June 30th gig at The Palms

Santa Fe and The Fat City Horns return to The Lounge tonight at 10:30 pm. Our original Fat City Horns are back with Bette Midler now at Caesar's during the week, so they will be onstage tonight at The Palms' gig. Our thanks again to the FCH Second Unit for stepping up so ably.

No cover, no minimum. A lot of pent-up need for The Healing is gonna get addressed, onstage and off. Be there.

2:12 a.m. July 1st POST GIG REPORT

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. I knew this would be a great night. Awesome crowd, packed in. (I will be blogging incrementally, I have a lot of shots to look through). Our dear friends, the Finest Vocal Band In The Land, MOSAIC indeed came to hang, and got up to blow the house away.

Their new CD is out. We sold a bunch for them tonight. I have it on right now, loading into iTunes as I blog. These cats are so badass!

Our friend Bobby Black shot their CD pics. Unlike yours truly he's a real photographer. In addition to being one of the heavy-hitters in The Las Vegas Tenors.

Below, Bobby Black and the ever-gracious and elegant Sandra Benton of "Menopause," sitting in rapt and stunned disbelief like the rest of us. The band was off-the-scale with pure energy tonight. "When The Curtain Goes Up" and "Si Te Vas" in particular blew us all away. So did tony Davich's rendition of "You Don't Know Me" and "Soul Trilogy." I found the relaxed hump of "Come Together" also quite interesting tonight. That's a great tempo if they all lock on to it, like they did tonight.

I got to hang with the MOSAIC posse in ecstatic healing all night, lucky me. But, it was hard to not just get caught up in being a dazzled spectator for the entire show. I had to get some decent pictures. Intimidated with Bobby Black in the house.

Below, Taku Hiranu, percussionist with the Bette Midler show, throwin' it down with Gabe and Pepe.

What a rap sheet this cat has!

Taku has toured the world with Fleetwood Mac, Whitney Houston, Bette Midler, Stevie Nicks, Lionel Richie, Isaac Hayes, and Lindsey Buckingham. He has also performed with Stevie Wonder, LeAnn Rimes, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Mary J. Blige, Patti Labelle, Barry Manilow, Kenny Loggins, Chaka Khan, Brandy, The Neville Brothers, Wyclef Jean, Don Henley, and Sheila E. Taku has recorded with artists as diverse as Dr. Dre, Fleetwood Mac, Whitney Houston, The Temptations, Nelly Furtado, Jay-Z, Stevie Nicks, and Lionel Richie, in addition to working on numerous major motion picture and television scores and soundtracks. Several of these recordings have won Grammy, Emmy, and American Music awards. Taku has also worked with notable jazz, jazz-fusion, and contemporary-jazz artists such as Gary Burton, Joe Zawinul, Jonathan Butler, Tom Scott, Bennie Maupin, and with gospel artists, Yolanda Adams, Bebe Winans, and Cece Winans.

Taku has studied intensively since the age of nine in Classical percussion and drumset, studying with the principal timpanist of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, and with some of the top-call session drummers and percussionists in Los Angeles. Since his mid-teens, he has studied the traditional secular and sacred percussion styles of Cuba, Brazil, West Africa, The Middle East, and India, going as far as studying under master percussionists from Cuba, Northern (Hindustani) and Southern (Karnatak) India, Ghana (Dagbamba and Ewe styles), and Japan, enrolling in a graduate studies program in World Music performance at California Institute of the Arts, and attending the Escuela Nacional de Artes (National School of the Arts) in Havana, Cuba. He also received his Bachelor of Music degree cum laude as one of the first hand percussion principals from Berklee College of Music, spending 4 years under the tutelage of master percussionist Giovanni Hidalgo.

Yikes.

Thanks to everyone who showed up tonight. It was magical.

BTW: Next Monday night we will be blessed with guest guitarist Melle Vasquez of the Cirque "Zumanity" show to open the set.
__________

UPDATES

Tommy Alvarado

July, 1 2008 at SLICK WILLIE ORCHESTRA FEATURING TOMMY ALVARADO SQUARE APPLE @ 1000 E. SAHARA AVE, Las Vegas, Nevada 89109
Cost: free

Slick Willie Orchestra playing blues and jazz till 1 am. plus there is a jam session. (NOTE, this is the former "Just Jazz" club on E. Sahara.)

MOSAIC BENEFIT GIG FOR THE PUBLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION


July, 13 and 14th, 2008 at Harrah’s Main Showroom
3475 Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, Nevada 89109
Cost: $45 + tax

COME CATCH MOSAIC’S FULL-LENGTH PRODUCTION WITH SPECIAL GUESTS GALORE!!! PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT THE PUBLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge believer in education, particularly with respect to the arts, which invariably get short shrift during tight money times (like these). Let's get out and support this show and raise some dough.

- BobbyG

BLOG TRAFFIC, YEAR TO DATE

We had 3,147 page views by 1,346 discrete visitors in June. The graph below is a summary from my Google Analytics report for YTD, January 1 - June 30th 2008.


I've not drilled down in a while to look in-depth at geographical distribution, but I will soon. Here's a quick planet-wide hit map, though (click the image to enlarge).