Last night was pure magic for me, let me explain. I had not seen a live music concert since November of 2019 and last night, three years minus a few weeks, I attended my first concert and what a concert.
For many years now I’ve have been a regular listener to Saturday Night Jazz on the CBC music radio channel here in Canada. I knew the host, Liali Biali, was a Jazz singer/songwriter and had seen many of her Youtube videos and listened to some of her music on Spotify and the like. One day in early August I was going over the offerings at a local music venue, which is a 15 minute walk from my house. Lo and behold don’t I see that Laila Biali would be playing in my little town, just down the street, obviously I couldn’t resist. I bought the ticket, sitting me at a table right up near the stage, I didn’t realize at the time that I would literally be about less than 3 meter from Laila herself sitting at her piano. But I’m getting ahead of myself, so I printed out the ticket and clipped it on my bulletin board in my office and waited for the faithful evening.
Well, yesterday was it, I got spiffed-up, well as much as one can get spiffed up with the post Pandemic wardrobe that I have left in my closet, and made my way to the venue. I got there early and waited with all the other audience members until we were let in. I was kindly escorted to my chair by a nice usher and sat down to the view below:
Laila, her husband Ben Wittman and Alex Bellegarde on upright bass took the stage and almost instantly the magic began. First of all, I had only ever really heard Laila on the radio and, as mentioned, on Youtube, etc… but to see her sing, smile with that twinkle in her eyes, was such a treat and she plays a really mean piano. I’ve been a big fan of Diana Krall for years and always loved her piano playing abilities, but what I saw that evening with Laila’s hand flying across those 88 keys just astounded me and took my breathe away, I kept straining to see her fingers on the keyboard.
She played a variety of songs from her new album, some Jazz standards such as Autumn Leaves, which was very apropos since I had walked over crunchin’ some Autumn leaves of my own, some covers of the Canadian songbook from the likes of Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, and a fantastic energetic cover of Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” that had me practically up and dancing, but not quite, guess I was a tad bit shy. In fact as I tried to casually glance around with my peripheral vision it felt to me like I was the only audience member boppin’ in the joint. I’m sure I wasn’t, but to me it felt like it was just me and those three amazing musicians up on stage.
At the end Laila mentioned that she’d be having a meet and greet in the lobby and signing CDs and I was thrilled as I wanted to let her know how much her radio show has meant to me over the years and how much I was looking forward to hearing her play. We shared a nice short chat as there were others who wished to meet her as well and we said our mutual good-byes and how nice it was to meet each other. I then grabbed my coat at the coat-check and made my way back home with two of her CDs in tow and a definite bounce in my step. Since it was Saturday night at just after 10 PM when I got home I was able to listen to the last two hours of her radio show and it felt even more welcoming as I heard her dulcet toned voice and thought how it was a night of live music that I will surely remember for a very long time topped by the thrill of meeting Laila Biali.