dave cooper, l'image

One of my fave artists (Dave Cooper) was in town...! He came by for a visit and i picked up some art work ...surprise!!?? yeah right.
We all went out to dinner to our local Italian place (Pepe Giallo), and had a very nice meal. I had the stuffed chicken special (eggplant inside!) with Polenta, and a nice salad. but that's a whole other story! it was great.

After dinner Dave had arranged to interview Steve Gadd for a comic strip project he's working on about drummers (Dave's a drumming enthusiast and player)...pretty natural to combine the 2 interests. The plan was to see Steve in the band he's playing with later that night: L'Image featuring him, Tony Levin (bass), Mike Mainieri (vibraphone), Warren Bernhardt (piano), and David Spinnozzo (guitar). It was a great show at the legendary Iridium club. I'd seen Tony play with the prog rock/fusion band King Crimson back in the 80's ...i said hi after the show, and pointed that out to him. He remembered those shows at the Pier in Manhattan and said it was interesting for me that he noted that they were among the best shows KC did. Tony's still on top of his game and played the Chapman Stick, a regular bass, and a really cool electric upright bass. I had also seen Mike Mainieri play with Steps Ahead (the fusion super group) in the 80's ...um yeah, i loved fusion in the 80's!! Watching Mike play is very exciting, vibraphonists in particular really put on a show. And i had NEVER seen the legendary Steve Gadd perform before so it was a real treat.
Capping off the evening was a nice walk home thru times square round midnight...the city was wide awake as you would imagine...packed with people and street merchants, the energy was intense.