dear pianists friends: 2 GREAT GRAN PIANOS. Shocking stuff for the average jam session bars...
Anyway as I mentioned before, last week was a special jam session since we had the pleasure to meet here some of the musicians from the Berklee Global Jazz Institute of Boston together with the board of the department: Danilo Peréz, Marco Pignataro and Patricia Zarate.
The evening was really nice, first started with a concerts of the fellow musicians from Boston which I found original and interesting, beautiful and fresh compositions and great interplay. High level stuff guys.
The jam that followed was more like a welcome celebration, a lot of musicians from Berklee Valencia came to play and the party continued for about an hour until 00:15 if I remember correctly.
Last week I had the pleasure to share the stage with: Yuri Storione (Piano), Simon Moullier(Vibraphone), Noam Israeli (Drums), Lee Seung-Ha (Double Bass), Michael Wang (Trombone), Timotej Kotnik (Trumpet).
We played together: Bag's Groove from Milt Jackson
Thanks guys, was nice to meet you.
Thanks also to Andrew Marzotto on guitar, next time I hope we'll have time to jam together.
Here's a picture.
