Yosvany Terry and Sandy Perez at Yerba Buena, Melik Perez jams

How fun was this weekend?!

So.

So, fun it had me wondering how i got so lucky.

We went out to see Sandy play with Yosvany Terry at the Yerba Buena Gardens.

I just love this venue, outside in a nice, big, sunny park in amongst the towering highrises of the financial district in SF.

This was a very interesting show, with Arara and Bembe behind some very clean, what i would call, smooth fusion.

The rhythm section has serious Jazz chops - very skilled musicians. Being raised in the Jazz tradition (family of Jazz musicians), to my ear, its rare to have such a 'clean' jazz sound, not being mixed with Cuban licks and feel, backed up by mother Africa itself - Sandy Perez, Pedrito Martinez, and Roman Diaz. It was a really well constructed fusion, and they were effective, for the most part, in creating a unified sound, from such differing feels (Cool with Arara, for instance).

Sandy's son, and soon to be master musician Melik Perez joined the band on stage for the last couple of tunes. This little brother is going to be incredible. I feel honored to have produced his first show.

He looks up to me as one of his uncles - Tio Tony, one of many people looking out for this lucky young man. I feel lucky to know him, and look forward to watching him perform and have a family of his own, in my old age.

Little did I know, but that night, I was invited to a party and I would be playing and hanging out with all these cats till late. - Playing and singing. wwwwowwww, one lucky brother i am...

Here is a video of Yosvany Terry and his cats doing their fantastic thing.

Tony