Situated on the sixth floor of the Time Warner Center on Manhattan’s Upper Wide Side, lies arguably the city’s best kept secret of a music venue – Jazz At Lincoln Center’s Allen Room – a venue which typically caters to a more affluent audience, than its downtown rock club peers. Set up like an amphitheater, it boasts easily the most amazing views you’re ever going to get at a concert hall in an urban environment with its gigantic floor to ceiling glass windows, that directly overlooks the passing traffic going around Columbus Circle and a stretch of 59th Street that you can see clear all the way to the East Side.
Last night, the Allen Room played host to the kick off concert for Lincoln Center’s thirteenth season of its American Songbook Series, with a show from folk-rockers The Low Anthem. Dressed liked they had just stepped straight out of Greenwich Village’s pass-the-hat folk circuit circa-1964, and surrounded by a mix of both familiar and slightly obscure, and long forgotten instruments, which included a gigantic church organ they had specially brought in just for this show, graciously paid for by the folks at Lincoln Center. The band took to the stage to a mesmerizing view of glowing head and tail lights, and flickering lights from the posh apartments that surround Central Park West.
The Providence-based act, fresh off their second appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman the night before, used nearly all of their hour and a half-long set to showcase the songs from their upcoming studio album Smart Flesh, which is due out on February 22. Ben Knox Miller & company set the tone for the night by opening with the hushed To The Ghosts Who Write History Books from their critically acclaimed sophomore album Oh My God Charlie Darwin
READ ON for more on The Low Anthem’s show…
All Photos by Dave Vann
Outside of the music, do you know what the best part of Jam Cruise 9 was? The people. Imagine a boat filled to the brim with cruisers who have similar interests to you. Each day, I would strike up a conversation with someone I never met before in the elevator, at the cafeteria or in the halls and minutes later we would depart as friends after having talked about the New Year’s Eve Phish show or after finding out that we shared some friends.
[All Photos by Dave Vann]
There were plenty of people I met last year that I kept in touch with all year long via email or Facebook and it was such a thrill to reconnect with some of these folks on Jam Cruise 9. Not to mention, I met dozens of people this time around that I know I’ll be friends with forever. Hell, I even met three or four potential new Hidden Track contributors during my time on the Poesia.
With that said, I want to share a photo gallery featuring the true stars of Jam Cruise 9 – the people. Photographer Dave Vann has graciously allowed us to run some of his photos from the five-day adventure. Head down to the bottom of this post if you want to shuffle through a slide show of pics as I’ll be offering some commentary on indiviual photos before finishing with a complete gallery.
Just before we left the Jam Cruise staff met to make sure all ran smoothly…
READ ON for more of Dave’s spectacular Jam Cruisers shots…
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