We are having a problem with tonight’s schedule. We want to see/hear everything! Well more than it seems possible to get to. So far our must hears are Fred Hersch at the Lyric, Mitch Frohman Latin Jazz Quartet at Montage Roddy Ellias (my pick, Carol is not so sure) at the Little, Omer Avital Quintet at Xerox ( I used a new color on my chart for that one – my usual must see is Green but I used Red), with a finish at Kilbourn with Antonio Sanchez and Migration. As usual this is all subject to change as we listen and talk with others.

Last night we followed the plan exactly which is amazing since we had planned on getting to 6 venues. It was a night heavy with piano. We started with two solo pianists, first Kenny Werner at Lyric, our first venture into the new venue. We really enjoyed his playing and the nice sound in the great hall. I will leave detailed reviews to the Music blog in City since I barely have time to write this today. From there we went to Hatch, hoping to get in to hear George Collgan. We were disappointed to find less than a dozen people in line ahead of us and the hall seemed very empty to us. We were NOT disappointed in the performance and stayed until the last note finished reverberating. the fact that he played a lot of Ellington and T Monk may have had something to do with our attentive listening.

We stopped for dinner with friends at Ludwigs then forged on to Lutheran Church where we stayed for two numbers of Julia Hulamen Piano Trio before heading off to Squeezers Roots on the second floor of Sibley Building for Rob & Trey, guitar and Dobro where we waited in line for a bit to get in then had good viewing and hearing from the back near the food stand. Next stop Xerox for Harry Allen Quartet. As we left there we received a txt from Mary that they had a table for 4 at Max where Aaron Diehl Trio was playing.  As we ran I txted we were on thee way. It was a great set and it set us dancing into the street tired but exhilarated.

After a brief stop at the apartment to drop the chairs and packs, we headed over to the Plaza for the jam session.  John Nugent was already on stage with Bob Schneider Trio and shortly he was joined by Harry Allen and another sax player. The sax trio was great and the do was fine after John left.  By 12:30 we were beat and with four days to go we decided to husband our strength and head out for the night.when we got home I checked the pedometer on my phone and found that we had walked over 5 miles.