Benjie Messer » Privas

No Dragonfly for now

benjie — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 04:33:00 +0000

I guess we’ll be back at Dragonfly sometime soon- but for now I have Fridays free. Anybody know of a good Friday jam session?

More Gigs!

benjie — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 05:57:00 +0000

I guess we’ve been a hit at the Dragonfly. The owner wants us to start playing Thursdays as well- I don’t know if Thursday will be another night at the Tempe location, or if it’ll be at their Mesa location. And we got a visit the other day from Bart Salzman from Jazz in AZ, who said he liked us and wanted to book us at the Chandler Jazz Festival! I’m looking forward to being busier.

[PS Looks like Thursdays will be in Mesa, and not starting just yet. Until then I'll probably be playing with Dennis Rowland's band on Thursdays at the Kazimierz in Scottsdale.]

The New Privas

benjie — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 00:12:00 +0000

Privas’ regular keyboardist, Dave Henning, coaches lacrosse in the spring, and has a game every Friday night, and our regular bassist, Harald Weinkum, is on tour for the next six weeks, so our drummer Nick found another bass player, a recent Phoenix transplant named Toby Curtright, I’ve been playing keyboard, and that’s the trio. We’re at Dragonfly on Mill Ave. and 4th every Friday night, 7:00-11:00 PM.

Gigs!

benjie — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 05:40:00 +0000

I have my first regular gig in Phoenix!

Privas is me on trombone, Nick Watts on drums, Harald Weinkum on bass, and Dave Henning on keyboard. I was stressing about playing keyboard with them (see my last post), but I couldn’t make their first gig, and my sub Dave asked if he could stay. So now there are four and I get to play trombone, and I’m psyched. We’re playing every week at a Vietnamese restaurant in Tempe called Dragonfly. I posted before that it would be Thursdays, but we may be switching to Fridays. Stay tuned.