The type of evening you dream about....
Tonight, before I had to come into work, was amazing.
One of our friends (the lovely Alyssa) had emailed us earlier in the week to make plans to catch the opening of the Portraits of the Golden Age of Jazz Exhibition at our local Fine Arts Center.
Imagine beautiful, detailed black and white pictures of stunning quality bringing the Jazz greats to life right in front of you. Pictures of Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie...but not the posed, press-style photos that bombard us in the media today. Photographs of them doing what they loved, with intensity, with character. Photos that showed the tarnished finish of a well-used instrument. Photographs by William P. Gottlieb, a man that started off as a writer, but ended up giving us these amazing glimpses to the voices that tend to remain faceless.
I could go on and on about the exhibit. It was held in the newly finished Modern Art portion of the Fine Arts Center...the walls were painted a deep purple, the floors a light wood. Lights were positioned perfectly to spot-light the black and whites that were framed by the deep walls. Simply framed, with small placards to give a little insight to the characters brought to life in the pictures. The soft, almost muted wails of the live Jazz band set up in the Bistro Bar coming into your ears like the whisper of the Ghost of Music Past. It was amazing...simply amazing.
We spent a little bit of time in the bar, but the crowds of people of varying ages and social status all clamoring to be part of the night soon drove us to feel the need to escape. We hit the gift shop on the way out, stopping to buy a family membership to the FAC so we could catch other exhibits for free as they came to town...then we went to a little cigar bar hidden in an alley of downtown Colorado Springs.
We sat there, in this darkly lit bar, sipping our drinks (and those that like the cigars had one, of course) talking with friends and basically enjoying the evening. Conversations flowed, people came and went. The place was hopping, but is designed in such a way that you never feel crowded. Music played softly over the stereo system, and TV's were on (but muted) to provide extra visual stimulation...but none of this was so overt or loud as to interrupt the feeling of togetherness and peace.
It was a damned good night to give up the hermit phase I've been in and go enjoy the company of friends, ghosts, and beautiful music.
One of our friends (the lovely Alyssa) had emailed us earlier in the week to make plans to catch the opening of the Portraits of the Golden Age of Jazz Exhibition at our local Fine Arts Center.
Imagine beautiful, detailed black and white pictures of stunning quality bringing the Jazz greats to life right in front of you. Pictures of Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie...but not the posed, press-style photos that bombard us in the media today. Photographs of them doing what they loved, with intensity, with character. Photos that showed the tarnished finish of a well-used instrument. Photographs by William P. Gottlieb, a man that started off as a writer, but ended up giving us these amazing glimpses to the voices that tend to remain faceless.
I could go on and on about the exhibit. It was held in the newly finished Modern Art portion of the Fine Arts Center...the walls were painted a deep purple, the floors a light wood. Lights were positioned perfectly to spot-light the black and whites that were framed by the deep walls. Simply framed, with small placards to give a little insight to the characters brought to life in the pictures. The soft, almost muted wails of the live Jazz band set up in the Bistro Bar coming into your ears like the whisper of the Ghost of Music Past. It was amazing...simply amazing.
We spent a little bit of time in the bar, but the crowds of people of varying ages and social status all clamoring to be part of the night soon drove us to feel the need to escape. We hit the gift shop on the way out, stopping to buy a family membership to the FAC so we could catch other exhibits for free as they came to town...then we went to a little cigar bar hidden in an alley of downtown Colorado Springs.
We sat there, in this darkly lit bar, sipping our drinks (and those that like the cigars had one, of course) talking with friends and basically enjoying the evening. Conversations flowed, people came and went. The place was hopping, but is designed in such a way that you never feel crowded. Music played softly over the stereo system, and TV's were on (but muted) to provide extra visual stimulation...but none of this was so overt or loud as to interrupt the feeling of togetherness and peace.
It was a damned good night to give up the hermit phase I've been in and go enjoy the company of friends, ghosts, and beautiful music.