New Albany, Ohio – at the McCoy Center for the Arts

Hello!! A new venue for me… Thank you! How blessed and lucky I am. I’ve been coming to Ohio forever. Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus are core Al Jarreau Audiences that watched it all happen for me. They not only watched with interest, but they bought records and called the radio stations and came to concerts. Now we’re getting to suburban communities like New Albany.

Many of the families in this community have been quite successful in business, and have then opened their hands to projects in this suburb. At this point in my life, I’ve become acutely aware of these settings, and I think it’s partly because they know about how I share that attitude of community spirit, and keep on inviting me to sing and even fund raise. One family in this town helped to build a performing arts center on a campus that serves junior and senior high schoolers, and they opened it’s doors to me and the band. The whole event was a huge success with the band rising to the occasion for this great audience- we loved performing in this beautiful, cozy little theater full of smiling faces and great energy.

This was not an orchestra date like the past two, so the band was really anticipating getting back to our normal concert program. They were fired up and excited, and played with brilliant flashes and quiet subtleties, that are so obviously satisfying and refreshing. You should have heard Mark Simmons really letting go and letting it all hang out. He was even shouting and laughing out loud. Thank you, Mark, that’s the sh##! I encourage these sorts of responses from the band. Be natural! Don’t force it! But… If you feel it, let it out, and don’t hold it in. In fact, be talking to each other verbally as you respond to each other’s work and playing. I knew it was ON AND HAPPENIN’ all night long. All day long, I kept shaking my head and saying, “Amazing! Man, oh, man.”  What a beautiful, wonderful night. Thank you! See you in Skokie.

-Love

Al