Spent last night at the Good Coffee House watching Mary Flower. Lot's of familiar faces out there. Mary was wonderful. She has such command of that little L-00 and really shines when she gets to play a set or two. I hadn't seen her do an entire show, since she did a house concert in the area two years ago. The material off of Bywater Dance is fantastic.
BUT I was also stuck by just how lucky we are to have the Good Coffee House in New York. Ian Zack does an amazing job and is such a great patron of the Acoustic Fingerstyle genre.
This seasons line up is so exciting I can hardly wait. Mary kicked things off and Del Rey will visit at the end of the month. Del rocked the Coffee House with Steve James at the close of last year's season and will be back by popular demand in a solo capacity. Del is always mesmerizing. It's good to see her in the area more regular.
Next up is the groudbreaking David Laibman. David performed some amazing duets with Eric Schoenberg in the seventies. Those recordings on Folkways are considered a watershed moment for fingerstyle. Make sure you are there. This should generate some real excitement. David will be premiering some new compositions.
Later in the season we will finally get Ari Eisinger back to the area. Ari is a gifted player who does not tour or record as much as we'd like. I've always wanted to see him perform. His Stefan Grossman lessons are amongst the best available. Ari taught at Euro Blues this year, and no less than Mike Dowling, Ernie Hawkins and Mary Flower mentioned how good he was. And very excited about this rare opportunity to see Ari play.
And Nick Katzman, who released several classics on Kicking Mule will return for his annual pilgrimidge. Nick relocated to Germany a while back and Ian has been luring him to Brooklyn for the past few seasons.
Good Coffee House is a must destination for acoustic guitar music. Anyone planning a trip to NYC should try to coordinate to catch a show there. For locals, there's no excuse if you aren't a regular. If you are a top performer, you need to get a CD to Ian.
http://www.bsec.org/events/coffeehouse/Ian Zack - Keep up the great work. It's passion like this that keeps this art form alive. See ya, next time!
