Carlton Ashton singing at Cafe Bonaparte. March 19, 2008 9:01pm

It's 2:02am on Thursday as I type these words. I had Wednesday night off as usual and I decided to spend it supporting my fellow flamencos at Cafe Bonaparte. I live in Rosslyn just a few blocks from the Key Bridge and since it was a beautiful warm night (with temps in the high 60's), I decided to walk to Georgetown. I checked Google maps and the distance from my condo building to Bonaparte is 1.4 miles!

Anywayz, I arrived just as cantaor Carlton Ashton and guitarist Behzad Habibzai were setting up the sound system. I said a quick hello and quickly grabbed the end seat at the bar nearest to the stage. The advantage: good spot for taking pics of the performers. The disadvantage: I was in a high traffic spot where customers and waiters passed by what seemed like every 2 seconds often bumping into me sometimes without even saying "Sorry," or "Excuse me." Ugh.

Truth is that this restaurant is tiny. It's a good thing for the ambience. You fill this place with just the right number of flamenco fans and aficionados doing palmas and jaleos and it can get really loud, in a good way. I can remember quite a few memorable nights having jam sessions when I was a regular performer here almost two years ago.

But this time around, the restaurant could only afford one guitarist and a singer (instead of two guitarists and one singer). When you think about it, it's probably better that way. The stage is cramped enough as it is. And for me, it's like the tables are turned. Five or six years ago when Behzad first arrived in the DC area, he came to my show at Las Tapas every single week and watched the show, learned what he can by observation and asking me questions. Now I'm coming whenever Bonaparte has their flamenco night (which is about once a month on a Wednesday) and coming to Behzad's show.

Aside from local performers like myself (and Richard Marlow and José Oretea) coming out to support Behzad and Carlton, I didn't see any other familiar faces from the local flamenco community. Here are some pics to give you an idea of what you missed. Enjoy!