JAZZ & VERTIGO

The show Monday night with Jazz saxophonist Joe Lovano and his Quintet 'Us Five' was wonderful. I have never before heard Joe Lovano live and I really liked his strong clear tone and inspirational drive. There were two trap drummers and that worked great, but I was specially taken with Francisco Mela, the young Cuban drummer who has already got a big name in the US. Last but not least was Esperanza Spalding on Bass. Oh my! Can she play! She is slim and light skinned with a gamin face and I loved to watch her slender hands work the strings of the bass with incredible speed and precision. Another proof that Jazz is alive and home for some of the most talented musicians of our time.

Then yesterday I woke up to a bad surprise. I was so dizzy that I had to hold on to things when I walked. I have felt it a little of it these last weeks but now it was incapacitating. I took my blood pressure thinking that it was too low but it was 183/90; that freaked me out a bit. I called Shawn who has been giving me treatments lately and he said: Get an ambulance and go to the hospital. To make a long story short, I was in the hospital till after 4 o'clock and went through innumerable tests and the verdict was: nothing serious! It is an inner ear thing stemming from my recent sickness and should go away by itself and meanwhile I take pills for the vertigo. But I'm still kind of wobbly today.