I Played Cowbell for Charmaine Neville.
Posted: May 27, 2009 Filed under: Peak Experiences 3 Comments »In New Orleans, in Faubourg Marigny, is a jazz/funk club called Snug Harbor. We went to hear Charmaine Neville and her band on Monday night. Fun music — they get a groove going. At one point, Charmaine cajoles certain audience members into getting up on stage and handling the auxiliary percussion. I was honored to be selected as cowbellist. My family tells me she gave me a look when I started my pattern that said, “Hey, not bad.”
Here are approximately four seconds of video, thanks to my alert nephew Ari Chalew and the miracle of cellphone video technology:
Promising. Very promising.
O.K., O.K., I believe you already. You played cowbell for Charmaine Neville. Can we please move on now?
I finally had some time to carve out a meaningful amount of hours from my busy day to sit back, relax, and watch this sweeping video unfold. Though it gets off to a bit of a slow start, I especially enjoyed the middle portion where it really starts rolling, and, of course, for me the highlight was right after that, the surprising–though somewhat intriguingly languid–ending.
One small suggestion (not that the video ever dragged) would be for you to look at it one more time and see if there might be a place or two to make some small edits that might help pick up the pacing slightly. I’m just thinking some subtle trims–nothing major–that would cut out three or four seconds, tops.