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Best Concert You Have Been To?


Guest che

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Hi.

I have booked to go to several concerts/live shows this year as well as one or two festivals.

I am curious as to what is the best jazz concert/ live show you have been to and what made it memorable for you? For me it would be the first time I saw the Esbjorn Svensson Trio live. What made it work for me, apart from the music, was the set, the lighting and the interaction between the group and the public.

So what are your thoughts?

Che.

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Seeing Ellington for the first time in 1962(?). Art Ensemble, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Brass Fantasy, Ornette Coleman, and David Murray on their first UK visits. All absolutely unforgetable. A little more recently John Scofield Quartet with Joe Lovano in 1991(?). I'm probably being unfair but a lot recent things and to some past concerts (and I've been to a lot) but most seem insignificant when compared to these. The sound, the atmosphere, spine tingling.

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Art Ensemble, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Brass Fantasy, Ornette Coleman, and David Murray on their first UK visits.

I'm envious John! I especially wish I could have seen Ayler play live.

The first live show I attended was in 1984 (I was a sophomore in high school) — it was Art Blakey with Messengers Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison, Mulgrew Miller, and Lonnie Plaxico. They packed a teeny little performance hall here and, even though my jazz ears were only just starting to appreciate the music, Blakey's commanding presence made a strong impression.

Who here had a chance to hear Coltrane and/or Dolphy live?

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Seeing Ellington for the first time in 1962(?). Art Ensemble, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Brass Fantasy, Ornette Coleman, and David Murray on their first UK visits. All absolutely unforgetable. A little more recently John Scofield Quartet with Joe Lovano in 1991(?). I'm probably being unfair but a lot recent things and to some past concerts (and I've been to a lot) but most seem insignificant when compared to these. The sound, the atmosphere, spine tingling.

Wow!

Che.

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Coltrane with Dolphy 12/31/61 (first gig with Jimmy Garrison in the band alongside McCoy Tyner and Elvin) New Year's Eve, Carnegie Hall, NYC...

about six weeks after Village Vanguard gig

Are you just dropping names :P

Wow again I guess this must have been something special?

Che.

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Over the past 18 years I have been present for a number of memorably concerts and it would be very difficult to idenfy any of them as the best. A couple of particularly memorable performances are the first time I saw Andrew Hill in the late eighties at the Knitting Factory in the group that included Bobby Hutcherson, Greg Osby, Rufus Reid and Ben Riley. At the time I was still relatively new to the music and that performance sealed it for me as far as Andrew Hill was concerned.

In the summer of 1995 I was present for Gary Bartz's remarkable performance at Bryant Park as part of the JVC Jazz Festival. It was a free concert on a day that included other Atlantic recording artists. Bartz' quintet with Eddie Henderson and George Colligan were the next to last group. They played a continuous set for about an hour that captivated the entire audience and when they finally stopped playing the entire park erupted. James Carter came on next and his set of mostly ballads was a big anti climax. I was studying for the bar exam that summer and that was just the study break I needed.

I had a similar expience with Wayne Shorter's quartet (Perez, Patitucci, Perez) a couple of years ago at the Litchfield Jazz Festival. My expectations were not very high because their Verve recordind did not really do much for me, but their performance that day was simply mesmerizing.

A couple of years ago at the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival in NYC I remember one day with excellent performances by Greg Osby's quartet with Jason Moran and a group with Tom Harrell and Joe Lovano that were extremely impressive. I was particularly fascinated with Harrell, who was not the exhibitionist that many musicians are, but he was telling such compelling stories in his solos that I found simply amazing.

One last one that I will mention is David Murray's octet performing the Picasso Suite at the Knitting Factory. The passionate soloing alone made that one of the most exciting performances I have personnel witnessed.

There are many more concerts that I have found particularly memorable over the years, but to attempt to recount all of them here will probably get excrutiatingly painful for the reader.

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Lot of great memories from half a century of clubs and concerts dates.

