This is the life...

Over the holiday weekend, Mia and I headed out to the Islas del Rosario for a couple days of relaxing, kayaking, snorkeling, and eating fish. And of course we were music-geeky enough to bring along an iPod and speakers. In fact, the whole thing was a comedy of errors featuring two New Yorkers "roughing it" at the Hotel San Pedro de Majagua, the exclusive private island resort run by the Hotel Santa Clara. I nearly lost it when the mosquitos poured in after sunset. But after feasting on us, they soon left, and later in the evening we watched a beautiful lightning storm from the private beach in the picture above.

For me, it was probably my last moment of calmness until the festival--big news coming this week, please stay tuned.

Finally, a picture of Etelvina

On the right is Etelvina Maldonado, a singer in Cartagena and a living legend of bullerenge, a style of music that relies on women's voices and complex percussion. I really wish I could show each and every one of you the power of one of her concerts (those of you living in Colombia should do everything you can to see her perform sometime). To her right is Victor "El Doctor," one of the country's most talented percussionists. They're also great people, and you can imagine how fun a beach trip is when they're along!

Sidestepper


Electronic music hasn't made the inroads into Colombian culture that it has in several other countries, such as Peru, for instance. However, there's quite a bit going on here, and I suspect that with some digging, one could come across a great scene. You don't need to look any farther than Colombia's best rock group, Aterciopelados, to hear the potential that Colombian electronic music has (Hector Buitrago, the electronic-minded half of Aterciopelados, showed his best work on the band's 2000 album, Gozo Poderoso).

This group probably isn't new to many of you who live in Colombia, but I'm new to Sidestepper, the brainchild of UK native Richard Blair, who with Colombian rock legend, Ivan Benavides, has put together a couple of albums of subtle grooves intertwined with Colombian rhythms and melodies (and also some Cuban and Jamaican dancehall sounds, which I'm less fond of). The most recent album, 3am: In Beats We Trust, kicks off with the stunning "Deja (Mary)" (listen to a sample here), a hypnotic and haunting tune with a track so soothing you could listen to it for ages. Another song in this vein is "Dame tu querer," with a beautiful string track and vocal.

I think what makes Blair so successful here is his background as a drum'n'bass artist. Drum'n'bass has always been one of the most fascinating genres of electronic music to me, mostly because its rhythms are so animalistic and mechanical at the same time, but also because of its modernist simplicity. Blair's at his best when he uses the mixing tables to subtract complexity from the arrangements, leaving the listener to hear the beauty in the elements of the songs.

Sidestepper is another example of the way that traditional Colombian music is alive in a really exciting manner. And with the wealth of material here at his disposal, the project should keep improving. I'm trying to get in touch with Richard for an interview with this site, and hopefully next time I'm in Bogotá, I'll be able to catch him spinning at Quiebra Canto.

Folklore Urbano


Because this blog was just written up in a Semana article on music blogs, I want to take this opportunity to tell everyone about one of the best bands I came across in the last year: Folklore Urbano. They're a New York-based band that takes traditional Colombian music and melds it with a gritty jazz sound to produce some of the most sophisticated, danceable music around today.

[A los no-anglohablantes les pido que me disculpen--escribo este blog en inglés para promocionar la música y cultura colombiana al exterior. Creo que con la riqueza de cultura que tenemos en este país, tenemos la oportunidad de mejorar la imagen de Colombia y atraer el turismo cultural, en vez de el turismo del sexo y de la droga que ahora está muy popular aca en la costa. Otra cosa: soy medio-colombiano. ¡Nací en Bucaramanga! Mi mamá es colombiana, mi papá gringo, entonces toda mi vida he tenido este amor de Colombia.]

Folklore Urbano is led by Pablo Mayor, who grew up near Cali and is the former director of the jazz program at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá. Now in New York, he's leading a movement that I've decided to call "Nueva Colombia," which is a very modern take on Colombian folkloric music. Their first album, Aviso, boasts a collection of songs that are truly Colombian but don't at all feel out of place on your iPod when you're walking up Avenue C. This isn't smiley "World Music" that you put on while cleaning the house--this is the cosmopolitanism of '70s jazz, and this is the rock'n'roll that you stumble upon at barebones clubs like Sin-E. There's an anxious intensity to it that captures both the joy and the tensions of modern Colombian life.

