Nightclub 1960

Calm Lake Ontario outlet between the two piers at Sea Breeze in Rochester, New York
Calm Lake Ontario outlet between the two piers at Sea Breeze in Rochester, New York

The Society for Chamber Music was an early 4D Advertising client. This was back in the eighties and I remember the two women who ran the group smoking like chimneys. It was sort of a stuffy organization but we tried to have fun with the layouts for their brochures. And we went to a few of their sleepy performances.

Today chamber music really appeals to me. Not all of it, of course, but I would much rather listen to a small group setting than an orchestral one. I like being able to clearly hear the individual instruments and interplay. It even works in a jazz setting where the players are free to improvise. Chico Hamilton’s group, especially the one with the multi-instrumentalist, Eric Dolphy, and cello, paved the way for “chamber jazz.”

In the late nineties, when Margaret Explosion was playing a happy hour gig at the Bug Jar, one the original owners worked the bar. It was his only night there. He had a day job at Merrill Lynch and after a few years he convinced us to meet him downtown to talk about money. He became our guy but he worked his way up in the company and passed us off to his assistant. That guy now works for Wells Fargo and he invited his clients to lunch at the Monroe Golf Club. He talked about the markets while we sipped lemomade and ate our salads and then three members of the Chamber Music Society performed, a violinist, an oboe player and a guitarist. One of the board members is also a client.

They did two pieces back to back that were composed by Frenchmen but sounded Spanish. Our ears perked up. Maurice Ravel apparently grew up in the Basque region near the border. Juliana Athayde, the violinist, is the Concertmaster of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and she teaches violin at the Eastman. Someone asked if they ever had a bad performance and she offered the same advice she gives her students. “Don’t let your mistakes have babies. Just move on and stay in the moment.” They finished with a rousing arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s “Nightclub 1960.”

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