Swing & Jazz Preservation Society Goes Latin with Season Opening Concert
The 16 piece Latin Jazz “Orquesta Nostalgia” led by Anselmo Vidal, Jr. produced a grand opening for the ninth season of the Society at the Spanish River Performing Arts Center, Boca Raton Tuesday evening November 20.
Playing a wide variety of Cuban/Puerto Rican standards from the late 1950 heydays of Tito Puente’s band, and utilizing many of the arrangements of that group, the audience applauded and cheered their appreciation for the verve and drive exhibited in their repertoire beginning with the first set opening number Mama Guela and continuing to Donde Estabas Tu which closed out the first half of the concert.
Lead vocalist Dennis Rivera helped produce the true Latin flavor of the evening with his superb singing. Leader, Vidal, Jr., Ramon Aponte and Willie Suarez provided the back up chorus to Rivera.
While most of the instrumentalists are long time experienced sidemen, youth graced each end of the stage. Young marrieds Eddy and Lisa Rodriguez and Daniela Vega and Christian Tabois provided graceful, sensuous dancing to the accompaniment of many of the numbers.
The second half of the program included familiar standards Tea for Two Cha Cha and Mambo with Me from the movie “Mambo King.”
A rousing finish to the exciting musical evening was Cochise providing stellar performances by the young dancers and solo instrumental turns by Marty Fried on sax; Al Lilianstein on trombone; Willie Suarez on bass guitar; Arty Azenza on piano. Throughout the evening, the percussion artistry of Joe Glavez on Timbales, Joe T. on bongo drum, Milt Rodriguez on Congo drum and Anselmo Vidal, Jr. on the small Timbales pushed the band forward with a driving beat.
The next concert in the series takes place Tuesday December 18, starring singer/comedian Damian and featuring showman Duffy Jackson on drums and his 7 piece instrumental group playing traditional jazz. For reservation information call (561) 499-9976.
Photos Above: Anselmo Vidal, Jr.; Eddy and Lisa Rodriguez
Caring Kitchen in Delray Cares for Needy
Here in West Delray I’ve been active in a community organization, the Alliance of Delray Residential Associations for the past seven years. Wanting to make a special charitable contribution to a worthy cause we saw that Office Depot had contributed backpacks for underprivileged school children to the Caring Kitchen in downtown Delray. Surely they would need school supplies to go into those backpacks.
Alliance President Bob Schulbaum and I spoke to Ms. April Hazamy, the Program Coordinator at the Caring Kitchen. She was delighted with our offer and provided a list of supplies needed to outfit the backpacks. The order was placed with Office Depot and shipped directly to the Caring Kitchen, located in a donated American Legion Post building at 196 N.W. 8th Avenue in Delray.
Since then our Board authorized a donation of a check for every quarter for the next year to the Caring Kitchen folks to purchase food.
In a recent month, Caring Kitchen provided 1,105 individuals, of which 467 were children with a 4 day supply of emergency food. They also provided 5, 748 meals at breakfast; lunch and supper to the homeless, as well as persons with low incomes and shut-ins. 1,182 bag lunches were given out recently at Cason United Methodist Church –one for Saturday and another for Sunday.
Caring Kitchen is an interfaith community based program, counting many churches and synagogues in the area as Sponsors.
Anyone wishing to donate food, money and/or clothing can contact April Hazamy at (561) 278-0918—a charming young lady who, with other dedicated volunteer workers,
do good things for people in desperate need,
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