But on their upcoming album, Baile!, they've really found their groove. I've only heard some unmastered clips of the recordings, but judging from some of their live shows I've seen earlier this year, the sound is much more confident and much more festive. I expect it to be spectacular.

Just to let you know, it was my dream to bring them down for the festival. I don't think any band out there so completely captures my Colombian musical aesthetic as well as Folklore Urbano. But we simply don't have the funds this year. They're looking to play some shows in Colombia in a few months, so please, colombianos, keep your eyes open for any news. For you New Yorkers, this coming Friday night you can check them out at Satalla, on W. 26th street, at 10 p.m. It'll be a great night of music and dancing, so if you're not leaving for the weekend, you shouldn't miss it.

Note: I love the way that the Semana article has a picture of the new Archer Prewitt record. I saw him at the Bowery Ballroom a few months ago with my friends Caryn and Lexa, and it was a great show. The song, "O, KY," is among my favorite of the year so far.



Suffering a little bit...

This festival is supposed to begin exactly five weeks from tonight. However, our current sponsorship level is minimal, to put it optimistically. So a crisis point is looming, where we really have to look at what we can do with what we have now, and just go for it. The sad part is, what we have now is not much, so we're probably going to have to cut pretty deeply into our current plans. Here's a list of elements that could get the axe:

• One night of the festival (likely the night in the Teatro Heredia, since it costs money)
• International acts (very costly since we have to pay travel)
• Bogotá act (see above)
• Gastronomical part of the festival

The problem is that if we cut too deeply, we cease to be a festival. But if we don't cut, we lose money. The key is to find a way to do something fun, that generates real excitement in the city, and allows us to build for next year. (Festival planning is, by the way, the best networking exercise in the world.) My preference is to do a 2-day festival in the Claustro de Santo Domingo with only local acts. Our current level of sponsorship could cover this. If we get some more money, I say we add the gastronomical part--before international artists--because people remember the overall experience more than they do a simple concert.

Who knows, though. Maybe a pot of money will fall out of a coconut tree tomorrow morning and right into my hands.

Tonight was fun, I scored an invitation to a private performance by the Colegio del Cuerpo at the Teatro Heredia. It was held for a German-Colombian business congress, and so I even had the opportunity to practice my German a little bit. The performance was unbelievable--that such world class modern dance can come out not just of Cartagena, but of the poorest slums of Cartagena, is amazing. These kids have talent, like NYC talent. Hats off to Alvaro Restrepo, he really has done something awe-inspiring.

More work tomorrow, but Mia arrives for a visit this weekend, and I'm really looking forward to worrying a little bit less and enjoying this city a little bit more. And what's more, I can't wait until she sees Cartagena for the first time. There's no way she can anticipate how beautiful this place is.

El Aprendiz


This is my last post from Bogotá, at least for a few weeks. I'm sitting in the airport, loving the free wireless, ready for the beach (although my flight is now delayed due to storms in Cartagena).

Anyway a great story to share. Today I stopped sulking about the slow pace of everything, and insisted instead on hitting the phones to knock on some doors, some new, some not. First to knock, first admitted, right? One sponsor I've been trying to get a hold of is Aviatur, Colombia's largest travel agency. Seriously, they're like the Starbucks of travel agencies, they're so ubiquitous. But I had no contact with them, and one of my contacts in Bogota sent me the name of the president, Jean Claude Bessudo, and urged me simply to call him. Just call Aviatur, ask for the president, and ask for a sponsorship. Well, that's the coldest of a cold call I've ever made, but I was in a mood, right?, so I called. They put me through to his secretary, who informed me Sr. Bessudo would be out until the afternoon, but if I left my cell number, he'd call me later. So I left it, and promptly started making other calls.

There's another thing about Jean Claude Bessudo: He's playing the Donald Trump role in the Colombian version of "The Apprentice." Right, and so in this bizarre parellel world that is Colombia, I was calling Donald Trump right out of the blue.

A few hours later I was wrapping up some work and getting ready to head to the airport when my phone rang; it was Bessudo.

BESSUDO: (All in Spanish, of course, but I'm translating/paraphrasing) Sr. Kelley?
ME: Yes?
B: This is Jean Claude Bessudo. How can I help you.
ME: Oh, I... I'm organizing this festival in Cartagena, it's going to have music and food... Like jazz mixed with Colombian... Tourism! You could sell packages--
B: Stop. Just put it in a proposal and send it to me. My e-mail address is... (Screams away from phone) Hey what's my e-mail address??
PHONE ON HOLD
SECRETARY: Sr. Kelley? Sr. Bessudo's e-mail address is...

