This is going to be short, cuz I have a lot of stuff to get done so I can relax on my two-day vacation in NYC. We leave early tomorrow (Wednesday) morning, yay!

It's 12:20pm on Tuesday, I spent an hour at "Fronteras U" (aka Borders) reading up on travel books to get some ideas. A dancer friend and I have tickets for the Wednesday 7:30pm flamenco show at Joe's Pub (in New York's East Village) where another friend of mine is performing. From the press release:

"the Compania Juan Polvillo presents 'De Sevilla,' a captivating hour of flamenco dance and music accompanied by the ancient rhythms of North India's classical kathak, a forbearer to the famed flamenco tradition of Andalucia."

Anyhow, last night (Monday) at Citron was especially good. You'd think that I would have the same settings on my mixer and leave it that way from week to week. But, no, you have to do a sound check everytime. But this particular evening, I managed to get the settings just right--and when I sound good, I play better!

Besides, myself (on guitar) and Gerard (guitar and cante) we had guest musicians including Jason Vera y Aragon on cajon and singer Jose Oretea.

Maria, Gerard, Oliver and Mariya. May 8, 2006 10:30pm

We also had a bunch of dancer friends in the audience, some of whom you already know: Pam de Ocampo, Sarah McKenney, Debra Belo, Karine and Nora Lopez. Also guitarist Juan Delgado showed up, as well as Oliver, Lillie, Badi and I'm sure I'm missing a few other names.

Oh yeah, we had a new dancer friend joining our flamenco party: Maria--see above pic--who's based in London (love her accent!) and is here in the DC area visiting family for the summer and to decide if she'd like to move here. Hopefully, she'll make the right decision. ;-) With some coaxing, we got her to dance one copla of Sevillanas (she was a little shy at first). In any case, she said she'd be back next Monday here at Citron. Welcome to the DC flamenco community, Maria!