What live music are you going to see tonight?

[EKE BBB]

On Friday, at the CMU San Juan Evangelista:

-Tri-ez (Agustín Fernández (p); Baldo Martínez (b); Ramón López (d))

On Saturday, double program at the Centro Cultural de la Villa:

-Gilson Peranzetta (p)

-Lee Konitz New Nonet

[ASNL77]

I went to see Sonny Rollins last night at the Barbican Centre in London. I had never had the chance to see Sonny before and it was well worth the money. The man is still on top of things. Superb play. Nice to see him in great form with his sound intact. Bob Cranshaw was on the bass, Jeremy Jennings on drums , Anderson on the trombone. Guitar and percussions to complete the line-up. I can't believe the man is 77.

[sidewinder]

Glad to hear it went well. I'm dead jelous, of course.

[king ubu]

This was what I caught yesterday:

Oliver Lake – Christian Weber – Dieter Ulrich

Oliver Lake alto-, sopranino saxophones | Christian Weber bass

Dieter Ulrich drums

Very good - Lake (sticking to alto btw) was excellent in this setting. Weber is a young(ish) local bass player who's up and coming (disc out on hatOLOGY, for instance, very active here), and Ulrich is an older local guy, also pretty active. It was fun to see the three play sort of old-fashioned 60s-ish free jazz, sometimes with changes, sometimes with some kind of fixed beat, sometimes with none of that... Ulrich was fun, even more so compared to the too restrained/controlled Lucas Niggli from the night before... very lose and pretty light drumming, though in the tradition of Elvin and the other great ones. Weber has a beautiful sound on bass and lots of good ideas. And Lake convinced me even more than last night... I'm not a fan yet but this was a mighty fine gig from him. They started out with a tune that I think was by Steve Lacy, but I'm not quite sure.

Reggie Workman Solo

Reggie Workman bass

Then Workman for a half-hour bass solo, which he announced as "Sketch". Pretty nice, more great double bass sound, and of course it was a joy to watch this master (he was low in the mix during the Trio 3/Schweizer set on Saturday, so it was even better to really hear him this time). He mostly played traditional, jazzy stuff, but in between did some percussive things and some unconventional stuff, also bowing some. Nothing earth-shattering, but it was good.

Brötzmann – Pliakas – Wertmüller

Peter Brötzmann saxophon, clarinet | Marino Pliakas e-bass

Michael Wertmüller drums

Then to top things off, this earth-shaking band... Brötz on tenor (beginning & encore), alto (most of the time in between) and clarinet (for just one "track"), he was in his loudest mode, what with this earth-shattering band (they even managed to kill a beer glass standing next to me and my friend... the vibrations made it fall off a table and break in hundred pieces...). Wertmüller was astonishing... definitely not from any jazz drumming tradition, rather influenced I assume by hard rock or heavy metal. And Pliakas is playing very fast stuff that you can't actually hear, just feel, paired with Wertmüller's speedy bass drum. Pretty extreme! And on top of that add Brötz in his screaming mode... on alto, he really did hurt the ears... I'm not sure what this was, nor if it was anything much... but it was definitely an experience!

Somehow it all felt very static to me, the only big difference being in some rather beautiful alto sax solo passages, or some slow build-ups by Wertmüller with Pliakas laying out. Other than that, nuance and development is not part of this music...

[Clunky]

end of last week, William Parker and Billy Bang ( their onlly UK date) in an exhilarating set , both were magnificent to say the least, free as you like but swung like hell, loved every minute of it. These two of course go back a fair bit.

[EKE BBB]

Brötzmann – Pliakas – Wertmüller

Peter Brötzmann saxophon, clarinet | Marino Pliakas e-bass

Michael Wertmüller drums

Then to top things off, this earth-shaking band... Brötz on tenor (beginning & encore), alto (most of the time in between) and clarinet (for just one "track"), he was in his loudest mode, what with this earth-shattering band (they even managed to kill a beer glass standing next to me and my friend... the vibrations made it fall off a table and break in hundred pieces...). Wertmüller was astonishing... definitely not from any jazz drumming tradition, rather influenced I assume by hard rock or heavy metal. And Pliakas is playing very fast stuff that you can't actually hear, just feel, paired with Wertmüller's speedy bass drum. Pretty extreme! And on top of that add Brötz in his screaming mode... on alto, he really did hurt the ears... I'm not sure what this was, nor if it was anything much... but it was definitely an experience!

Somehow it all felt very static to me, the only big difference being in some rather beautiful alto sax solo passages, or some slow build-ups by Wertmüller with Pliakas laying out. Other than that, nuance and development is not part of this music...

Caught this Full Blast Trio ten days ago, at the CMU San Juan Evangelista.

