A Pleasant Finish

The friends were very sweet to invite us to Mosaic's closing performance by Eddie Palmieri and his jazz band.

They got us great seats right at the front! We could see Eddie Palmieri's nimble fingers flying across the keys.

It felt a little odd to be sitting down throughout a latin jazz concert.

I don't know, maybe I've become an indie kid somewhere along the way. But this latin jazz concert thingy didn't quite work for me. It was all very sedate.

There were no vocals. The concert tunes were a mix of mainly his instrumental 2003 Ritmo Caliente, 2005 Listen Here! and since Brian Lynch was co-lead, there were alot of pieces from the 2006 Simpático.

The musicians were technically competent. Very much so. Grammy-winning stuff. But I couldn't feel that connection with the musicians on stage. It was as though their personalities didn't come through and it was just the instruments talking really well. Brian Lynch and Donald Harrison were note-perfect and very correct. They were also a little reserved at the start of the evening. It was only at the last couple of pieces, then I saw their personalities shine.

The only 3 musicians on stage who showed any warmth were Lueques Curtis who wowed with his talent on the bass, Little Johnny Rivero who brought out the hoots in the crowd with his passionate beats, and José Claussell who infused that lively reggae beat subtly on the timbales.

The entire room was so placid. It was all very polite applause. Maybe it's called being respectful. Even till the final piece. There were some people doing the salsa at the side of the aisle. Up at the circle seats, a minority stood up to jive. But it wasn't enough to stir the entire hall to its feet.

At the end of it all, it was a very pleasant, mellow evening.