Some of the best:

- Miles Davis with Barney Wilen, Bud Powell with Barney Wilen, Kenny Dorham with Barney Wilen at the Club Saint-Germain,

- Art Blakey (with Lee Morgan Golson, Timmons), Horace Silver (with Blue Mitchell and Junior Cook), Sonny Rollins (with Henry Grimes and Pete LaRoca) at Club Saint-Germain. I was almost in residence at the Club around 1958-1959 B-)

- Lucky Thompson and Oscar Pettiford, Donald Byrd and Bobby Jaspar, Don Cherry and Gato Barbieri at the Chat Qui Peche,

- the Count Basie orchestra at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1957,

- Billie Holiday at the Olympia in 1958,

- the Duke Ellington orchestra at Salle Pleyel in 1959,

- Quincy Jones and his orchestra at the Paris Alhambra in 1960,

- John Coltrane at the Olympia in 1962, then at Salle Pleyel in 1964 and again in 1965,

- Charles Mingus, the two concerts at Salle Wagram and next day at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in 1964,

- Miles Davis (with Shorter) at Salle Pleyel in 1967 and at Antibes in 1969,

- Cecil Taylor's Unit with Jimmy Lyons at the Maison de l'ORTF and at the Faculte de Droit in 1966, also CT solo at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, then again the Unit with Lyons and Sam Rivers at the Maeght foundation,

- Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock in Greenwich Village in 1965,

- Roland Kirk and Dexter Gordon on the same bill (but not together) at the Theatre de Paris,

- Sun Ra at Slug's in 1967, Jackie McLean same place, Booker Ervin in the Village,

- Albert Ayler at Salle Pleyel in 1967,

- the Art Ensemble of Chicago Paris debut at the Theatre du Lucernaire in 1969,

- Zoot Sims and Jimmy Rowles at the Village Vanguard, the Gil Evans Orchestra at the VV and later at Sweet Basil's.

- Art Pepper at the Palace in Paris in 1980.

How lucky I have been to get interested in the music when all these greats were touring over here!

I'm sure Chuck N., Larry K., Christern and some others have seen more!

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I didn't miss much in London between 58 and 90 but I missed Coltrane and I've regretted it ever since. The publicity was very poor and I found out about the concert the day after it happened. Couldn't believe I'd missed it.

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I didn't miss much in London between 58 and 90 but I missed Coltrane and I've regretted it ever since. The publicity was very poor and I found out about the concert the day after it happened. Couldn't believe I'd missed it.

I am relatively new to jazz, and the thought of seeing Colltrane, well it is the stuff that dreams are made of. Sonny Rollins in London was great, and I saw Tomasz Stanko last year and this was a fantastic concert.

Che.

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I could write up a pretty long list (which I did in some other thread a few months ago), including many of the jazz greats, but if I have to be totally honest, the best concert I have ever seen, and the one which still plays before my inner eye once in a while was one I stumbled into by pure chance (not really, since I had heard some good things about the musicians and had seen them individually in various settings, but the decision to see this band was made about an hour before the gig was about to start).

Here's the story. At the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, three years ago, I walked into this comparatively tiny place called "Café Sommersko" in downtown Copenhagen. It's actually a bar/restaurant with not enough space to hold all the regular customers, let alone a band.

About one hour after I had arrived there (there were quite a few known jazz musicians, both American and Scandinavian, hanging around the bar, also waiting to hear this quartet) and had spent some time talking to some fascinating people, the band came in, one after another from various gigs around town.

Casper Villaume, the piano player and leader of the Casper Villaume Quartet, pulled some of the funniest faces trying to get a half decent sound out of a beaten-up piano and after a while decided to move it next to the main entrance (he said from there the piano couldn't develop its unbelievably crummy sound all too much as the door was wide open because it was a really, really warm summer day), got in a couple of good laughs together with the bassist, Jesper Bodilsen and the drummer, Morten Lund, who had sauntered in from some other sessions around town.

The sax player, Lars Moeller, came late and the whole gig didn't start on time because of it, but the festival, as usual, had its own schedule with all the gigs going on around town.

And, with the crummy piano, and the musicians sitting and standing jammed between the main entrance, restaurant tables and the bar (Lars Moeller played about 40 centimeters away from me, wedged between the bar and the side of the piano), this quartet just whipped up a steam in less than 30 seconds with their opener, Cuba. What followed was the most stunning display of young talent (Moeller, at fourty, was an old fart compared to the others) I have ever had the chance to witness. Bodilsen and Lund, already now perhaps the tightest rhythm section playing in Europe today (ask the people these two cats have played with), were an absolute dream team, Moeller blew the roof off with anything from straight ahead bebop lines to totally atonal free screams, Villaume made that piano sound perfect ... the place was boiling, sweating and screaming after the first number.

