So due to an underground fire, an extraordinarily malicious virus or your negligence in paying the phone bill, the internet as you know it has disappeared. What better way to spend those sorrowful hours, being cheered up by some of the best drumming, the best saxophony, the best piano playing or the best and wittiest banter in the city. I am talking of course, about live jazz music.We went over to the Blue Note Jazz Club in Manhattan last night to witness some of the greats show us how live Jazz is done. With Sax, Piano, Double Bass & Drums, the James Moody Quartet played us through our dinner with a mixture of fast and eclectic Jazz and also some beautiful meandering numbers that make a listener stare off into the distance and lose themselves in thought and relaxation. The man himself, James Moody, a spritely 86 years old (!!!), was extremely funny with his crowd banter. We were lucky enough to be at the club for his 17th year wedding anniversary – so I’d like to imagine he played especially well on that night!
I couldn't write a blog about a live music event without focusing on the percussion, so here we go. We were fortunate enough to see Joe Farnsworth play in the Quartet. He is an exceptional Jazz drummer and regarded as one of the best in the world. You should difinitely look at his website or try to listen to examples of his playing if at all possible.
James Moody took us through the first half of the set, then passing
the front spot over to Jon Hendricks. James Moody is the oldest person on his bandstand, but Jon is only 3 years younger than him. The 83 year old bee bopped, scatted and sang for a good 40 minutes, giving us a great selection of Jazz and Boss nova and the history that goes with it. This Guy should know. His university course on the history of Jazz has been the number 1 course at the University of Toledo for the past three years running!
I would definitely recommend going to steep yourself in some old time jazz, especially if you are fortunate enough to witness people who have lived and breathed the music for the past few decades. New York’s Blue Note was fantastic, You could also try Ronnie Scott’s in London or Matt n Phred’s in Manchester, all of which are fantastic Jazz venues.
Get yourself down to your local museum with a camera and start hunting for dinosaurs. If you live in Manchester, London or New York, you’re in luck because each of these cities has excellent grounds for Dino hunting. There’s plenty of other cities with good places to spot ancient reptiles too! Here's a list of some beauties I spotted this weekend. Click any of the pictures to make them bigger.
Tyrannosaurus Rex: Weighed 6.8 tonnes, bipedal, 13 metres long. Carnivore. Cretaceous. 
Diplodocus: Weighed 10-15 tonnes, quadruped, had a six metre long neck and measured 25m from nose to tail. Herbivore. Jurassic.
Triceratops: Weighed 6-12 tonnes, quadruped, 9 metres long, horns 1 metre long. Herbivore. Cretaceous.
Allosaurus: Weighed 2.5 tonnes, bipedal, 9.7 metres long. Carnivore. Jurassic.
Stegosaurus: Weighed 4-5 tonnes, quadruped, 9 metres long. Herbivore. Cretaceous. Jurassic.
There is no Adam only Zool! I went up the Empire State building last night and that’s what I kept thinking to myself. If you’ve ever been up there, doesn’t it look like the building from Ghostbusters??
Anyway, I decided to go down at 10pm on a Thursday night to beat the ques, as the building and its observation platforms are open until after midnight. To my astonishment when I arrived, there was not only a large que, but it stretched out of the door of the building and almost right round the corner! It wasn’t a huge issue for me though, and the line moved pretty fast and, before I knew it, I was inside one of the most famous buildings in the world.
The main entrance hall is very impressive. I did take a photo of it but I have found a better picture on the internet so I’ll add that one to this blog (better meaning straight, not blurred and it hasn’t got half a Japanese tourist standing in the frame). Typically, the time i got to go and see it, most of the building was under construction and an awful lot of the rooms I passed through were in various stages of being painted, renovated or rewired. Nevertheless, i did get to see some very fantastic art deco. The light fixtures, the elevators, the escalators... loads of little things I recognised from movies and comics I’ve been reading all my life. It wasn’t just Ghostbusters I started thinking about, I started imagining the daily planet and Clark Kent stopping lifts from falling down the shafts or Peter Parker standing in one of the offices presenting Jameson with his latest photos of Spiderman. All of these scenes seemed to happen in a backdrop similar to the one I was walking through. I had alot of time to think about all of this, as it took me almost an hour and a half to get to the top. (click the images to make them larger)
Once at the top, the view was spectacular. You can see for miles! I managed to get outside and take a few snaps, my photography skills let me down again though. Here is the best one of the bunch.
I have re-located to New York for a couple of weeks so my posts until I’m back in blighty will be focussed around activities you can find there.
The first flowers of spring are flourishing on the trees in London... aaah how I will miss my smelly city. It brings a tear to my eye!
Today’s activity to try out after the apocalypse – eating massive sandwiches. I guess that you can re-create this anywhere, you just need bread and about £20 worth of meat from Tescos. I didn’t actually plan to do this, the procurement of said massive sandwich was purely accidental, I just thought that i had been ripped off massively by the delicatessen. You can find the Deli on times square, although i have totally forgotten the name. I guess words cannot express the size of the thing, so here it is in all its glory:
click image to enlarge
I ate half of it for my tea and half of it for my breakfast the following day. I still haven’t finished the cheesecake. I'm going to be massive by the time I leave this city!