Jazz At La Cantera At Perrys Steakhouse: Concert Review

Jazz Concert Report

On February 27 on a Wednesday night at 7:00pm at La Cantera I went to “Perrys Steakhouse” to see a jazz pianist of the name of Bernie Martini perform. Throughout this whole performance, he just played the piano. While he played the piano he would also sing, some of the songs that he sung during his performance was “You Make Me Feel So Young” by Frank Sinatra and “Takin’ Care of Business” by Bachman-Turner Overdrive and “Piano man” By Billy Joel, these are just a few of the many songs that he performed that night and a few that I identified while listening to him. But for the most part the majority of his songs and main style of how he performed these songs was a blues and swing style.

His voice and style of playing was relaxing and intriguing, as he sung some songs that are meant to be loud and rowdy but he managed to add a jazz flare to each song that he sang. Which made it intriguing and also made it feel nice and calm and soothing to the ear. This being my first jazz concert and first time going to see a jazz musician live was overall a great experience, the atmosphere contributed a lot to this experience. The performance being at a Steakhouse the place was a very dim dark with each table having a lit candle in the middle, this added a flare of elegance and formalness feel to it, this would explain why Mr Martini dressed so formal and nice, he was wearing a nice dark suit with a white long sleeved collared shirt and with a nice tie to top it off. Apart from him dressing so nice, this went really well with his piano and the style of music he was singing and performing that evening.

In Addition, the way he was dressed can related to the swing artists and blues artists that were shown in class. As the majority of them always dressed in a suit and tie. This only added to the authenticity of Mr.Martini being a jazz performer. Furthermore, what impressed me of Mr.Martini was his skills and ability to play on the piano and all the different types of songs and variations of genres he played, let alone he sang and played all these songs by memory, as I didn’t see any sheet music or anything that told him what to play. However, Mr.Martini for the most part performed mostly Blue’s songs mainly written by Frank Sinatra, my assumption of why he sings a lot of Frank Sinatra is because he’s one of the more popular jazz musicians of all time and he’s an artist that the general public would be more familiar with.

Furthermore, the song “Cheek to Cheek” by Frank Sinatra was performed by Mr.Martin which added that blues feel, however Mr.Martin as stated adds his own flare to each song, when he was singing “Cheek to Cheek” it was a tad bit softer and quieter. For the most part, people who go to Perry’s go there for the food and not not for Mr.Martini who is not meant to be the center of attention for the venue, but rather you can hear him in the background, as you eat your meal you can hear Mr.Martini’s nice soothing voice and his piano playing in the background as you enjoy your meal. To conclude, my overall experience at Perry’s Steakhouse was wonderful. Being my first live jazz performance I’m glad it was seeing Mr.Martini perform, I would definitely love to see Mr.Martini perform. Perhaps at a different venue, where he would be the main the center of attention. As I believe that the formal setting at the Steak house kinda limits him to not use his diaphragm or his overall exploit voice to sing louder and really hit those high notes. Addition, this also limits him from playing his piano really loud and really hitting those loud notes. However, seeing Mr.Martini perform was wonderful and a great experience and I hope to see him again.