As you can see, I bombed. And in true Trump fashion, Bessudo made me pay. But I think I got too much of a kick out of the whole thing to feel too rejected, and so I dove right into the proposal letter, and I laid it on thick, the all-out sell. Trump would have been proud.


Capital City


In Bogota for the weekend, and it's never entirely pleasant. There's something about this city I love, but also something that really gets me down. It rains almost every day, it's chilly (maybe 60F), and the people have that big-city attitude that doesn't exist along the coast. So I wasn't really thrilled about coming here, but Saturday night I had probably my best time ever in Bogota. A little past ten I met up with my friend Sebastian at a place in the north called Full 80's, which, as you might have guessed, played a lot of 80s music. Not entirely my thing. But we drank a lot of aguardiente (colombian liquor that takes some getting used to but is really a treat), and towards 2 a.m. a small group of us decided that the night couldn't end anytime soon. And so we went to an after-hours salsa club in the Zona Rosa, which is a party district also in the north of the city. The place was in the second story of a building, had a full live salsa band, and maybe 12 tables. I danced and danced, and I didn't want to leave when my group started heading out. But when we pushed open the door, we were met with pure morning--it was almost 7 a.m. Sunday, predictably, was pretty difficult to get through.

I did manage to get to the movies Sunday night with Andres and Maria Paula, and we sawa Chilean film called Machuca, a movie about two boys, one rich and one poor, growing up in Chile in the early 1970s. It was really well done, all props to the filmmakers for making an effort to tell a balanced story about such a political story.

Today marked a return to work, and I'm not really crazy about how the day went. I had another sponsorship meeting that went very well, but once again the guy I talked to said he had to get permission from somebody else. Sounds to me (and Tom said this, too) like the guy just punted. I understand that people are hesitant to sponsor an event that's never happened before, but the amount we're asking for is so small (for a multinational company) that I think it should be well worth the risk. I'm sorry, I'm actually feeling really down about things right now; maybe it's just Bogota getting to me, but I could really use a shot in the arm sometime soon.

Another treat tonight, though: had dinner in the Macarena, which is Bogota's equivalent of the East Village. Almost definitely where I'd want to live if I had to stay here. Went to a rustic restaurant, half the time we were serenaded by Massive Attack, the other half by Barry White. This I can handle.


The press campaign begins...

Yesterday I woke up and headed to a meeting with Jorge Araujo, the Founder and CEO of Amazon Pepper Sauce, which is based in Cartagena. When I walked into his spacious apartment, he greeted me by saying, "You don't have to say anything, I read your whole story in the paper this morning!" And he showed me that morning's copy of El Universal, with a full-page article on the festival, along with a goofy picture of me and Tom. My lesson learned: a press campaign is something that has to be managed carefully--if you don't specify exactly what message you want to convey, then it's unlikely that message will get out. In fact the article is fine, but from now on I'm going to be a lot more diligent in preparing for these interviews. And I'm going to make sure I approve of any pictures that run. :)

In the afternoon I headed to the airport to fly to Bogota for the weekend. Two people I had met before came up to me in the check-in line and talked to me about the morning's article. Then, in the waiting room, I ran into Cartagena's best-known Fusion group, Wayové, who were on their way to Toronto for a small tour of Canada. (If you happen to be in Toronto on May 22, go check them out at Lula Lounge.) Just minutes before our flight was scheduled to depart, a massive tropical thunderstorm struck and kept us delayed two hours. And so Wayové and I sat around and talked about music, and they broke out some instruments and sang some songs. It's their first-ever trip to North America, so they were all in great spirits, and it was the best flight delay I've ever had.

However, when I got to Bogota, I had very little time to rush to the National University (my mom's alma mater!) to see Nathalie Gampert's group, Bajos Distintos, performing at the Festival de Fusion. Just before the show I met up with Cristina Lleras, the ex-roommate of my good friend, Raphaela Neihausen, at Georgetown. I had never met Cristina before, but being Raphaela's friend she's kind and sweet and smart, and she had already purchased a ticket for me (you have to keep in mind I'm lugging around my suitcase and computer all across the Nacional's sprawling campus), and we entered the 1600-seat Leon de Greif Auditorium for a great show. After Nathalie's performance, a rising Bogota band, Mojarra Electrica, brought down the house with pure party music and a makeshift parade through the aisles. It was fun, but it demonstrated some of the issues instrumental music (which Nathalie does) will always have competing with bands featuring singers. In general, crowds just like singers. Of course, I think there's room for both styles, but some people will never be satisfied without singers.

