Last week end was a percussive one. On Friday we spontaneously drove to Ashkenaz http://ashkenaz.com/index.htm to hear a Beat Box performance called The Vowel Movement. The venue is real down home and made me feel like I was back in Chicago at a performance space on Grand avenue. The cover charge was reasonable and the performance was very full, that is they offered a lot of bang for buck. We left before the show ended as we are middle aged and have sensitive ears we would like to keep for a while.

On Sunday we drove to Oakland to the world renown Yoshi's http://www.yoshis.com/jazzclub to see Poncho Sanchez, the latin percussionist. I loved the show. Really. It was too short was all. I wanted to dig the band and goove all night with that Cuban sound!

However, Yoshi's has a strange way of making its devotees work for their seats. Mr. D's colleague, a Yoshi fan, came to our house with his family at 4pm and promptly left with Mr. D to "reserve seats". Tickets had already been purchased days before. The doors at the club open at 5 so they waited in line for an hour to rush into the club and reserve seven seats at one of the front tables. They returned to our house to eat and then we all made for the club. Some people actually eat at Yoshi's restaurant which from what I am told has improved but is a little pricey. If you don't get in line early to save your seats you may not find enough seats together for your party and you definitely won't be up front or in one of the treasured booths. The club is intimate though and we couldn't have had a better time. Well, I couldn't have, but I didn't wait in line for an hour.

"PONCHO SANCHEZ celebrates his 20th year as a bandleader with his 20th release, Soul Of The Conga (CCD-4894). The veteran conguero's 18th recording for the Concord Picante label features the very popular performer in several different settings and the result is a fast-moving but logical set of 14 highly enjoyable and rhythmically infectious numbers.

Poncho Sanchez has long qualified as one of the hardest-working men in Latin jazz. Born in Laredo, Texas as the youngest of 11 children, he grew up in Norwalk, California (where he still lives) and remembers hearing Afro-Cuban music while growing up. "As a kid in third or fourth grade, I would hear my sisters dancing while listening to Machito, Tito Puente, Cal Tjader and various bands from Cuba while my brothers listened to doo-wop music and early rhythm and blues." While in sixth grade, Sanchez bought a fifty- cent guitar in hopes of joining an r&b band that rehearsed across the street from his home. Although he practiced quite a bit, when he showed up for an audition, he knew immediately that he did not stand a chance. "But it turned out that they needed a singer and, although I had never sung, I gave it a try and became the lead vocalist in that band for five years. Then when I was in high school, the first chance I had to get behind a set of conga drums, I hit them and it felt quite natural." Soon Sanchez had saved up money from his singing jobs and was practicing congas as much as possible in his garage, playing to Machito, Tito Puente and Cal Tjader records.

Sanchez's big break occurred in 1975 when, after a period of struggle, he had an opportunity to play with his idol, vibraphonist Cal Tjader. "I found out later that Cal's conga player was planning on leaving soon and he was letting a lot of people sit in with him. I played one number with Cal, he asked if I could play the rest of the set with him and a week later he asked if I could join him for a week, starting New Year's Eve at the Coconut Grove opposite Carmen McRae!" Sanchez would be a major part of Tjader's band for the next seven years, an association that lasted until the vibraphonist's death." http://www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Poncho_Sanchez.html