Tonight I went out to a couple of jams. I haven’t been out in a while, and it was about time to make an appearance.
I rode my bike to a small venue known as the wooden box. It’s one of my favorite because it’s small, intimate and you can usually get a relatively lower volume.
Recently the Sunday jam session has had local Blues cats running the show. But tonight we had a jazz trumpeter Antonio Ximenez from Spain calling the shots.
https://dlive.io/video/owain82220/f6bea252-b9e2-11e8-96f4-0242ac110003
Ended up getting a decent crowd. 2-3 saxophonist, 3 guitar players, a couple of drummers, pianists and singers.
Sometimes you get like 10 guitar players and no bass, so tonight was a nice balance.
There was also an impromptu flamenco group that played a bit. They had a dancer too! That certainly pleased the crowd.
vid here:
https://dlive.io/video/owain82220/0dcc6e0f-b9e0-11e8-8f16-0242ac110003
Then I popped over to the later jam at the House of Blues and Jazz. There’s an African band playing there for these few months. A nice little niche as I haven’t seen or heard any others in Shanghai.
We have a number of blues clubs, jazz and of course pop and rock. So it’s nice to be able to go out and see something a little different. And these guys are great, just all groove!
vid here:
https://dlive.io/video/owain82220/1b864a22-b9e0-11e8-96f4-0242ac110003
I didn’t get a chance to play at HOJAB tonight cause they called it a little early. I played there a couple of months ago, and I know when the boss isn't there, the staff want to get out ASAP. Sometimes they just turn on the main lights and pretty much kick everyone out!.
I'll play next time, maybe in a couple of weeks (as I go to Thailand soon) will be fun.
Now there’s this super typhoon hitting southern China at the moment. I guess part of it made it to Shanghai cause it was raining pretty hard on my way home. Had to stop and take shelter at a bank. Then it stopped for a little while and I made my way south until the ring road (Zhongshan Lu) which has a higher road on top of another road. Not many cars at this time, so I used the higher road as a shelter and rode the whole way home. Haha!