IMHO it was disgustingly noisy, boring & uncouth, to say the least. Wertmüller sounded like a German metal drummer, absolutely repetitive and without any idea or sublety (maybe this is his role in this trio). As for Brötmann, without being any expert at all, I have heard several other projects and this is the worst I've heard from him ever. He played four tunes here (tarogato, tenor, metal B flat clarinet and alto) and one encore (alto). He sounded like the same noise the whole 75 minutes. I gotta recognize, though, that I have NEVER heard THAT huge stream of sound coming from a tenor saxophone. It was absolutely impressive (I was at the second row and almost could "touch" that sound... and feel the entrails coming out of the horn).

Just my two cents.

[king ubu]

I can understand that reaction, EKE - mine was somewhat similar... though I've known Wertmüller and find him pretty impressive! (I knew what to expect...) Brötz played tenor / alto / alto / clarinet (as far as I could see a normal wooden b flat one, but he played so loud, it could have been a metal one) / tenor (encore).

Anyway, the simple wall of sound was amazing by itself... but as I said, I'm not quite sure how much there is about it... it's music that sort of stands still, it's not developping, rather just a state ("estado" or "estado actual"?) that you stay in while listening, a space (or rather lack of?) that the musicians create, and that you can or cannot stay in... (some people left last night, of course... some just dislocated to the corner that was the farthest from the stage... some went out and came back in...) - it's like it could just go on forever, once it's established... I think it's not necessarily to be judged by common criteria...

[ASNL77]

Glad to hear it went well. I'm dead jelous, of course.

Really a great performance by Sonny on Saturday. Pleasantly surprised with the acoustics although the guitar sounded a bit lost. How was Charles Tolliver? This was also on my list but I couldn't make it? Was that big band stuff? Did he play the tunes on the album that has just been released? The Charles Tolliver Select is a must have in my opinion.

[sidewinder]

Glad to hear it went well. I'm dead jelous, of course.

Really a great performance by Sonny on Saturday. Pleasantly surprised with the acoustics although the guitar sounded a bit lost. How was Charles Tolliver? This was also on my list but I couldn't make it? Was that big band stuff? Did he play the tunes on the album that has just been released? The Charles Tolliver Select is a must have in my opinion.

Yes, the Charles Tolliver was by his US Big Band playing mainly material from the new album. They were an absolute powerhouse - some of the tracks can be heard on latest 'Jazz On 3' at the BBC site. I thought the acoustics in person was better than the BBC managed to get on this recording - was sat right in front of Billy Harper and Howard Johnson on the right hand side so got the full-on sound of this marvellous sax front line. Billy Harper was on fantastic form - his first solo was particularly good (on 'On The Nile'). Toliver too played a reasonable amount of his distinctive solo trumpet - was playing with better lip, in fact, than on the Blue Note/Mosaic disk. He's also a very 'involved' and enthusiastic conductor of the band, with a fantastic sense of timing. Reminded me a lot in that respect of Gerald Wilson.

Fellow O-board member David Weiss by the way was in the trumpet section and nicely featured in at least one solo spot.

One of the nicest things about the concert was hearing bass player Reggie Johnson (sounded great in tandem with Kirk Lightsey). I was pondering who this great bassist was for a while as he sounded so familiar but then I recognised the sound from Bobby Hutcherson Blue Note sessions such as 'Medina' and realised to my delight who it was.

Edited November 26, 2007 by sidewinder

[ASNL77]

Thanks. Glad to hear that was a success. I really dig that album.

[sheldonm]

Roy Hargrove @ the Dakota in Minneapolis.

[king ubu]

I had typed up a long post about last night's concerts at the Unerhört Festival, it got lost after I hit "add reply", effin' sucks! I don't feel like typing up all the b-s again, it's such a pain to tranlate all of these adjectives and stuff about music into merikan, suffice it to repeat from the lost post that Trio 3 & Irene Schweizer definitely were da shit, as they say!

So I'm reconsidering my opinion on Oliver Lake, even though again he failed to convince me completely... he's certainly serious about what he's doing, that I'd never deny, but still, as an instrumentalist, he fails to really blow me away.

This was what I caught yesterday:

Oliver Lake – Christian Weber – Dieter Ulrich

Oliver Lake alto-, sopranino saxophones | Christian Weber bass

Dieter Ulrich drums

Very good - Lake (sticking to alto btw) was excellent in this setting. Weber is a young(ish) local bass player who's up and coming (disc out on hatOLOGY, for instance, very active here), and Ulrich is an older local guy, also pretty active. It was fun to see the three play sort of old-fashioned 60s-ish free jazz, sometimes with changes, sometimes with some kind of fixed beat, sometimes with none of that... Ulrich was fun, even more so compared to the too restrained/controlled Lucas Niggli from the night before... very lose and pretty light drumming, though in the tradition of Elvin and the other great ones. Weber has a beautiful sound on bass and lots of good ideas. And Lake convinced me even more than last night... I'm not a fan yet but this was a mighty fine gig from him. They started out with a tune that I think was by Steve Lacy, but I'm not quite sure.

