NYR #35: Enjoy the awesome jazz concerts at Café Central

Madrid is a city of cafes. Madrileñans love their coffee and their beer, and they partake of these two beverages at a bar/cafe. Cafe Central is one of those awesome stereotypical Madrileñan cafes, but from 10-midnight every night, it transforms into a wonderful music venue, and 10-15€ gets you a seat to some top quality jazz performances.

Yesterday, because I'd been having kind of a rough week, a friend suggested that we go listen to the jazz at Cafe Central and cross another item off my list. And this band (a trio of a double-bass, piano and drums) was fantastic. They started off with an instrumental piece, and then introduced the female singer who would accompany them for the rest of the set.

And although I generally think of jazz as a purely American phenomenon, this group played several Spanish songs--from Mexico and the Caribbean--and they were delightful.

After about 5 songs, the leader of the group (seen below resting on his bass), told the audience: we're going to take a 10 or 15 minute break, so we'll be back in about half an hour. It's the Spanish thing to do.

I was starving, so we ducked out at this moment, but I will so very willingly go back, because the atmosphere is tons of fun and the music was so very amazing.