It may only be once a year, but when I get together with a couple of my cousins and my uncle, we do it in style!I've mentioned several times in the past that I come from a musical family...actually, the arts in general run strong in my family. Well, above this paragraph you see a photo (courtesy of a fan named Lynda Maniscalco) of my family band known as "The Latimer Experience", which is made up of (from left to right): My cousin Andre Latimer, my uncle Isham Latimer, my other cousin Emile Latimer, my two friends Glenn Palermo and Bill Titus on bass and guitar respectively, and of course me.
Yesterday we completed the last of two performances that I had booked for us this year. It's always such a kick for me to see how the audience reacts to what we have to offer, which is essentially 2 sets of purely improvisational music based on African and Latin drum rhythms, and perhaps 1 or 2 jazz standards thrown into the mix. What a great time we had! There is only one negative thing.
We had always wanted to get a good recording done of us while we are all still around and able to play. This is particularly important to me as the youngest member of "The Latimer Experience", because my cousin Emile is approaching his mid 70's and is starting to experience problems and pain with his hands. So, I had brought my digital recorder with the hopes that we might actually be able to create a live CD. We were in top form! However, the recorder didn't catch the performance! I forgot a stand for it and had to tape it to a column. Unfortunately, I taped it too tight and accidentally press the "stop recording button", which turned the device off. Talk about disappointments! I was disgusted when I saw no data on my memory card.
At any rate, hopefully we will be able to all get together again next year. And this time, they'll be no slip ups!
