Im on vacation in Las Vegas, a town without music. Music as art, anyway. In a sense, its everywhere , but its canned music as wallpaper, or shows where personality is the least valued part of music. One of the weeklies wondered if Santana will work as a Vegas act because of his relative unpredictability.

So far, the only idiosyncratic music Ive heard was at Battistas, where dinner was secondary to the atmosphere. The food was mediocre – sweet house wine, sweeter espresso – but the photos of Jerry Lewis, Connie Stevens and Bill Cosby on the wall were fine compensation. The accordion player working the room found out we were from New Orleans and played the best version of Saints Ive heard in years, playing a bouncy rhythm while dispensing almost entirely with the melody and some of the words. It was all personality, and it was weirdly brilliant.