For those in a hurry, here are today’s take home points:

  • No jam on April 5th – Easter. Next jam is April 19th.
  • The next featured tune is “I’ll Remember April.”
  • Christian Tamburr is a fantastic musician!
  • We had tons of fun at the jam today – we always do.

I want to talk about how much fun we had at the jam today, but first, congratulations to the badger basketball team on their win! We could hear yelling from the front bar and knew it was exciting, but not enough to distract us from our own excitement – the energy in the room after the 1st set was electric!

Special guest appearances from Anna, a vocalist visiting from Moscow, and later by Madison’s own celebrated vocalist, Gerri DiMaggio, got the crowd pumped. Jazz superstar Christian Tamburr took them to the next level and beyond. Christian played to a very appreciative audience at the Brink Lounge today as part of the MMC concert series and popped into the Fountain to relax afterwards. He was kind enough to play a few tunes with the house band and now I’m kicking myself for missing that concert. Words don’t do justice to music like that. Let’s just say the 1st set ended with the audience roaring it’s approval and everyone, including Christian, grinning.

Christian joined us for another tune in the second set and stuck around afterwards to work out arrangement ideas with John Schaffer for tomorrow’s UW concert. That’s right, you still have a chance to hear him live. He is playing 7:30 tomorrow night at Morphy Hall in the Humanities Building. More details are on the Madison Jazz Calendar.

Even without today’s special guests it was another in a series of great jams, lots of jammers of all ages, a large audience, and really enjoyable music. At this point we don’t expect anything less.

Normally, our next jam would be April 5th but that is Easter so it won’t be until April 19th. We have another superstar line-up: Dave Cooper – trumpet, Doug Brown – guitar, Brad Townsend – bass, and Rodrigo Villanueva – drums. The featured tune is “I’ll Remember April.” Learn Jazz Standards has a playalong and other material to help you get started. See you next time!