Of course, I had had the chance to see many fine concerts before, especially smaller gigs in Copenhagen's famed Montmartre Jazz Club and other venues, but the weather, the mood and the audience were perfect. The spark ignited the audience which was just so totally appreciative of this quartet that you could have grabbed a handfull of the atmosphere and taken it home.

About 1/3 of the way into the concert, about 50 to 60 bikers (or more) drove by the open door and the open windows on their positively roaring machines and the Casper Villaume Quartet integrated the soundscape spontaneously and absolutely seamlessly into a tune ... Lund played tom swells, Moeller added the police sirens and Villaume garnished the whole thing with the most outrageous comping I've ever heard. The tune quieted down just as the bikers were pulling away and by the time the scene had played out, tons of people were standing outside the bar/restaurant, leaning into the open windows, pushing and shoving to get a better view.

The band took a break, fought its way to the back and ate the menu of the day only to return for a second set which was even better than the first. Fresh, different, but yet in the tradition of Scandinavia's finest jazz they just played one uptempo number after another, one better than the next, interspersed with Villaume's excellent ballad interpretations, the best of course having been "I Loves You, Porgy" ... stunning.

There wasn't a soul in that place that night that hadn't been touched by the music, everyone was sweat-drenched and didn't care, and after the band had run off to another gig (after two blistering encores), most people stayed until early in the morning, just talking about what they had just heard, exchanging stories of other great gigs, talking about jazz ... I know of at least one world-famous musician who was supposed to have played elsewhere that night with equally known people and simply didn't go ... by the time the gig was over he was far too intoxicated and in a very talkative mood. He had been immensely inspired and everyone could tell.

It was a stellar concert which didn't even get a review in any of the bigger newspapers. I think there were about one hundred other gigs that day and there wasn't a journalist in sight.

Cheers!

P.S.: The Casper Villaume Quartet's first CD was great (although it doesn't come near enough to what these people could play live), the second release I was very disappointed with and as of now, the Quartet is now a trio. But, who cares. That concert was just unbelievably good.

Edited by deus62
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I could write up a pretty long list (which I did in some other thread a few months ago), including many of the jazz greats, but if I have to be totally honest, the best concert I have ever seen, and the one which still plays before my inner eye once in a while was one I stumbled into by pure chance (not really, since I had heard some good things about the musicians and had seen them individually in various settings, but the decision to see this band was made about an hour before the gig was about to start).

Here's the story. At the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, three years ago, I walked into this comparatively tiny place called "Café Sommersko" in downtown Copenhagen. It's actually a bar/restaurant with not enough space to hold all the regular customers, let alone a band.

About one hour after I had arrived there (there were quite a few known jazz musicians, both American and Scandinavian, hanging around the bar, also waiting to hear this quartet) and had spent some time talking to some fascinating people, the band came in, one after another from various gigs around town.

Casper Villaume, the piano player and leader of the Casper Villaume Quartet, pulled some of the funniest faces trying to get a half decent sound out of a beaten-up piano and after a while decided to move it next to the main entrance (he said from there the piano couldn't develop its unbelievably crummy sound all too much as the door was wide open because it was a really, really warm summer day), got in a couple of good laughs together with the bassist, Jesper Bodilsen and the drummer, Morten Lund, who had sauntered in from some other sessions around town.

The sax player, Lars Moeller, came late and the whole gig didn't start on time because of it, but the festival, as usual, had its own schedule with all the gigs going on around town.

And, with the crummy piano, and the musicians sitting and standing jammed between the main entrance, restaurant tables and the bar (Lars Moeller played about 40 centimeters away from me, wedged between the bar and the side of the piano), this quartet just whipped up a steam in less than 30 seconds with their opener, Cuba. What followed was the most stunning display of young talent (Moeller, at fourty, was an old fart compared to the others) I have ever had the chance to witness. Bodilsen and Lund, already now perhaps the tightest rhythm section playing in Europe today (ask the people these two cats have played with), were an absolute dream team, Moeller blew the roof off with anything from straight ahead bebop lines to totally atonal free screams, Villaume made that piano sound perfect ... the place was boiling, sweating and screaming after the first number.

