Wow.
Just wow.
I’ve gone to opening nights before and the act is always good. Ernie Andrews just blew them all away. I listen to a lot of blues. I like the blues. Jazz…it’s great, when it has a more blues infusion. Otherwise, that vocal jazz or the smooth jazz crap make me want to slit my wrists. There are times that I’m listening to blues and in my head thinking, “Gosh, this sounds the same. Boring.” Every once in a while, I hear a singer who makes your heart break just listening to them sing the blues. Ernie Andrews is that man. Even the funny lines, and there were plenty, made you want to laugh through tears.
The opening night of the Friday Night Jazz series at LACMA is never to be missed. I’ve been going since ‘ 95 or ’96 and it has always been one of the best ongoing series in Los Angeles. Back then, it was truly a cross section of the city. They used to have about 3 or 4 rows of seating in the front. Then a few tables in the middle. People would bring picnics to eat there. I remember these two guys would come with lawn chairs and a cooler and sit there all evening. That was back in the days when you could show up at 5pm and start getting served a drink and stay until 11pm without the security guards harassing you. You could smoke on the patio, until 2002 when they banned smoking cigars and then in ’04 when they banned cigarettes too. Times have seriously changed.
It’s always strange, since I’ve seen the same group of people at LACMA, off and on, almost every Friday night for 7 months of the year for the past 12 years. I still have never spoken to most of them. But we smile, nod, wave hello. When I started going there, I was single. now I’m married with two kids! We were joking that next year they’ll probably institute a dress code, the year after that, they’ll ban kids, then by 2012-ish, they’d have a cover charge. Times definitely change.
Ernie Andrews plays at LACMA
We arrived pretty late, thanks to my lameass husband. Seriously. If I tell him, I have to be somewhere at a certain time, guaranteed, he’ll find some reason to linger. I had planned on leaving the house at 4pm. I told him that, repeatedly. We didn’t leave unil 5:30pm. When we finally got to the museum, it was almost 6:30 and he was like, “Wow! It’s packed!”. Ya think? Needless to say, we didn’t get a table. Not that it matter anyway. The stupid museum only set up like 4 tables. They used to have between 12 and 15 tables set up. I counted 4.
Oh, and as for the other bloggers…I got 12 emails from people. Unfortunately, none of had considered doing the obvious thing of sharing phone numbers. I didn’t even know what blogs some of them wrote for! So, I didn’t get to meet any bloggers. There were a few people that my husband insisted looked like blogger (?), but he was being such a tool, that I thought it better he wasn’t around people.
At any rate, if you were there, I’m sorry I missed you. If you weren’t, I’m sorry you missed a pretty awesome show.