Fusion

A very cultural day today.  Narbonne has a brilliant programme of free concerts all summer, covering a good range of genres. We had two lined up for today: Antonio Lizana as part of the contemporary music festival Musique Au Présent, and an afternoon concert in the archbishop's garden, featuring Arthur Bacon and Mael Goldwaser, previously seen here.

Although the concerts in the garden are free, you have to book online, and they won't let you do it until a week before. I had a booking fail -- all seats taken within two hours of booking opening. This made logistics a bit complicated as we were meeting S and T there, and fast-fingered T had got tickets for them. However from previous experience I was pretty certain there'd be spaces anyway, so S, Ingrid and I arrived 15 minutes early and were invited to wait with a dozen other people. Surprise, at 5 pm there were more than enough seats for all of us, and once the concert started they just let anyone into the garden. So really you don't need to book at all.

As before we enjoyed Arthur and Mael's unusual combination of flamenco guitar and accordion. At one point they played a mash-up of bal musette and flamenco, which worked surprisingly well. Afterwards we ambled down the promenade alongside the canal and staked out a table for six at Aunt B's favourite tapas bar, and after a drink I drove to hers to fetch her. We filled in the time till the evening concert with drinks, tapas, and chat.

The evening concert was in the Cour de la Madeleine, which is a beautiful setting. Saxophonist Antonio Lizana brought along an excellent band of piano, bass, and drums, and snake-hipped flamenco dancer El Mawi de Cádiz, who drummed his heels, twirled, and clapped to the lively jazz-flamenco fusion. They were really excellent musicians, and it was a good show (Aunt B was not wild about the "caterwauling" singing, but it is an acquired taste). Sample here and here (pianist Daniel García is particularly great). See extra for the usual challenging lighting conditions.

Home after midnight, so it was a long day.