This post, Janus-like, looks forward and backward.
Forward? I want to alert you to a Valentine’s Day love-offering that’s special, a way to be bathed in the sounds of love. Yaala Ballin, voice, and Michael Kanan, piano, will present songs of love on February 14, 7-9 PM, at St. John’s in the Village (Eleventh Street) with tickets a very loving $10.
It’s a gently interactive event as well. No, not a sing-along. But when ticket-buyers enter, they will be handed a list of perhaps fifty songs, classic ones, given a slip of paper and asked to mark down the titles or numbers of two songs they would like to hear. And these little papers, selected at random, will be the music performed that evening. I’ve seen this in action (more about that below) and it’s fun. Details — if you need more — are here, and you can buy tickets through Eventbrite or take your chances that this won’t be sold out (which would be unromantic for you and your Ideal, wouldn’t it?).
Backward? Yaala and Michael have already performed “the Great American Songbook, Requested,” at St. John’s in the Village last October, and I captured their performances here. In December, they took their little show — sweet and impish — to Mezzrow, and here are some delights from that evening. I have left in Yaala’s inspired introductions because they are so very charming.
Yaala Ballin and Michael Kanan at Mezzrow, Dec.11, 2019, by Naama Gheber.
IT’S ALL RIGHT WITH ME:
MANHATTAN:
BUT NOT FOR ME:
SO IN LOVE:
CAN’T HELP LOVIN’ THAT MAN:
ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE:
IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD:
LOOK FOR THE SILVER LINING (one of my requests that night):
BLUE SKIES:
I should point out that although both Yaala and Michael treat their material tenderly, they are improvisers, so I could not get tired of their explorations of these deep songs. I will follow them “while breath lasts,” as a friend used to say.
Here are more auditory blossoms from Mezzrow. Listen and be glad, and make plans for Valentine’s Day . . . in the name of love. And if you don’t have a partner for that evening, buy a ticket as an act of self-love, an activity that many people scant themselves in. And when I was at St. John’s for the October concert, I noticed some elegantly-dressed people by themselves . . . so who knows what could happen? Be brave and join us.
May your happiness increase!
JAZZ LIVES 