Neil Shah - Pianist/Vocalist/Composer

Just got back from my second gig at St. Nicks Pub. I got there a little early, said hello to some people I met last week and headed out to the nice outdoor area in the back of the club. A few guys were sittin’ around smokin dope and yellin back and forth to a woman about her desires and some sex party that was going on that night—fascinating.

Eventually George Bragg and Pedro Martín (the drummer and bassist) arrived and we started playing. Pedro is from Spain, but wants to live in NYC for the music. Unfortunately for him, he can’t because he needs to get a visa to stay. He’s been in town for 5 months but has to leave on Wednesday. He doesn’t really want to go, but has no choice. He hopes to come back soon, but needs to wait a reasonable amount of time so customs doesn’t think he’s trying to pull something over. Pedro sounded great and was alot of fun to play with—hopefully he’ll get an artist visa.

An old high-school classmate of George’s was in the audience. Apparently they’ve known each other since at least 1960. They started reminiscing while we were sitting at the bar after the show. I found out George has been doing similar trio gigs for ages. He’s one of those obscure living legends that abound in New York. It makes sense—during one of the final numbers he started alternating between singing like Ray Charles and Louis Armstrong during the same song. If you closed your eyes, it sounded like they were both on stage. When you’ve been playing as long as George, you’re bound to lose you marbles. But he’s been doing this for a very long time and I’m sure he’s played with a zillion cats. After the show George said he “hears” me—and he digs it.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 18th, 2005 at 1:25 am and is tagged music, shows. Follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed and Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.