As part of our trip to France recently, Focal took the North American sales managers and the handful of dealers who made the trip to Vienne, home of Jazz a Vienne, one of the largest jazz festivals in the world. And it turned out the evening we went, the Grammy Award winning jazz artist, Diana Krall, was performing that evening.
Jazz a Vienne takes place at a number of venues in the city, but the main venue is an ancient amphitheater built by the Romans some 2000 years ago. When it was originally built, it held 13,000 people. Today, the Roman Theater, as it's called, holds just over 8,000 for concerts. The slope of the amphitheater and the sight of the old fortress above was just breathtaking. It could be the best venue I've ever been to for a musical concert.
Before the concert, Focal hosted the North Americans to a V.I.P. party at the old university near the Roman Theater. It was called "Jazz en Vignes" (Jazz and Wine) and featured a winery from the rich Rhone Valley wine making region. They served white and red wines along with hors d oveurs for about an hour and a half before the concert. It was set in the courtyard of the school and it was a pretty cool deal.
Now, a lot of people were asking me what this V.I.P. party was all about. Honestly, I didn't know much about it, but I sort of wondered if this was going to be a meet and great with Diana Krall. I wasn't all that certain as to what the party would entail, even up until the time we got there. However, there was another group sharing the party area with us that evening and one of the ladies in the group looked strikingly like Diana Krall. So, I'm standing at a table with one of my colleagues, Chris, and a couple of the dealers and I said, "Oh, so Diana Krall DID show up for this thing."
The guys turned their heads and looked at the lady. One of them said, "That's not Diana Krall."
I said, "Bullshit! That's her, all right. This is a meet and greet before her show. That's how much pull Focal has with this jazz festival."
I was pulling their leg, for sure, but for a moment I had those guys and a few others believing it was Diana Krall. This lady looked very much like her.
But then I noticed that a LOT of ladies in the crowd that evening looked like Diana Krall. I don't know if it was just coincidence, or if they were purposely trying to capture her look. It was pretty uncanny.
Our seats at the ancient Roman Theater were a bit off to the side and Diana Krall would have her back to us. Still, they were good seats. And the P.A. system was manufactured by a French company called L'Acoustics. It turns out that Focal makes the speaker drivers for L'Acoustics' P.A. system. Some of the same components that go into some of Focal's higher end home loudspeakers are part of the L'Acoustics P.A.
Even though Diana Krall would have her back to us for the performance, we had a large monitor right next to us to be able to watch her facial expressions as she played the piano and sang. It actually worked out pretty well as we could catch the action live on stage or on the huge monitor not more than 30 feet away.
I wouldn't say I was a huge Diana Krall fan, but I do enjoy her work. And I think she has genuine fun playing her music along with her back up musicians. There was a lot of smiling on stage when she was playing. I love it when musicians look like they're truly having fun playing music than some of the more serious or angry looks some performers will give during a show.
But the highlight of the show had to be the venue. It was a beautiful night in France, low humidity, light wind, not a cloud in the sky. The sun sets late there so it was still a beautiful sun lit evening well up to 10:30 p.m. The seats at the Roman Theater are the original stone seats, so Focal provided us seating pads for the evening. Those things certainly came in handy because there would have been no way I would have been able to sit there for the nearly three and a half hours we were there. I just found myself staring up at the crowd and taking in the majestic beauty of the ancient amphitheater. I'm in still in awe of the process the Romans went through to build the place 2000 years ago.
Opening for Diana Krall was Avishai Cohen, a world-renown jazz bass player who was the bass player for Chick Corea's jazz trio and who has accompanied the likes of Herbie Hancock and Bobby McFerrin. Accompanying Cohen this even was the 21-year-old piano prodigy Shai Maestro. Cohen played his upright bass with such energy and conviction that he had the crowd on its feet at the end of his performance. Many of the songs they played that evening were from Cohen's recently released album, "Gently Disturbed". I really liked the free form nature of his music and his passionate playing helped draw me into the music.
Sometimes I bitch and moan about my job - the travel, the long hours, the politics involved. But a night like this certainly makes me put a different perspective on my job. We were treated wonderfully, it was a superb evening, the venue was awesome and the music was great. I turned to my colleague, John, during the performance and said, "It certainly doesn't suck to be us this evening..."
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