On Friday, I finally got to see a show I have been looking forwards to for quite some time. Ever since I saw Bona play for the first time, to be precise. Tonight was Richard Bona as a solo artist, not as a side man.

I had some very high expectations for this show. In some ways, things were less than I expected; in other ways, even better. The show started to a Jaco tune (Liberty City) and then went through a highlight of tunes from all three of Bona's albums. While I didn't get the whole set list (I was too busy enjoying the show), here are some of the songs he played for the set I saw:

• Kalabancoro
• Dipita
• Mike Stern's I Know You/Dina Lam/Painting A Wish (medley)
• Ekwa Mwato
• Te Misea
• Engingilaye
• Te Dikalo
• One Minute

I'm guessing about this set list; if you have corrections, please let me know.

One of the things that I really love about Bona's playing is the emotion that all of the songs are infused with — overflowing with it, truth be told. This joy was in abundance throughout the entire performance. I'm glad that I got the chance to catch Richard in a small venue; it's been a while since I've been to a show like this, and I forgotten how much fun it can be. Being that intimate with the artist allows for the audience and the performer to have very direct communication. And Bona is a consumate stage personality, interacting with the other musicians and the crowd with ease and aplomb.

There was one aspect of Bona's show that somewhat disappointed me; namely, the instrumentation of the band on hand. The band consisted of a sax player (Aaron Heick), a keyboardist (Etienne Stadwijk), a drummer (I'm sorry; I didn't catch his name and that annoys me, because I'm pretty sure that I've met him before), a hand percussionist (Samuel Torres) and Bona on bass and vocals.. I do not mean to even slightly denigrate the performances of any musician on stage; but the version of Engingilaye that I'm used to hearing (on the CD, natch) is a heavily afro-Latin kind of song, with a full throated horn section. For whatever reason (and I'm quite sure there's a good one), the tune live was played with the keys player simulating the horn section. While good, not quite as good as the real thing. A quibble, though.