The Sunday night jazz jam is back

Tommy Alvarado, Jerry, and the guys will be hosting a Sunday night jazz jam beginning tomorrow night at 8 p.m. at Sonny's, an American Speakeasy, located just west of the 215 at the Flamingo exit. Come on over. Spread the word. I'll be there. I may even sit in. Jerry is raggin' me to get off my ass.

Also, don't forget to tune in tomorrow and every Sunday morning to Ric and Jackie Gould's fabulous 97.1 FM jazz show. Their playlist is as good as it gets.

SUNDAY: ST. PAUL PETERSON UPDATE

There's great news and scary news. Our friend the amazing Paul Peterson just announced that he will be touring for Kenny Loggins starting this week. Click his name (or Patty's below) to see the news about his beloved Sister Patty, who is struggling mightily to recover from a sudden ruptured aorta.

They are in our hearts and prayers.

JAZZ JAM FOLLOW-UP

This is one beautiful spot. Great looking room. Excellent P.A., high wall-mounted JBLs that threw out the best upper high Hz's I've heard at these small room gigs (but no monitors, which gave me a bit of terror when Jerry asked me to sit in; I gotta be able to hear my breath over the band to sing with confidence).

They have this weird light grid comprised of RGB front and back light arrays that are sound-trigger activated, which looks fine from an audience perspective (except that they are not aimed properly to cover the ends of the stage -- Jerry is off kinda in the dark), but made it difficult to get good shots, 'cuz they're constantly changing colors and light levels. Here's what I managed to cop:

Tommy had Tony De Augustine on tubs and Melvin Macias on keys, as well as Eddie DiMarino on bass, and Jerry on guitar. The place filled up nicely, and I lost track of all the fine players and singers that sat in. Don't mean to diss anyone, but I just couldn't keep up, and was not up for being in "reporter" mode all night. Matt Baldoni and his bass player Keith stepped up. Eugene Balog did as well (great to see him, been a while). The singer in the pics above is Barbara Pasqui. She was great. I hope this gig works out. It's a nice hang, but the house is gonna have to get more seriously into timely customer service mode to get the food and drinks out to make it pay. Tommy and the guys demonstrated that they can fill the seats (and it'll only grow as word gets around) but the house has gotta work the draw to max the return.

See everyone tonight at The Palms. Remember, Santa Fe is back in The Lounge tonight starting at 10:15 p.m.