Live Music Calling

Smooth silk pajamas, high thread spring green sheets, a one hundred per cent cotton throw in aqua for when the night chills, a nice cup of tea with toast, and a DVD, or the internet spells a sweet night. In recent years it’s all too easy to be seduced by the comfort of the bed and interesting internet.

Let’s face it; who in their sixties wants to go out like you did in your twenties? You’re young and healthy with energy after work to party; who didn’t enjoy that, ah, the twenties. My fondness for live music grew during that decade.

It birthed as Elvis rocked and gyrated on the rooftop stage at Ponchatrain Beach Amusement Park in New Orleans; who had ever seen a young man so wonderful?

A weird thing I remember about live music; I felt like a drop of energy in a solid world. Everything was out there; I felt separate, in here. I guess it felt egocentric; it had to be the booze or whatever. That feeling happens when I’ve been sick or after surgery.

That alone in a crowd feeling happened to me frequently in my twenties. My relationship with alone changed, so did my perception; what hasn’t changed is my love of live music.

Senior years may require a kick in the fanny to not allow yourself to become a victim of comfort, as I heard a singer in New Orleans croon.

Brenda Hopkins Jazz Band

The young jazz artists’ compositions today are hard driving and multi layered here in Puerto Rico. Young and old jiving to the beat in the Caribbean is Latin jazz on adrenaline. Yep, that’s what it takes to get me out of bed at night.