fiesta night

Yee-haw! Catherine and I may be in Vienna, but San Antonio's in the middle of its biggest party of the year, Fiesta. This is the third Fiesta we've missed in three years, but who's complaining? Last year we were sipping coffee fresh from the plantation and riding horses through the mountains of Panama, and the year before we were on an island paradise in the Andaman sea.

Anyway, tonight's Protag Jazz Party on KRTU 91.7 FM is something we taped live a few weeks ago, knowing I'd be gone: an all-Fiesta-music program. We weren't sure, going into it, what that would mean, but as it turned out we kicked off with Tito Puente's immortal party tune "Oye Como Va," then went on to play some swingy Willie Nelson and some original Protagonists salsa, plus "I'm an Old Cowhand," a moody take on "They Call The Wind Mariah," and a Latino "San Antonio Rose."

The funny thing is that we hadn't even known exactly what kind of show it would be: we'd originally figured on centering the night around some of the city's great young jazz pianists, but couldn't get them all together on the same night. So, that's later. Meanwhile, a few minutes before we went onstage, one of us suggested that the show would be in late April, so how about a Fiesta show? Well, thar ya have it. We just flew by the seat of our pants the whole way, and wound up having some real fun in the process. And there's some real music, too: the wide swing on that Willie tune, Darren's funky beat on the Tito tune, Greg's cosmic solo on "Mariah." I love playing with these guys.

And it's all online. Enjoy Fiesta Night.

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