...

up for Chuck & clem - please consider! thanks

[ejp626]

Saw a concert by the Chicago Symphony today. This was the program:

Ravel - Piano Concerto in G Major

Yundi Li, piano

Shostakovich - Symphony No. 7 (Leningrad)

Don't know how others view Ravel's Piano Concerto but I was not impressed. Even a soloist much better than Mr. Li would still not make me rate this concerto highly. Kind of a poor man's Gershwin (ironically Gershwin asked to study under Ravel but was turned away).

But I thought they did a magnificent job with the 7th Symphony. Really stirring (though the whole symphony could definitely stand to be 10-15 minutes shorter). I'm getting the opportunity this year to see 4 or 5 Shostakovich symphonies live, and am appreciating it.

[LarryCurleyMoe]

Last night - at the Krannert Art Museum in Champaign, IL: as part of the superb "Sudden Sound" concert series of new and improvised music (curated by Jason Finkelman) I grooved to the Josef Ben Israel Ensemble featuring Robert Irving III on piano, Josef on Bass, Avreeayl Ra on drums and Ari Brown on reeds = OUTTA SIGHT!!! The place was packed...the music was excellent, and the entry fee was $0!!!

[ejp626]

But I thought they did a magnificent job with the 7th Symphony. Really stirring (though the whole symphony could definitely stand to be 10-15 minutes shorter). I'm getting the opportunity this year to see 4 or 5 Shostakovich symphonies live, and am appreciating it.

This morning I had a melody running through my head and finally realized it was the theme from the first movement of Shostakovich's 7th. That's fairly remarkable for me (to actually recall a theme I haven't heard dozens of times before). Of course it may simply reflect the fact that the theme is repeated over something like 350 bars (according to the program notes).

[Uncle Skid]

Grand Rapids Art Museum this afternoon: a clarinet-clarinet-bassoon trio, playing music from the Baroque and Renaissance eras. Very interesting!

[HWright]

Reggie Workman/Hal Galper/Rashied Ali Trio

I saw this trio at Twins Jazz on U Street in Washington, DC, on Saturday night (first set). They also played Friday night at the same place.

Set List:

Waiting for Chet (dedicated to Chet Baker, Hal's first big time boss)

Soliloquy (dedicated to Michael Brecker; the Brecker Brothers were in one of Hal's groups)

Catch Me If You Can (title approximate)

Milestones (probably not the tune by Miles Davis)

Valse Cool (variation on Valse Hot played by Max Roach and Sonny Rollins)

Saturn (John Coltrane)

Reggie told the audience that the trio would be releasing an album in February or March.

(This was the second time I saw Reggie, who brought a big band group to DC about 1998;, the first time I saw either Galper or Ali.)

Edited December 3, 2007 by HWright

[Guest Bill Barton]

The Amber Tone at Gallery 1412 tomorrow night. Any Seattle area folks on the board going to be there?

[HolyStitt]

Bettye LaVette tonight at the Dakota

[Niko]

just for the first time made use of the fact that there is live jazz four nights a week just in five minutes walking distance from where i live, mostly locals, some names bigger than others (Simon Nabotov for a bigger name) but really jazz no norah joneses and the like; i caught a very nice set by the Sven Lehmkemper Quartet featuring

Klaus Heidenreich (Trombone)

Nils Tegen (Piano)

Sebastian Klose (Bass)

Sven Lehmkemper (Drums)

and will certainly go there again pretty soon, my first jazz concert in several years (four years with one exception, a Gerd Dudek Frank Wunsch duo concert about two years ago)

Edited December 6, 2007 by Niko

[Guest Bill Barton]

The Amber Tone at Gallery 1412 in Seattle tonight.

I'm looking forward to hearing Dawn Clement again...

[sheldonm]

Fathead Newman this Saturday night, Mel Rhyne next Wednesday and Slide Hampton on the 17th!

m~

[Chuck Nessa]

Fathead Newman this Saturday night, Mel Rhyne next Wednesday and Slide Hampton on the 17th!

m~

Mark, it is Wed night and you be talkin' 'bout the weekend.

Brag later.

[Free For All]

Wow, nice lineup!

Do you know what kind of group Slide is performing with?

[Guest Bill Barton]

I just now returned from checking out The Amber Tone at Gallery 1412. Nice couple of sets. It turned out that Dawn isn't a regular member of the group and the press release had the personnel wrong. No matter... A good show, their first as a band apparently.

Thursday night it's John Butcher, Torsten Muller and Dylan van der Schyff at the Chapel Performance Space. The acoustics there are gorgeous. I'm looking forward to this show. I've read about Butcher for ages but never actually heard him play.