Monday Night Open Mic, July 13, 2009

I was away last week at an intense jazz workshop. Still trying to reconcile a lot of the concepts and approaches of jazz with the type of songwriting I've been doing. It's a whole subject for another post or a conversation on the corner, but I've been thinking a lot about how to integrate all the different musical styles I'm interested in. The jazz workshop was in Louisville and I made a spur of the moment detour to Nashville where I saw the Grand Ole Opry, and also popped in briefly to the Bluebird Cafe which is their local songwriter haunt. They have a setup with four songwriters in the round trading off and accompanying each other. I wasn't so sure about the couple songs I heard but liked the intimate setting a lot.

Well, it was nice to be back at Sidewalk, especially since things launched with the surprise appearance of Joie Blaney, in town briefly from L. A. Joie was a longtime fixture on the scene before moving out there. Along with Joie there seemed to be a handful of other folks from earlier days hanging out. Nan Turner, Dibs, Daoud, etc. Nice to see everyone.

I really enjoyed Morgan, who it seems is a roommate of Isaac Gillespie and played a couple songs on which he played guitar accompaniment. The first also featured Aaron Invisible. Morgan said she usually writes songs about places and she started off with one about Brooklyn. She has a very low key style and the song was charming, featuring the refrain..."I want you to stay here in Brooklyn." Her second song was about Connecticut!

Others who played while I was around: Don McCloskey, Brook P, and Joe Crow Ryan, who did an effusive spiel about his album and upcoming cd release show this Friday. He also played a request, "Till the Real Thing Comes Along." Isaac G. played a new song that name checks Debe D., Crabs on Banjo was back and played their theme as well as "Someone's been drinking in Rhode Island." Ghostown Jenny was new to me. Madison Cano is back in town for a bit and played with Josh Fox. Ariel Bitran played Deep Blue Light from his Zelda series. Did he say that was the last song? Nice to see the Fools on stage again. It's been a while...at least since I've seen them there.

Till next time.