Category: Sounds

Postcard from Ferrara, Italy: Ancient tower rehabbed as intimate jazz venue

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The Torrione San Giovanni once was part of the system of protective walls encircling Ferrara. The 500-year-old brick tower was rejuvenated in 1999 as a club for jazz. The nonprofit Jazz Club of Ferrara now presents a season of 50 concerts in the circular venue from October through April.

We were fortunate to catch the Marco Colonna Trio there, with Colonna on tenor sax and clarinet, Fabio Sartori on organ and piano and Claudio Stroli on drums.

Biannual Roundup Time

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As 2016 begins, you, once again, have given me an excuse to write about whatever strikes me. Your favorite posts on this blog during the past six months are as random as the thought process of the writer pecking at the keyboard.

I have to admit I love it that you continue to let the ghost of Helen Madarasz haunt Brackenridge Park, care enough about the future of Alamo Plaza to go back to old rants and are still looking for the cowgirl’s “San Antonio Song.” You care about art and artists of San Antonio, even when the art is tiny, and cherish San Antonio’s Fiesta traditions, even when raucous. And you tolerate family stories and postcards from our travels. All of these are therapeutic breaks for the blogger struggling to complete the story of the Coker Settlement.

The numbers in parentheses represent the rankings from six months ago:

  1. The Madarasz Murder Mystery: Might Helen Haunt Brackenridge Park?, 2012 (1)
  2. Artist Foundation unleashes another round of creative fervor, 2015 (2)
  3. How would you feel about the Alamo with a crewcut?, 2011 (8)
  4. Weather Forecast: 11 Days of Confetti Ahead, 2015 (10)
  5. Please put this song on Tony’s pony and make it ride away, 2010 (7)
  6. Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: Favorites on the food front, 2015 (12)
  7. Take pleasure in little unauthorized treasures along the River Walk before they vanish, 2015
  8. Playspace of Yanaguana Garden bursts into bloom October 2, 2015
  9. Photographs from the 1800s place faces on the names in Zephaniah Conner’s Bible, 2014 (11)
  10. Cornyation strips down to bare kernels of comedy in current events, 2015
  11. Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: More street art and signs of protests, 2015
  12. Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: Tattooed Museum Walls, 2015

Thanks for dropping by every once in a while. Love hearing your feedback.

Traveling around the world via accordion….

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Started in San Antonio on the banks of the river with Santiago Jimenez, Jr. But then, only a short stroll away at the International Accordion Festival in La Villita, Mahala Nola transported us to Bulgaria and Serbia. Then we switched to music sounding as though it was being performed along the Seine by Musette Explosion, a trio based in New York City.

Paused between stages for a Pakistani kebab from Rickshaw Stop.

Buyebongo
Musette Explosion
Mahala Nola
Flying Balalaika Brothers
Mahala Nola
Flying Balalaika Brothers
Flying Balalaika Brothers
Mahala Nola
Mahala Nola
Musette Explosion

Then went back riverside for the ruckus-causing group Buyepongo from Los Angeles. And we ended up listening to Russian-Ukranian-conjunto(?) played by the Flying Balalaika Brothers.

And that was in only four hours. If you are reading this before 8 p.m. on Saturday, September 12, stop and zip over to La Villita before it’s too late. Incredible music rarely heard in one venue, and it’s admission-free.