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This past week was my Mother’s 75th birthday (and incidentally, my own 43rd). We celebrated in fine style: my brother’s and I taking her via stretch limo to New York City for a fine dinner at Ben Benson’s on 52nd Street and then on down to the Village Vanguard to see her very favorite jazz pianist, Bill Charlap, and his trio.

The ride down from Connecticut was better than it could have been had one of us been required to drive. With the limo, we were able to kick back, have a few drinks, listen to some Charlap and Bill Evans, and watch the glimmering Manhattan skyline reveal itself all around us.

Ben Benson’s was, in a word, fabulous. All heads turned at the sight of my mother dressed in her casual finery and followed by her four sharply dressed sons. We all had different cuts of steak, but each was cooked to perfection. Continuing my ongoing quest for the perfect crab cake, we ordered and taste-tested their offering. (In my humble estimation, their’s was a very, very close second only to the Four Seasons in Boston.) With the fine food we enjoyed a 2003 CakeBread Cabernet and a 2002 Schafer Cabernet (their last bottle). At the finish, they brought us the most remarkable cheese cake drizzled with chocolate and surrounded by berries.

We then cabbed down to the Vanguard. It was great to be screaming down Seventh Avenue on a Saturday night with our Borat-like driver careening through people and traffic. (I felt like a real bumpkin hanging out the window snapping photos with my cell phone camera.) At the Vanguard we got our seats and ordered some beers, taking in some old familiar jazz-club smells. My mother and I walked around the room picking out the people in the photos covering the walls: Miles, Dizzy, Mingus, Bill Evans, Thad Jones & Mel Lewis, Clark Terry, Charlie Hayden, Betty Carter (Coltrane was well represented with three visible photos). Just amazing, all the history and great music that happened here over so many years. (We joked with our older, sports-addicted brother that this for us (my mother and I) was like going to Wrigley Field for him.) The show was excellent (the drummer was a little loud), and was over in about hour. Throughout, you could see my mother’s ears pricked up, her held tilted toward the music, nodding and bobbing with the rhythm. Mr. Charlap himself even wished mom a happy birthday when she went to meet him after the show.

The next morning, the entire family gathered (grand kids and all) at the Redding Country Club for a wonderful brunch complete with giant happy birthday carrot cake. In evidence from the photos above, the little ones actually were quiet and eating for all of twenty minutes, which gave us time to quaff some coffee and bloody marys and gobble up a good plate of delicious food.

I know that for all of us family it was a wonderful weekend; I think for my mother it was something truly unforgettable.