Jazz and toleration

Yesterday afternoon, we took the girls to see a jazz quintet called the Jeremy Pelt Quintet. The group was brought to Rochester by a local small company called Exodus to Jazz, and they packed one of the ballrooms at the downtown Radisson. We went as David's birthday gift.

The group was really good, for what it was, which was more bee-bop than traditional jazz. You could hear the bee-bop end of Miles Davis in there. The thing is, bee-bop isn't particularly our thing, but the Quintet was technically very good and transmitted the sense of fun they had playing it to the audience. I loved their slower ballads.

I had mentioned the show on the radio on Friday morning, and the producer sent me an email telling me that he had reserved us a table, which was nice of him. In one of those common-in-Rochester coincidences, it turns out that the producer's wife works down the hall from David, so they recognized each other.

The girls were the only kids in the audience. (I guess that's usual for these things, but I'm trying to change it!) They tolerated it well. Ella didn't need to tolerate it, actually, she positively liked it. She's a jazz-Latin-rock-and-roll girl, while Madison is emerging as a classical aficionado. But Madison was very polite, and I was proud of them. Now I know we can take them anywhere. I wish I could take Ella to their next show, which is called "Gabriel Alegria and the Afro-Peruvian Sextet," but it starts at 8pm on a Friday night and she'd never make it through.

I am *mostly* finished with TRM. I still need to find an inexpensive futon mattress for the futon, but we showed David our new schoolroom last night. He was impressed. Will post photos soon.