11 - Istanbul - Hitoko Ono, Jan Pavelka, Aaron Goldsmith - "St Louis Blues"
Channel: FlipFlop Caravan
Date: 2020-03-25

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Third floor, a run-down building on a busy Istanbul street. We entered Hitoko's room and to our surprise, we got greeted with a smile from a man lying on the floor - Aaron Goldsmith - a double bass player from the USA, currently performing in Istanbul. Whilst his father, a cancer survivor on his bucket-list journey quest, was chilling on the bed. With a short cigarette discussion and an appropriate hiatus intended for the smoke to disappear, our plan to record at the harbour in Kadıköy was finally made. To our great pleasure, Jan Pavelka, a Czech trumpet player gigging in Istanbul for the last 6 years, came along to our improvised performance group. And so our team was made: Hitoko, the Japanese accordion player, Jan, the Czech trumpet player and John the American double bass master - a true cosmopolitan band combining their skills on the streets of Istanbul.
We set off to busy streets filled with Fenerbahçe football fans carrying the double bass in our hands while using it as a shield against the crazy hooligan shoutings.

Our stage - the harbour was packed and we were ready to perform. After the first rhythms of the band, more people joined the show. Everybody was enjoying the unique setting. After one song Aaron had to hurry to catch a ferry across the Bosphorus channel where he was gonna play a song in live radio session for its 10th anniversary. The rest of us were quickly dispersed by local police patrol to a resentment of the excited crowd. And that was the end of our cosmopolitan ephemeral band! 🐸

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