Last night we went to the Rex again to see Metalwood. Apparently it was the first time in five years that the original members were together, so there was a healthy crowd of fans there. They were a great band, and were clearly enthused to be playing together. I thought they were pretty good, especially since they employed a judicious use of the Fender Rhodes. Two really great, tightly played sets kept us at the bar until 1:30am. Now, regular readers know that AV and I are at home in our pajamas at 5:00pm so this 1:30a business is an achievement.
Metalwood was not the highlight of our night, though. Our host in Toronto introduced us to a guy named Bill, and by John’s account you can count on Bill to be at the best jazz show or film in Toronto every night of the week. He’s something of a celebrity in the Toronto jazz circle. When we were introduced as Denverites, he asked us immediately if Ron Miles was still there.
Bill has seen live every one of our favorite musicians (Brotzmann, Benink, etc) in very close proximity, likes the same peeps we like (Susie Ibarra, William Parker) and he also loves the films of Werner Herzog. When he asked if there were any rep cinemas in Denver, we knew we had run into the right person. For the record, AV says that Starz is a kind of rep(ertory) cinema, and the group AV volunteers for has the spirit of a rep cinema.
Anyway, it’s hard to explain the conversation, but I will say that it was fascinating and we could have talked to Bill all night long. It was fortuitous that we ran into him, as he mentioned that Kahil El Zabar will be playing here on Saturday night, just down the street from where we’re staying. Tonight we’ll go to a more experimental club to get a sense of Toronto’s free/improvisational scene. Man – seven shows in fifteen days (we’ll see two next week in NYC). Not bad at all.
Today is a break from formal philosophy. We’ve been working each day this week (and will again tomorrow) on philosophy for about four hours each day, broken into two sessions. The conversations are intense and very challenging – everyone here (except me) is a PhD or in a PhD program, so the level of discussion is roughly in the troposphere. I am learning a lot, though, and I have a lot of thinking to do as I work back through some of the ideas that have been teased out from the text. I joked initially that it was going to be like philosophy two-a-days. I wasn’t wrong.
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