Ok, so I am a week or so behind in posting this event, but it really is worth putting in the Letters From Merida Blog. The first annual Merida Music Festival took place on November 20th, 2011 at Hacienda Dzibikak. This is a “little” Hacienda outside of Uman and is just beautiful! This would be a great location to host weddings, company parties, family gatherings, or just to have a dozen bands come and play for the afternoon.
The concert was scheduled to run from 12 midday to 10pm, featuring continuous music on 2 stages from 10 acts, ranging in style from jazz to rock to trova to classical. The only problem of the day was that in Merida it tends to rain everyday at about 3pm for about an hour. Unfortunately for the music festival the rain came as most people expected, and was not just a little rain but was a torrential down pour. We were fortunate enough to have planned to arrive shortly after 4pm so we missed most of the rain but we certainly saw the after effects.
You really have to give credit to the people in charge of getting the stage back up and running for the bands and the fact that nobody got electrocuted. They did an awesome job, and the bands continued to play after a couple of hours. Many people did leave early, but somehow we stuck it out to the end to see the last band play and it was definitely worth it. They had several different sections set up for people to wander around and get beverages and food. There were two restaurants providing food and selling items for 60 pesos which was a great deal for dinner.
We had a babysitter that day as we wanted to stay and enjoy the festivities well into the evening but there were a lot of families there and the kids certainly had a great time running around the hacienda. At one point the children were so muddy that they all jumped into the huge pool which they discovered tucked in behind the hacienda. Of course they were all fully clothed! All I can say is thank God we did not have our kids there because they would have been the first in the pool!
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Band Schedule
MAIN STAGE STAGE 2
12.00 SOL SURVIVOR 45mins
12.45PM MAYDEL 45mins
1.30PM WENDY ARGUEZ 60mins
2.30PM MARICARMEN PEREZ 45mins
3.15PM LOS LASGORI 60mins
4.15PM LOS BOHEMIKOS 45mins
5.00PM GOLDEN YEARS 60mins
6.00PM FENIX QUARTET 45mins
6.45PM AMONGST EQUALS 60mins
7.45PM TABOO JAZZ 60mins
8.45PM GINA Y LOS FLIT 75mins
10.00PM CLOSING
Hi guys,
My name is James Meador, and my group Taboo Jazz performed at the festival. We were one of the last groups to play. I hope everyone that heard us enjoyed the show. It was a little rushed because of all the rain delays, etc., but we played for 25 minutes or so.
I’m trying to find a way to let expats know that we perform weekly in case anyone wants to hear live jazz, which is hard to find in Merida. We perform every Thursday night at Trotter’s restaurant on the Circuito Colonias (close to Paseo de Montejo) from 10pm – 12am, and every Friday night we perform at the boutique hotel Rosas y Chocolate located on Paseo de Montejo and Calle 41 from 10:30pm – 12:30am. Both places are excellent venues to enjoy live jazz, and both have great food and even better drinks.
We play mostly traditional jazz, like Louis Jordan, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Chet Baker, etc. to Frank Sinatra to Michael Buble.
I hope you and others will come out and see us and help spread the word that there is LIVE JAZZ in Merida!!
Thank you,
James
http://www.taboojazz.com