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What live music are you going to see tonight?


mikeweil

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saw keith jarrett trio last night, had the best seat in the house, front box on keiths side of stage, 2nd level, so enough height to see single thing jack was doing on each drum including snare, and stull being right behind jarrett, and could see all of gary peacock. keith only freaked out on select individuals, and did not piss off the entire audience. but im telling you, with what he does, hes -asking- for it.....a little baby made a baby noise or somethin like that right at the start and he turned around and said: "i should tell you ive never played the muppet show"....he must be freaking out more and more cause 8 years ago and then before that 9 or 10 yrs ago i dont recall him communicating at all with words w/ the aud.-- they just played.----

they did a funky version of the pop-jazz tune 'fever' which i thought was an odd choice for this particular band, kind of out in left field, but i liked it! dont have really much to go on and on about regarding the rest of music, but it was good

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Saw Stephen Stills at the Birchmere tonite. Left after the first set. All around not good -- vocals and guitar playing. He needs to call it a day.

That's a shame, he's one of my favorites. I saw him in the late 80's and he was fantastic, though granted ALOT of time has passed since then.

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9:00PM at Elastic, 2830 N Milwaukee, 2nd Fl, 773.772.3616 ($15)

6th Annual Umbrella Music Festival

Nick Mazzarella Trio, with Anton Hatwich, Frank Rosaly

John Butcher Solo

Tim Berne Trio, with Devin Hoff, Ches Smith

One of the things I envy Chicagoans (I lived there for 14 yeas BTW), is the Umbrella Festival. There have been some darn good line-ups. Butcher did 3 great nights at the High Zero Festival in Baltimore last month.

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9:00PM at Elastic, 2830 N Milwaukee, 2nd Fl, 773.772.3616 ($15)

6th Annual Umbrella Music Festival

Nick Mazzarella Trio, with Anton Hatwich, Frank Rosaly

John Butcher Solo

Tim Berne Trio, with Devin Hoff, Ches Smith

Mazzarella was on fire, has taken the biggest step forward in the shorrtest span of time of any player I think I've ever encountered. Suddenly there's implied space and time around every note, whereas before that was much less the case -- and all of this now is language, takling to us and itself. Wow.

Butcher has great instrumental gifts but does it amount over time to more than a string of effects? Sometimes it did IMO, mostly it didn't. Berne I left part way through -- in part because I was tired, in part because he seemed to be trudging

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Heard Hal Galper's Trio last night in downtown Detroit. Fantastic -- very free and full of surprise, though the band is still fundamentally playing tunes with strong harmonies ("Alice in Wonderland," "Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry," old "Milestones," Hal's originals, etc. It's Hal's rubato concept. There's time and pulse but it's super loose rhythmically, all three players swirling around an amorphous but definite groove. Everyone once in a while they fall into straight time but not often. Hal, Jeff Johnson and John Bishop have been playing this way for years and they breathe as one. They're playing the the Showcase in Chicago on Monday and Tuesday and I'd highly recommend it. I wrote this short critic's pick a few days ago:

http://www.freep.com/article/20111103/COL17/111030346/Pianist-Hal-Galper-brings-his-trio-Carr-Cultural-Arts-Center

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Last night at the Hungry Brain, final night of the Umberlla Fest, Matt Wilson solo (IMO he's the Elmer Fudd of the drums, utterly square) and the Mary Halvorson Quintet, with trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson, altoist Jon Irabagon, a bassist whose name I can't recall, and drummer Ches Smith. Halvorson was fine, Finlayson has a nanny-goat tone, nor was anyone else in the band much to my taste -- their playing rather New York athletic, "Is it my turn in the spotlight now?" which didn't fit Halvorson's compositions.

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Was there a helpful lady in the audience to suggest who should play now? :g

BTW, even though I thought the logic of what was actually happening onstage supported my sense that she was chastising the Lithuanian soprano saxist for playing too much and not giving Boykin a chance (though I chalk up what was happening to that point to Boykin's diffidence, not to any piggishness on the Lithuanian player's part), I've since found out that the off-the-wall lady was a Lithuanian fan of the very good soprano saxist, and thus she may have wanted Boykin to not play at all. Weird.

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Last night at the Hungry Brain, final night of the Umberlla Fest, Matt Wilson solo (IMO he's the Elmer Fudd of the drums, utterly square) and the Mary Halvorson Quintet, with trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson, altoist Jon Irabagon, a bassist whose name I can't recall, and drummer Ches Smith. Halvorson was fine, Finlayson has a nanny-goat tone, nor was anyone else in the band much to my taste -- their playing rather New York athletic, "Is it my turn in the spotlight now?" which didn't fit Halvorson's compositions.

Finlayson is ho-hum for me, but Irabagon positively puts me off. I like Ches Smith's album but have not seen him live. I think Halvorson's music was very well-served in "Cracklenob" with Radding and Wooley. The group above sounds like one one of the constantly mutable arrangements of NY players.

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little trip ahead next week...

Monday Nov. 14 - Sex Mob (in Cologne, with Niko! :excited: )

Wednesday Nov. 16 - Henry Threadgill (at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam)

Friday Nov. 18 - Craig Taborn Trio (again in Cologne)

Then there's Bill Frisell's 858 group coming to Zurich Monday Nov. 21 (not sure I'll go but I had a weird dream [not a wet one, mind you] about Jenny Scheinman recently, so...)

And at the end of November, there'll be some great stuff at this year's Unerhört festival - planning to catch:

Friday Nov. 25 - Christoph Grab, Co Streiff/Russ Johnson/Gerry Hemingway, Lake-Weber-Ulrich feat. Nils Wogram

As for Ingrid Laubrock, her Octet will appear in Zurich Dec. 10 and I plan to attend - missed her previous appearances, alas. On Mar. 7, The Nu Band will ply, and on Mar. 22, I'll get to hear chapter 2 of Matana Roberts' "Coin Coin" project, titled "Mississippi Moonchile"... quite exctiting times ahead!

Last live concert I saw was George Gruntz' Concert Jazz Band, in a small club, me first row... amazing! The band included Dave Bargeron, Larry Schneider, Gary Smulyan, Luciano Biondini and many others. Was half deaf in the end, but there's nothing like a great big band!

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Going to see something tonight that FreeForAll will appreciate.

SFJazz members event:

Robin Eubanks

Listening Party

The Trombone In Jazz History

Robin Eubanks has achieved a triple-crown reputation as a master performer (trombonist for the SFJAZZ Collective, Dave Holland), arranger (McCoy Tyner Big Band, Mingus Big Band) and educator. Robin will be playing recordings and sharing his insights on some of the legends of the trombone, including Kid Ory, J.J. Johnson, Slide Hampton, and Curtis Fuller.

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Saw Bassekou Kouyate and his band Ngoni Ba in Vancouver last night. Almost sure I saw them one time a while back. Last year they were coming through Chicago but something came up and the gig was canceled. Definitely a great group to see live, though I have to admit it took them a while to really get the crowd going after the intermission. Still the closing number was ace! Probably should have stuck around for the encore, but I was way out in Kitsilano and the trains and buses really start slowing down around 10:30.

Thinking back over the last 5 years, it really is amazing how many great African bands I've gotten to see live -- Toumani Diabate is probably still the top, then Tinariwen (twice), then perhaps a tie between Konono #1 and Ngoni Ba. And a bunch of other great concerts. I have to be honest, if it came down to a world music concert and a jazz concert, I would probably go with the world music if it was an African group -- you can always count on a strong rhythmic component (even if it doesn't swing in 4/4).

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