Afterwards we had dinner at a restaurant called 1492, which really has nothing on Clinton Street's 1492. My plate, a cheese-stuffed trout, was simply wrong. And the music in that restaurant... O.K., a plea to Colombian bars and restaurants: your inexplicable continuing obsession with '80s rockers Toto is endearing, but can you please let me eat a meal without having to hear "Hotel California" or "Dust in the Wind"? Please?

If you lived in Cartagena, where would you live? Maybe this guide will give you an idea. Oh God, I'm afraid this will only be amusing to the 14 people out there in the world who are well familiar with both NYC and Cartagena. In any case, enjoy. 

Living on the coast

There are some thing to love about living on the coast. Even when we work all day, we work in linen, and we take two hours for lunch. We have meetings in beatiful offices in old colonial houses. A couple days ago Tom and I got up early and played a set of tennis at the Hilton. My game was miserable, and I'm still sore in my shoulder, but it was fun to get out there. Now I'm by myself again, so last night I decided to take it easy. I made a little salad with romaine lettuce and tuna fish, threw some olive oil and pepper on it, and opened a bottle of red wine. Mia had sent me a New Yorker article about Saul Bellow written by Phillip Roth, and so I read the article and ate my dinner. I guess it put me in a high art sort of mood, because then I started listening to My Bloody Valentine and John Coltrane, and I spent the night re-reading "Humboldt's Gift" (The best Bellow I've ever read) out on my balcony. Reading Bellow charges me, especially with the waves crashing against the rocks and the Argentine wine and the lights of the Old City off in the distance.

And so if last night was a great Cartagena night, this morning was the nightmare. I'm supposed to have internet hooked up in my apartment, and finally I got the cable people to come over and install it. They showed up and said that something was missing in the building, and it would be another week before they could totally install it. I flew off the handle and told them I couldn't wait another week, that they had to send someone today. They made a bunch of phone calls and said someone else would come this afternoon and perform the necessary work.

ME: And so I'll have internet this afternoon?
THEM: Oh, no, someone else has to come and install the modem.
ME: What? When will that happen?
THEM: I don't know, maybe tomorrow? Or next week?

*GROAN* Life on the coast. Tomorrow morning I'm off to Bogota for a weekend of friends and family, and also some important meetings. Until later....

Botero in the news


On Sunday, The New York Times ran a story on Fernando Botero and his recent paintings on the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers in Abu Ghraib. As far as I can tell, this story was broken by Revista Diners here in Colombia (from which I stole the above picture). And today Slate ran a Christopher Hitchens piece on Botero and the points he raises.

I don't want to get into politics here. The point I want to make is that Botero is another example of the characteristically Colombian talent to make high art that resonates with a wide audience. Botero's portly subjects (in one of my favorite turns of phrase, Mario Vargas Llosa once described them as having a "sumptuous abundance") are accessible to all, maybe not beautiful but certainly attractive. And his decades of pastoral portrayals have made his more recent entry into current events even more impactful. He is an important artist, but he's also a public figure, which is more than you can say about most artists.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is Botero's obvious analogue in literature. For all of the differences between them, Garcia Marquez has acquired a similar status to Botero, in that he writes undeniably legendary books that are read and enjoyed by the educated masses. And when he talks, people listen. In an age of ever-increasing esoterism, I think the quality of an artist engaging the general public dialogue is something to be celebrated.

And although they might not be public figures, I'd even go so far as to say that Colombia's pop music stars, like Los Aterciopelados, Juanes, Carlos Vives, and Shakira possess the same universality that make Botero and Garcia Marquez so great. That is, they all play a relatively sophisticated music, but they have a pop sensibility to match. Take Shakira, for instance--of her genre, she's the only one of her peers who's writing her own music, playing her own instruments, and enjoying going to the opera, too. There's something about this country that makes high art relevant to a broader audience, and I think that's one of the main reasons why Colombian culture is so vibrant.


