We almost skipped this performance, tired after a long work week, but I’m glad we didn’t. There’s something moving about the sense of potential in a student performance like this. There was no show business, no attention really at all to presentation, just six mismatched kids with their instruments on a stage. They launch into some tough 60’s bop tunes, half of them learned by ear. It’s not a flawless performance, but each musician delivers some real gems. The joints are loose but the jalopy hangs together and picks up speed. I imagine these guys in a few years, coming into their own, exuding self-confidence, filling a room with wild improvisational energy like the musicians I saw at a jazz cafe in Amsterdam a few years back.