CAFE IMPROV in Princeton NJ

This past Saturday evening, I was lucky enough to have my good buddy Anthony "FAST ANT" Canulli ask me to accompany him on stage at CAFE IMPROV.

For those of you that are not familiar with this venue; you need to be...and soon. Every fourth Saturday of each month, John Irving and his fine crew put on a televised program from the Paul Robeson Center (located at 102 Witherspoon St.) that is unique and very entertaining.

Upon my arrival, I was interested to see a poetry reading taking place. I was a bit taken aback by the prop (an inflatable mallet), but I stuck it out and was glad that I wasn't the intended recipient of the message. That being said, the amazing JO WYMER was next on stage. Jo wowed the audience with a mixture of soulful blues and jazzy type numbers that drew great applause.

Now I'm going to confess, I was a bit contemplative; at one point I leaned over to Anthony and asked if the theater was going to be able to handle us? Up until this point, with the JO WYMER exception, things were kind of mellow. Please understand, this was not a poor quality show by any stretch...just very different. The quality of all of the performers was first rate, as I found out later in the evening. I was just curious as to whether or not we would "fit in."

"FAST ANT" hit the stage opening up with an original instrumental which "led" into his version of the Zeppelin classic "Black Dog." Next, he called me up on stage to do several more of his originals; all of which were straight forward rockers.

These tunes seemed to ignite the crowd as well as the emcee Tom Florek. "Putting the Improv in Cafe Improv," he took the stage and invited two sax players and three female vocalists up as he jumped behind the piano. I believe the exact quote was "Anthony play something"... so we ripped into a rockin' version of "Gloria." This got the crowd up and into things, and also prompted JO WYMER and JERRY PASSION to come on up as well. This got the party started and we rocked out next with Lou Reed's "Take A Walk On The Wild Side" and ended the night with Stevie Wonders "Superstition."

The sax players were amazingly talented, the vocals of JO WYMER and her three female accomplices were Top-Notch and over all it was a great night of ROCK 'N' ROLL.

Check out CAFE IMPROVE at http://www.cafeimprov.com/