Nίκος Ξυδάκης

Περιγραφή στα Αγγλικά

A laouto tunes against a piano still warming up, and from the tight semicircle of tables at Half Note Jazz Club you can watch Nikos Xydakis trade glances with his players before the first song resolves.

Xydakis — born in Cairo in 1952, one of the composers who reshaped Greek entechno through the 1987 album Konta sti Doxa mia Stigmi with Eleftheria Arvanitaki — holds two nights at the Mets club this April. The core band pairs Alexandros Kapsokavadhis (guitar, laouto) and Dimitris Sitos (piano, contrabass) with Despina Spanou on cello and Fotis Mylonas on flute and clarinet, and rotating guests bring kanun, lyra, and saxophone.

The programme moves from set songs into settings of poetry, then into improvisation and quieter confessional passages.

Reservations are essential, and the house releases unclaimed seats fifteen minutes after the downbeat — arrive twenty minutes early or lose the table.

If you prefer a loud room with easy exits, the table layout here commits you to the set. But if you want to watch Xydakis's hands on a piano from four metres away, this April residency is the chance.