Sade in concert in San Jose. All concert photos Copyright © 2011 Alexander Chow-Stuart. On Thursday evening, we saw our longtime friend Andrew Hale perform with Sade at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, in one of the most beautifully conceived and produced concert performances I have ever seen. Sade is a rare musician, in that she and the band only write, record and tour every eight to ten years, so that in a very real sense you can measure your life by her. The band's music is always fresh and always newly conceived - for their previous album, Lovers Rock , they stripped everything down musically to a minimalist sound and banished the saxophone that had been so much a part of Sade's heavily soul- and jazz-influenced style. The latest album, Soldier of Love , released in 2010, is one of the most tender, moving collections of songs yet, from the astonishingly beautiful Morning Bird , which features exquisite keyboards from Andrew, to the soulful, retro, r...
Thanks Alexander. The hotel actually deserves to be much better known. It was owned by the Moroccan railways and was thus a sister hotel to the Mamounia in Marrakech. In some ways it's better than the Mamounia. The Jamai retains the old palace, rooms in which range from the opulent to the charming. The building's owners have a fascinating history, too. Two brothers, one of whom rose to become Grand Vizier, built the palace. After a predictable fall from grace they were incarcerated in the dungeons of the kasbah at Chefchaouen. Forgotten about for years and manacled to each other, one brother passed away in a hot summer. Too intimidated to release the corpse, the jailer sent to Rabat for permission, and by the time the messenger returned the surviving brother was manacled to a putrid corpse. He was released by the appalled Sultan and installed in a villa in Tanger, where a masseur visited him morning and evening to massage his previously chained wrists and ankles. At least, that's the myth.
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