A jazz concert, off in the distance

Mark Robinson, host of It’s A Jazz Thing, a radio show on George FM I used to host for about 6 years, managed to secure me a couple of tickets to Ravi Coltrane at the Auckland Town Hall.

I met up with Mark there, along with pretty much everyone else even peripherally involved in the local jazz scene over here. I saw Kim Paterson, Kevin Haines, Lewis McCallum and many more. What I couldn’t see so well was Ravi Coltrane. He was a long way away.

Despite that, and the fact that the hall was barely half full, the gig was excellent. I took Dad along, and he seemed to have a really good time.

The drummer, E.J. Strickland, was superb and the bass player and pianist weren’t too shabby either. Coltrane himself stayed just this side of amazing, but had moments of real inspiration, most notably on a track by his mother, Alice and on the encore, which was so badly managed that two-thirds of the audience had left the auditorium.

I had a great time though, despite being told off for taking a photo (honestly, there were no signs anywhere, though I thought it was a bit odd that I seemed to be the only one snapping).

Really looking forward to doing the jazz show live to air from a cafe/bar in Ponsonby (where else?) called The Living Room on Sunday afternoon, 2-4pm.

Having a wonderful time, wish you were here.