Lest I forget ...

how I spent my birthday this year! On the way back from Moscow, I realised that I hadn't even blogged about it - shame! My blogging becomes too patchy these days!

Anyways, I was in New York for some business on the day itself. The evening was spent in pleasant company at the Jazzgallery, a tiny downtown Manhatten place which I picked for the programme (a local trumpet player with band whose name escapes me now). It turned out that their style was a bit too - shall we say - experimental for my liking, but then again, this is East Coast stuff, I really should have known. Nevertheless, the atmosphere of the place fully made up for the lack of swing, or at least for my inability to recognise it. The gallery is located in a benignly neglected, quiet neighbourhood on the first floor above a bar. It seats maybe 60 people, most of whom appeared to be from the local conservatory, and there seems to be an occupied flat in a cubicle just inside the gallery - very homely.

My birthday did not go uncelebrated, though. It was made up for with a few good friends on the Friday following my return from NY. There's only a rare selection of pictures available of the occasion on my flickr account.