Of course, I had had the chance to see many fine concerts before, especially smaller gigs in Copenhagen's famed Montmartre Jazz Club and other venues, but the weather, the mood and the audience were perfect. The spark ignited the audience which was just so totally appreciative of this quartet that you could have grabbed a handfull of the atmosphere and taken it home.

About 1/3 of the way into the concert, about 50 to 60 bikers (or more) drove by the open door and the open windows on their positively roaring machines and the Casper Villaume Quartet integrated the soundscape spontaneously and absolutely seamlessly into a tune ... Lund played tom swells, Moeller added the police sirens and Villaume garnished the whole thing with the most outrageous comping I've ever heard. The tune quieted down just as the bikers were pulling away and by the time the scene had played out, tons of people were standing outside the bar/restaurant, leaning into the open windows, pushing and shoving to get a better view.

The band took a break, fought its way to the back and ate the menu of the day only to return for a second set which was even better than the first. Fresh, different, but yet in the tradition of Scandinavia's finest jazz they just played one uptempo number after another, one better than the next, interspersed with Villaume's excellent ballad interpretations, the best of course having been "I Loves You, Porgy" ... stunning.

There wasn't a soul in that place that night that hadn't been touched by the music, everyone was sweat-drenched and didn't care, and after the band had run off to another gig (after two blistering encores), most people stayed until early in the morning, just talking about what they had just heard, exchanging stories of other great gigs, talking about jazz ... I know of at least one world-famous musician who was supposed to have played elsewhere that night with equally known people and simply didn't go ... by the time the gig was over he was far too intoxicated and in a very talkative mood. He had been immensely inspired and everyone could tell.

It was a stellar concert which didn't even get a review in any of the bigger newspapers. I think there were about one hundred other gigs that day and there wasn't a journalist in sight.

Cheers!

P.S.: The Casper Villaume Quartet's first CD was great (although it doesn't come near enough to what these people could play live), the second release I was very disappointed with and as of now, the Quartet is now a trio. But, who cares. That concert was just unbelievably good.

Wonderful :tup

Che.

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While I've been into jazz for 30 years I haven't gotten out to see much live which makes it a little easier to pick a best. I can't remember the exact year (probably 85 or 86) but I saw the George Adams Don Pullen 4tet at the 1369 Jazz Club in Inman Square in Boston (actually Cambridge I think). The place was not very big but packed with fans. The group was just incredible. During the evening Adams sang one or two songs and Dannie Richmond contributed a vocal also, maybe more of a chant. This was a working group at the top of their game. I haven't seen a show since that was as spectacular.

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Oh, Tom in RI that does sound good!

I saw the Kip Hanrahan "Exotica" show at the Strand in Dorchester circa 1989 with Pullen and all the gang. They were essentially practicing for the big Brooklyn Academy gigs. That was a fantastic show and more of a stage play than anything. My wife and I got to go to the after party with a journalist friend and met Don. Looking back fifteen years I sure wish I could go see that show again.

But Tom some of the best shows for pure sweat and dance frenzies were by that "house band" at Lupos! ;)

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I've seen a few people but find it hard to pick one as the greatest.

Perhaps one rather unspectactular club gig of the Mal Waldron Trio with Jimmy Woode and Allan Blairman where I had the feeling of being right inside the music rather than just listening from the outside.

A very nice moment was at a gig of the Dexter Gordon Quartet with Kirk Lightsey, Rufus Reid and Eddie Gladden on a rather cloudy Sunday Morning in July - 11 am - Dexter hesitated to start playing, telling he found it "unusual to play some mid-day bebop" - but when he counted the band off, the sun hit the stage through the clouds at the exact fracture of the second the band hit the first note! The entire audince held their breath as the band soared through "Moment's Notice" (what a appropriate song selection!).

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From my perspective as an old fart, I think it is worth listing the folks you missed.

I missed Ayler, Bird, Pres, Bud and that might be it. Yes, I missed the Charlie Johnson band, but let's be serious.

I saw Trane (3-6 times) depending on nights spent at the gig.

Edited by Chuck Nessa
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