Monday, January 07, 2008

Farmers' Market Show

Performing at The Santa Monica Farmers Market is always colorful. Over the years since returning to Los Angeles, I have appeared there with various line-ups and every show has a different vibe. Recently, I invited three musicians and dancer Kara Mack (who just had a baby) to put on a show and it was so fun!

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That Sunday was a gorgeous bright winter day. We set up on time, and the ever-changing audience got really into the music! I wanted to focus on two things: groove and improvisation. As an outdoor gig, how could we make every groove really pop? Also, because it was a loose Sunday morning with everyone eating breakfast and hanging out with their kids, how could our show be equally loose and carefree? We created a sunny and bubbling African / world soundtrack for everyone buying their organic fruit and vegetables … Honeycomb Grey became a samba. Ogoniland was a groooooooove!!

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Federico Ramos (guitar) and Dante Pascuzzo (bass) put in some heavenly solo-ing, Magatte Sow (tama) blew everyone away, and Kara and I danced up a storm. It felt good to wrap a skirt around my pants and just go … no frantic Diana Ross-ian costume change scrambling backstage, for once!

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We got the sea of little toddlers down front dancing in a circle at the end of Babalu to the drums and everyone getting up to sing solos for Frank and Loretta. Mostly, the little kids sang "FRANK AND LORETTA!" followed by 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 worth of silence and heavy breathing into the mic. The crowd LOVED it!!!

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The crowning moment, though, was getting Kara up to sing at the end. Check the video at the bottom of this blog for kid solos and Kara. She is a classic!!!!

Also, many thanks to Lynette "Waaw Waaw" Wich for filming parts of our show. The still photos in this blog are from her footage!

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