Some of these stories I can only tell a long time after the project I was working on is over. Well, this project ended in August sometime, and the company we were looking at decided not to work with our client, a multilateral development bank, so I guess I can tell this story. Most of you don’t know this, but I used to play alto saxophone in high school, and sometimes the music bug bites me and I get lyrical.
So one night in Kharkhiv last May, we were at a totally atrocious restaurant: me, Maria A., Nick Lokot, and Kyriakos (from Cyprus), trying to decipher the menu, which was absurdly thick and horribly expensive. Around 22:00, the place was empty, and this jazz trio started setting up on our floor. Maria and Nick got tired, went back to the hotel, leaving Kyriakos and me all alone on the third floor, vodkas in hand, and this INCREDIBLE band who could literally play anything you asked for. The lead singer was Leyla (from Armenia), the saxophonist was also from Armenia, and the bass player was Iranian (if I remember things correctly).
We had a blast. They could play all the things we were playing in Jaffe's jazz/blues band junior and senior year of high school: Sunny, Mercy Mercy Mercy, Watermelon Man, Obla Di Obla Da, Take Five, When the Saints go Marching In... it was a real trip down memory lane.
We closed that place down: they invited us to another restaurant they were playing at the following day. Well, it was near the end of the project, the place was empty (again), and the later it got, the more I asked myself what I had to lose. No, I didn't borrow the sax, but I did make a special request, stepped up to the mike, and ...
Fly me to the moon and let me sing among the stars...
Not karaoke: Real live music. Wow. There's life after consulting!
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