Excursions

Artist: Alfonso Velez
Album: The Weather
Year: 2009

I was sitting by myself in a bar early on a Saturday night a few weeks ago, waiting to hear my friend Alisdair play a set downstairs at The National Underground. In front of me was a guy strumming a guitar, playing a wonderful mix of folk and blues. Given it was 7pm and the location was New York, where many people had probably finished brunch just an hour ago, there were only 7 or 8 other people at the bar. The place was empty.

As I sat there, I got drawn more and more into the music. The artist, Alfonso Velez, was a cut above the average singer-songwriter. Before one piece, he asked if anyone wanted to join him. One of his friends volunteered to play piano. Another went up to play tambourine. Before I knew it, there were 5 people up there with instruments, harmonising the vocals, creating an awesome rendition of Jealous Woman, a blues track. It was a moment I would have loved to share with someone, if for no other reason than to be able to turn to them later and say, “did that really happen?” The scene was too spontaneous, and the music too good, for real life.

In the spirit of trying to share that evening, here’s the track that leads off Alfonso Velez’s new album, The Weather. It doesn’t quite recapture the feel of his live music, but that’s just more incentive to go out and catch him in New York or DC where he’s often playing local bars.