Blues dancing at the Wayland in New York's East Village

Every second and fourth Monday of the month, Peter and the Master Keys performs at the Wayland in the East Village of New York. On these nights I perform with a quartet rather than the sextet and have different guests with me all the time. Sometimes I'm featuring a great guitarist and other times one of my favorite organists.  It's also an opportunity to workshop new songs like some of the Ray Charles songs I've been working on.  Tonight, I'll be playing with some old friends: Erik Blicker- an amazing guitarist as well as engineer and entrepreneur; Nicholas Myers- a fantastic jazz and blues tenor sax man; and Alex Raderman- one of New York's most in-demand drummers.

Jazz, Blues & Dancing at a Wedding on Long Island

Sometimes you know that a wedding reception is going to be a lot of fun from the moment you walk in the door with your upright bass and band in tow. Last night was one of those nights. As soon as we got there, we were welcomed warmly by the father of the bride, who was setting up the PA for us, and immediately we were invited to sample the locally catered barbecue, which was delicious.

We began by playing a jazz standard as people entered the reception hall, thinking that we would save the dance music for later - but the guests had a different idea. They started the dance party right then and there. Maybe the extended cocktail hour had something to do with it. Nonetheless, we got off to a great start, and the night took off from there.