Reflecting on the Past and Thinking about Great events I have attended recently

while I was sitting at Blue Coffee, i started reflecting on some great things from the past....Why just here at this location and the building next door used to be a club run by Zammas called the Corcoran....I remember many a night of coming in here and checking out the great music, and of course trying to get my flirt on......SMILE......This is a place where many musicians like Stanley Baird, Sweet Dreams, Johnny White and others were playing here. Across the street was a place called Off Main Street which later became the Palace which is now in a location on Broad Street....I also was talking to some folks about the old Hayti district which used to have great shops like Woolworth (makes me think of the days of getting the old S&G cards), Kress Building, Cicero, and Marvin's where apparently you could get more than Hot dogs......
And of course even now we are losing things that used to be so great........Yorktown which closed ages ago, and became the site of a Church, is now gone and this was a great place to see movies......Like the Biltmore Holiday and Regal theatre, it has now gone totally to history.....Also in this category it looks like is the concept of Drive-Ins here in Durham with the Starlite having been gone for a few years.....Some friends were remembering other movies that left, and I fear this will happen to the movie theater off of Club Blvd. in that Shopping center near the old Time Warner location.
Hopefully some great entrepreneurs will come and rescue some of those buildings that can be saved and used for cultural purposes...I'm even hopeful that the folks that eventually get the old Operation Breakthrough building will make use of the theatre in there.....One of my pet peeves is Durham has plenty of Theatre seats that are not being fully used, and this is a shame...Yes there is plenty to do in Durham and nearby but there could be even more if we maximize our resources.....
But, enough about this, let me tell you about some of the great things that have happened over the last few weeks that I had the pleasure of checking out...On Saturday, I went by Restaurant Eden and had a great meal of Duck and Mushrooms and heard some great music performed by Martin Eagle and his trio during their hard opening...Hopefully they will have regular jazz at this nicely decored and professionally staffed new restaurant...The jazz was a nice touch and would be a nice touch on a regular basis........
On Friday, I was working at Hayti and heard Don Byron and his gospel group perform......They gave a great show, but the one the week before called the Hallejuah Train which featured Rev. Blade was in a whole other category...and speaking of last week, for the first time ever, I went to Shakori Hills festival in Siler City and it was indeed a great experience...This festival had booked some great performers like Mosadi Music, the Beast, a poetry slam that was hosted by Kane Smego and C.J. Suitt, the Apple Chill cloggers, a Latin group from Miami, and some Fire jugglers just to name a few of the great performers that were there......Folks were definitely enjoying themselves out on the land that this festival is held at, some camping, and cavorting in various ways around the grounds......I will definitely have to add this festival to my regular Festival rotation......I had already planned to add Leaf Festival in black Mountain, Spoleto in South Carolina, The Heritage Festival and Essence Festival, both in New orleans, and the Telluride and Sundance Flm Festivals to this list...Now if I could find an angel to help sponsor all these trips..
By the way, a very unique event I went to last Wednesday was a concert by Nii Ooto, a Ghanian drummer, who performed some unique music, some accompanied by the sound of Gutter Toads, and others on a instrument he developed himself...The first set was definitely more experimental and the second more traditional jazz but both were great and later that evening I went to the Jam session that John Brown has at the Mary Lou william's center on duke's campus....I had been promising Brown I would be coming for awhile, but this was my first time there....The crowd was a nice crowd and it was lively session that featured such musicians as John Brown, Brian Miller, and Alex Coke as well as Nii ooto performing just to name a few......I definitely had a great time and will have to return again, maybe even this Wednesday when John tells me has Vincent Gardner coming to play with him......
By the way, another event I went too recently was a screening of a film that deals with Relationships, Revenge, and Loyalty among other things that Rodrigo Dorfmann is working on...This film that hss some film noir moments in it is very delightful and led to some interesting discussion about the direction the film is taking afterwards as this is a film in development....A friend of mine Banu valladares was in the film and another acquaintance who was in my friend Dilsey's film was also in the film and I can't wait to see what the finished product looks like....
Don't forget that there are lots of things going on this weekend as well.....On Friday, the 23rd Blue Coffee will be having Game Night and the Hayti will be the host of the NC Sneak preview of Blood Done Signed My Name.....The Playdate folks will be having their monthly game event at the Brownstone in Raleigh......and of course there is always great programming at the Durham Performing Arts Center, the Carolina theatre and the Durham Arts Council.......
By the wa I mentioned Blood Done Signed my Name, well the play version is the day before the movie and Mike Wiley always does a great job with his One Man shows.....and Sunday there will be a discussion about Devin Ferguson's book about Soul City and other things that happened in the late 60's, including the Malcolm X school that was here in Durham....i went there as a youth, and my Dad is actually mentioned in the book, as is one of my Marquette mentors mentioned throughout the book, that being Howard Fuller.........
So as always there is plenty to do right here in the Bull City.......