(The death of) live music in Las Palmas, August 2020

Ah, people, people. Remember I asked you not to screw it up? Remember? But you won’t listen, would you. Look what you’ve done! That our “new normality” every day looks more and more like lockdown 2.0, you’ve only got yourself to blame. I blame you anyway.

• 5 August: «La noche cubana» de Totó Noriega @ Edificio Miller, Parque Santa Catalina, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

  This was the first time that I went to the Edificio Miller, a huge hangar newly refurbished and reinvented as a concert venue. Unfortunately, just days before the concert, the new rules concerning the obligatory use of face masks in all closed public spaces kicked in. I think it came as a surprise to the musicians as well: the previous weeks, the concerts in the same building allowed you to breathe normally as long as you keep the safe distance and don’t move from your seat. Not this time.

  Saying that, Tamara and I have thoroughly enjoyed «La noche cubana» by the band of Totó Noriega (congas, vocals) featuring Edulman Aragon Gonzalez and Sofiel del Pino (vocals), Yoriell Carmona (tres cubano), Yuniel Rascón Falcón (guitar), Osvaldo Hernández (timbales), Carlos Martín Brito (bass), Armiche Jonay Moreno Suárez (percussion), Daniel Amat (piano) and Arístides Sosa Benítez (trumpet). The show was as great as the last year’s one in Parque Doramas; I’d enjoy it even more if I didn’t need to wear mascarilla all the time.

• 15 August: La Local Jazz Band @ Plaza de Santa Ana
  Luckily, some open-air options still remained. Among them, the XXIX^th edition of the Canarian International Jazz Festival (31 July — 15 August 2020). 39 concerts on seven islands — not bad, not just “under the circumstances”, but not bad full stop. The biggest success of the festival, however, was that it went ahead at all.
  

  The concerts on Plaza de Santa Ana, normally free of charge, this year were not so, but €2 per person per evening is practically free, especially provided that the “evening” consisted of three sets. So I bought the tickets for Timur and myself. Well. Even less fortunately, the new(er) rules were published that very week obliging everybody to wear the blasted masks in all public spaces, closed or not. You can imagine how overjoyed I was.

  Anyway, we went to Santa Ana. The first set that night was La Local Jazz Band, a group formed in 2010 by Miguel Ramírez (director of the Canarian International Jazz Festival) and Miqui Delgado. The current line-up consists of Miqui Delgado (piano), Miriam Fleitas (vocals), Samantha de León (double bass), Ernesto Montenegro (trumpet), Miguel Ramírez (sax) and Suso Vega (drums).

  

  The programme was a delightful mix of mainstream jazz standards and more experimental originals. It finished after 10 pm and we stayed to hear the beginning of the next set, that of Antonio Lizana Quintet. Which was fine but... my butt went numb from all this sitting and it was getting rather chilly. And the thought of enduring three more hours of muzzle — so, Antonio Lizana and Steffen Morrison will have to wait till the next time... When? Who knows.

• August October 2020: TEMUDAS fest @ different locations, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

  

  When I thought it can’t get any worse, it just did. The 24^th edition of TEMUDAS festival was postponed from August to October.

  

What can I say? The cultural events that I’ve attended here during the last three months were well-organised and safe — way safer than your daily trip to supermarket. But, as usual, culture suffers first.

Rant over.