Traveling to Colombia Looks Good to Me

We've been waiting a long while for this news, but the U.S. State Department has finally dropped it advisory against traveling to Colombia. The department's website now says, "Violence has decreased markedly in most urban centers, including Bogota, Medellin, Barranquilla, and Cartagena." So pack your bags and come to Cartagena! I really do hope that this news means that more Americans will begin to discover the culture and beauty of Colombia. And listen to some of its music, of course.

And so given the happiness of today, I'm going to give you a non-Colombian-or-jazz-related music tip here: Saturday Looks Good to Me. They're a band from Michigan who do a '60s pop thing, but with an indie ethos that makes for some really fun songs. If you liked the early Belle & Sebastian records, you'll almost certainly love these guys ("The Girl's Distracted" is the other half of "She's Losing It"). One difference, though is that singer Betty Marie Barnes really belts out her lines with a Midwestern confidence that's refreshing after so much twee.

Before I left for Colombia, I met a really cute girl named Mia, and she says that SLGTM helped to get her out of her music slump--and I haven't been able to stop listening to them, especially their newest album, Every Night, since then.

This is not the best song on the album, but you can get an mp3 of "Lift me Up" from the SLGTM website.

Dropping of travel advisory = Colombia getting out of its tourism slump. Saturday Looks Good to Me = You getting out of your music slump. What a good day!

Another artist, another venue




The guy on the left is Christian Scott, a trumpet prodigy from New Orleans whom we've just signed on to play the festival. Some great New Orleans sounds in the city of Cartagena!

Here's his bio from Berklee College of Music (this is a year old now):

A native of New Orleans, Christian Scott, has successfully absorbed the rich musical heritage of his family. After receiving a trumpet as a gift from his mother and grandmother at age 12, he began to explore his talents, under the tutelage of his uncle, modern jazz innovator, saxophonist Donald Harrison, Jr. (Berklee '80)

In addition to continuing his musical education with his uncle, Christian also attended the prestigious New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA), where he studied under the direction of Clyde Kerr and Kent Jordan. Other noted alumni include Harrison, Harry Connick, Jr., the Marsalises, Terence Blanchard, and Nicholas Payton. Upon graduation, Christian was awarded the highest honor of all his classmates.

Scott received a full tuition scholarship to attend Berklee, where he is now a senior. Now a member of Harrison's ensemble, he has performed throughout Europe, Asia and South, Central, and North America. He appears on Harrison's most recent release, Real Life Stories and the soon to be released, Kind of New, a tribute to Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.

Also, we're arranging to hold our Friday concert at the gorgeous Claustro de Santo Domingo, which will give us an outdoor venue. This night will be the most "rocking" night, with acts that will plug in their instruments and put on a party. No matter how things turn out with this festival, we probably have some of the best venues of any festival in the world.

My business partner, Tom, arrived last night, and we've been busy making the rounds and putting together some logistical plans. We have some good developments on the sponsorship front, but nothing to announce just yet. Still, progress has been good, and we have our first newspaper interview tomorrow. There's definitely a buzz going around!

The bummer of the past few days is that I had my cellphone stolen. It was my fault, I left it behind at an internet cafe, and when I returned 5 minutes later to retrieve it, it was already gone. Oh well. We have a cocktail party for an artist who's displaying his paintings in the Hotel Santa Clara tonight, so I should go home and change. More soon!

More on Etelvina

Damn, still can't find a picture of Etelvina anywhere, but I'll take one this next weekend. We went to the beach Sunday, with a bunch of musicians that included Etelvina and her husband. The beach was a 15-minute bus ride from the Old City, at a place called the Boquilla, which is much less touristy than the Cartagena beaches, but still full of restaurants and vendors. I came to this beach once before, with my friend Sarah McGill, about 3.5 years ago, and we came on a Tuesday when the beach was completely empty. This time a lot of people were out, and we ate fried fish and coconut rice, and we swam in the almost-too-warm Caribbean.

I spent much of the afternoon talking to Etelvina (the 75-year-old singer I wrote about a couple posts below). Etelvina's style of music is called Bullerenque, which features one or more female singers accompanied by nothing more than a bunch of percussion. Someone mentioned that the music originated from pregnant women who composed these songs to entertain themselves while they couldn't dance with the rest of the crowd. Maybe that also helps to explain why these songs have such a bluesy feel to them. Etelvina estimates she's composed 60 songs. "Por què me pegas," which I mentioned earlier is my favorite of all the ones I've heard, she composed 22 years ago. Her neighbor across the street was a single mother with four children, and their house was always a mess and her kids out of control. One day she came home and found the house in a particularly worse state of disarray, and out of frustration and because she did not know whom to blame, she started hitting her oldest child--who cried back to her, "Why are you hitting me, mom?" or, "Mamà, ¿por què me pegas?" Etelvina said that all of her songs begin with simple observations of her life.

