On Sunday, June 2nd, the Community Music Hangout gathered for the 59th edition of the Hang. Although the day dawned with thick, low fog, by 11am it had burned off and left beautiful blue skies in its wake. The day was breezy but lovely, with the marine layer reappearing just as we packed it in for the day. To get started, Rikki and I wheeled up to the piano and got everything set up. Soon, a new friend named Eric came by and shared a lovely improvised piece on the subject of gratitude. We were feeling pretty grateful ourselves! Thank you, Eric, for sharing that tune with us and for singing along. Then, Brian biked up to join us as he so often does. Great singing all day, Brian! And, Joe biked up with his cajon to add a bit of rhythm to the proceedings. And, just like that, we had a nice little quorum and were off and running. Next up, Andy biked up with his flute and alto sax. I think I met Andy on the first or second music hangout back in fall 2022. It’s really fun have these long-running musical relationships start at the Hangout. Great to see Andy again and great playing! Check out the video below to see Andy, Brian, Joe and I playing Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic.”
A little while later, Alex was back at the piano. Great to see you, bud! Alex and Brian stayed right through to the end of the day, which is never mandatory but always appreciated. And then we had a special moment! Rikki took the mic for her first ever solo performance! Rikki started taking vocal lessons because of the music hangout. She wanted to gain confidence with her singing so that she could take the mic one day at the Hangout. And she did exactly that. I’m very proud of her for putting in that work and for taking the bold leap to perform “Make You Feel My Love” by Adele. It was wonderful. Thanks go to Alex for the accompaniment. Next up, we saw Lilah the Destroyah back at the piano. Great to see you again! Lovely playing. Thank you as well for not ruthlessly destroying any more binders. Well, it had been a quiet sort of day to this point in terms of the size of the audience and the number of participants. So, around 3 pm, we were just starting to pack up. And that’s way on the earlier side for us. But there wasn’t much energy around to harness. But then, Nick showed up! Nick has been a stalwart participant in the Hangout for many months. And, plus, he’s moving to LA basically as I write this entry. It would be his last day at the Hangout for a while. That being the case, we had to turn the speaker back on and get things rolling again! And, wouldn’t you know it, it was in that unexpected final act where we found the energy we had been looking for all day! Soon, we saw Aidan and they shared a lovely tune with us. We haven’t seen Aidan at the Hangout in many months, so it was great to see them again. Then, my constant quest to pull in new players / singers led to Chloe singing a number of tunes with us. Fabulous singing, thank you for sharing your voice with the Hangout! Last, but never least, we saw Mateo with his sax. Always a treat to see him, and he sounds better and better each time we do. And always looking stylish! It was just about 4 pm by the time we packed it in for CMH #59. We logged another 4.5 hours of communal musical good times. What a great way to spend an afternoon! Thanks, as always, to everyone who made the Hangout a part of their day. You guys put the C in CMH! We’ll see you next time for CMH #60 on Sunday, June 9th starting at 11:30 at the usual place. See you there.