On the Road, from NY UKE FEST!
Howzit! I’m coming to you from NYC where ABC is being featured at the first-ever New York Ukulele Festival. Last night, we played to a packed theater - the Main Stage at the Festival and performed a set of all kinds of music. There were probably a couple hundred people at that show. Overall I think we had a really great performance. We opened up with "Spain," featuring Abe’s uke cadenza and lots of great solos. Then we did some ABC originals - "Cane Road Blues," "Bittersweet Melon Song," some standards - "Days of Wine and Roses" - and some other stuff, like Martin Denny’s "Tiki." It was the debut of my new bass, the Czech-Ease, and I think it was met to great acclaim. Everybody was asking me about it and complimenting me on it! I definitely think I made the right choice in buying it, especially when it came to carrying it on the subway, throwing it in a regular (!) cab, and bringing it in to a tiny Korean restaurant for an after-show dinner. … These are all scenarios that WOULDN’T be possible with a regular upright bass. We played our second set on the Hawaiian stage and did a bunch of local-style Hawaiian jams. Also on that set, I borrowed a BASS UKE from maker Owen Holt, and it did pretty well. A very nice-looking instrument, at the very least!
Tonight, I’m going to see Helen’s Carnegie Hall recital debut with the New York Amadeus Quartet and pianist Chiharu Sai - an all-Mozart program. Tomorrow, we go back to the Uke Festival and perform some more stuff!