The saddest thing of all, though, is that Etelvina lives somewhere on the border between poverty and misery. Her house is in the worst of Cartagena's neighborhoods. Saturday night when she saw that there was leftover rice at the party where she was singing, she asked for a plastic bag to take the rice home. Sunday when we were about to leave the beach, she asked if i could cover the $0.40 bus fare for her and her husband, because she didn't have any money. Keep in mind: this is a woman who has performed concerts all over Europe, who is flying to Mexico this week to perform, and who has recorded three of her own songs on a CD that is sold in record stores all over this country. And it's not like she's blowing her money on wasteful things--she just doesn't have any.

I think about what an audience she could find in the States and Canada and Europe. This woman is like the rawest blues singer you've ever seen. I'd love to play her for Jack White. I'd love to see her play a little club like Tonic, because she is rock'n'roll. This is the whole idea of our festival, I guess--that there's a whole lot in common between jazz music and colombian folkloric music. Watching these musicians perform is like being in Louisiana or Mississippi almost 100 years ago. It really blows your mind.

-----------

Last night was Gisele's goodbye dinner; she's off to Bogota for a little while, then Rome. I had the pleasure of meeting a woman named Jane Chaplin, who is Charlie Chaplin's daughter. She lives here in Cartagena (although she's still learning spanish), where she's writing a book. Before that I met with Raimundo Angulo, who is the president of the Miss Colombia Pageant, which is by far the biggest annual event in this country. It's kind of like being the owner of the Super Bowl, but only if the Super Bowl were played by some of the most beautiful women in the world. Dr. Angulo is also the president of the Teatro Heredia, and so he's very excited about the festival, and he's going to be lending his organization's public relations department to help us with publicity. Believe me, that's a lot of help.

¿Por qué me pegas?

I wish I had a picture to post of last night, but didn't have my camera along, and I couldn't find a decent picture on the nets. And so you'll have to make do with my description.

Alvaro Restrepo, the founder and director of the Colegio del Cuerpo (see previous post below), had a going-away dinner for Gisele last night. But about two hours before we were set to go there, we received a call from a friend, a French girl named Veronique, who is married to a Colombian singer named Marco. Marco's musician friends were over, and they were all playing and dancing and singing and drinking rum, so we walked around the block to join them. When I entered the foyer, I saw maybe 12 people inside, about half of them musicians playing away, and then some older people dancing. One thing I want to point out is that they were almost all black--which is worth noting, because there's not a lot of racial mixing in this city.
One woman I found particularly striking. She was well into in 70s, thin and frail, black and dressed in an old-fashioned green dress. I guessed that she was the mother of one of the musicians, and I thought it was really cute that she was there with everyone, clapping her hands with the music.
The she stood up and began to sing, "¿Mamá, por qué me pegas?," ("Mother, why do you hit me?") and I knew I had heard her voice before. She was one of the singers on the Alé Kuma CD I bought last year, a slightly awkward fusion of jazz and the rhythmic afro-colombian music of the coast. "¿Por qué me pegas?" was always my favorite song on that CD, and to witness it being performed in a foyer with 12 other people present was nothing short of a religious experience.
The singer's name is Etelvina Maldonado, and she writes the songs she sings. She's told me about her travels in Europe last year, from Hungary to Austria to Germany and Paris, but she also told me that she still washes clothes in order to make a living. Her voice has as much soul as anyone's I've ever heard. Listen for yourself by clicking on the above link. Really, this music is so extraordinarily rich, I think you'd be blown away if you could see it live.
Dinner at Alvaro's was probably more of a New York experience than any I ever had actually living in New York. Along with Alvaro's novelist partner, Leopoldo, the guests included a dancer from New York, his parter, a New York Times editor in the Washington bureau, the painter Ruby Rumié, the consul of Spain (who is my landlady now), and her husband. What a crowd! We ate a delicious seafood dish typical to the Colombian coast, and drank wine and talked until past 2.
Well, today I move into my new place, but first I'm going to the beach for a few hours. Finally.
And really, just to the link above and listen to some of Etelvina's music. I'll write more about her sometime soon.