Bole Rock

Last night we went out to Zebra Grill for dinner, a barbecue place that I had been to once before that, surprisingly, serves a pretty good beef burrito. After our meal, one of my colleagues here, "M", said he was going to head over to Bole Rock, a jazz club with live music every Friday night. "M" started going there last month (after I'd already left back to Japan) and said it was a lot of fun, so we all decided to join him.
When we arrived the 6-piece band was playing their hearts out, with keyboard, drums, bongos, bass, guitar and baritone saxophone. We ordered a couple dark beers on tap and sat on the big sofas located in the center of the club with a great few of the band. The waiter also prepared a plate of popcorn and pound cake and brought it to us free of charge, which was nice.
When we sat down, M gave a wave to the band and the sax player waved back. Later in the song, during his solo, the saxophonist walked around the club playing for people in the back, sitting on the arm of the sofa with us for a couple moments, and just getting people tapping their feet. The whole place was really into it and there was a great vibe.
A few minutes later, M was taking something out of his backpack, and I realized it was a shakuhachi, a Japanese wooden flute. When the next song started up, M hopped up on stage and started riffing with the band; it sounded great. At one point during the jam, the shakuhachi and the saxophone were playing off each other and then the guitarist followed up with some quick fingerwork. They were really in full swing, and when the song came to an end, they got huge cheers from the audience.
Since M practices his instrument in the evenings after work and on weekends for about an hour each day, I knew he was pretty good, but with the jazz band, his talent was obvious. We were all glad to have come with him and had the chance to see him play, and I was happy for M to have found this group of musicians since he is assigned to Ethiopia so often. Plus, they apparently recorded the jam session so, who knows, I might be able to post it on the blog sometime if I can get myself a copy.