Jump to content

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 6.8k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

Posted

Cyrus Chestnut at Scat Jazz in Fort Worth. I was very bored and left after one set.

I had the same experience a few years ago in Boston.

"Rigor Mortis!", as Babs would say.

Posted

Cyrus Chestnut at Scat Jazz in Fort Worth. I was very bored and left after one set.

I had the same experience a few years ago in Boston.

"Rigor Mortis!", as Babs would say.

And they were pompous--the drummer told us that this was "high level" music.

Posted

Last night, I successfully washed away Cyrus Chestnut induced ennui, with a blazing Lucky Peterson show once again at Tuckers Blues. Tonight was just a trio with Lucky on vocals, keyboards and guitar, with bass guitar and drums, plus his wife and one other woman guesting on a few vocals. His trio was sounding rather good tonight--the last of three sets was the highlight, just the trio in a tour de force set featuring Lucky's blazing guitar.

Posted

The New Mellow Edwards at International House in Philadelphia.

Curtis Hasselbring, leader, trombone + guitar

Chris Speed, saxophone + clarinet

Mary Halvorson, guitar

Trevor Dunn, bass

Matt Moran, vibraphone

Satoshi Takeishi, percussion

Ches Smith, drums

Posted

Please tell us how it was Bill!

Really great session which left the audience rapturous! Here's a review of their performance at Cheltenham the day before:

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/entertainmentnews/JAZZ-FEST-REVIEW-Pharoah-Sanders-Cheltenham-Town-Hall/article-3507733-detail/article.html

To this I'd add that the classic John Coltrane quartet was everywhere in evidence, with Tyner, Jones and Garrison echoes in the superb accompanists. Age didn't seem to have lessened Pharoah's ability to play tonally superb post-Coltrane tenor and most of the tunes were Coltrane associated: "Giant Steps", "Naima", "My Favorite Things" and "I Want to Talk About You" - "A Nightingale Sang" being the exception. Each of the two sets ended with "The Creator Has a Master Plan" from Pharoah's 2003 album of that name. On these he took competent vocals, and here lies the big difference from Coltrane's serious intensity - Sanders is a great entertainer who includes a good deal of hokum in his act - strumming the tenor like a guitar, singing into the bell, getting sounds out of a bottle and doing a groovy dance (despite being a bit unsteady on his legs!) As someone who saw Dizzy in action several times, I took all this in my stride and the club audience loved it. Finally summoned back onstage by unending applause, Pharoah ended up in a bear hug with a large man in full African gear who'd been prominent in the audience. A night to remember!

Posted

Last night at the Hungry Brain, vibraharpist Jason Adasiewicz's Sun Rooms (Nate McBride, bass; Mike Reed, drums). Fresh from a day of recording their second album for Delmark, they were in great form.

Posted

Please tell us how it was Bill!

Really great session which left the audience rapturous! Here's a review of their performance at Cheltenham the day before:

http://www.thisisglo...il/article.html

To this I'd add that the classic John Coltrane quartet was everywhere in evidence, with Tyner, Jones and Garrison echoes in the superb accompanists. Age didn't seem to have lessened Pharoah's ability to play tonally superb post-Coltrane tenor and most of the tunes were Coltrane associated: "Giant Steps", "Naima", "My Favorite Things" and "I Want to Talk About You" - "A Nightingale Sang" being the exception. Each of the two sets ended with "The Creator Has a Master Plan" from Pharoah's 2003 album of that name. On these he took competent vocals, and here lies the big difference from Coltrane's serious intensity - Sanders is a great entertainer who includes a good deal of hokum in his act - strumming the tenor like a guitar, singing into the bell, getting sounds out of a bottle and doing a groovy dance (despite being a bit unsteady on his legs!) As someone who saw Dizzy in action several times, I took all this in my stride and the club audience loved it. Finally summoned back onstage by unending applause, Pharoah ended up in a bear hug with a large man in full African gear who'd been prominent in the audience. A night to remember!

Sounds like a blast, thanks for the report.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

After skipping a week, back to Tuckers Blues, for the Lucky and Tamara Peterson Blues Band, and it was a very good night. Lucky mostly played the hell out of the organ tonight. A newer Hammond keyboard set-up, but hooked up to a Leslie cabinet--it sounded great. The usual mixture of blues, jazz and soul--loved the duet (organ and vocal) version of Billie's Blues. Plenty of originals as well (Love Me from the new CD is an amazing piece of organ funk). At least there was a decent crowd tonight, until the third set anyway--a brief but wondrous organ trio set. The proprietor of the club pointed out the incongruity of Lucky's recent concert schedule--appearances in London, Paris, Rome, and Dubai, and his near total obscurity in his home town of Dallas.

Posted

I didn't make it to Tuckers until midnight, but I was in time to see most of the second set and the third set. A rather different experience from the prior night, as a percussionist was added, and Bernard Wright sat in on keyboards for the second set; plus a couple of local jazz horn players made appearances. For the third set, Lucky Peterson was pretty much exclusively on piano--a soul cover set--the final and closing song was outrageously good--amazing groove and piano playing. I was very glad I had made it again.

Posted

Sunday night at the Hungry Brain I saw The Engines (Dave Rempis, Jeb Bishop, Nate McBride, Tim Daisy) with guest John Tchicai (on tenor) -- everyone in fine form, playing pieces by both Tchicai and The Engines. Room was full.

Posted

going to the Jazzfestival Schaffhausen tonight:

Irene Schweizer & Pierre Favre Duo (*)

Araxi Karnusian: Miniatur Orchestra

Malcolm Braff Voltage (w/Patrice Moret & Marc Erbetta)

*) Schweizer should have appeared with the Where's Africa Trio with Makaya Ntshoko and sax player Omri Ziegele.

I just read that Ziegele has had some accident and will be unable to play for about a month... as much as I love the Schweizer/Favre duo, I'd have loved a Schweizer/Ntshoko duo even more and was very much looking forward to seing Ntshoko live finally... well, guess it was not to be this time...

Posted

going to the Jazzfestival Schaffhausen tonight:

Irene Schweizer & Pierre Favre Duo (*)

Araxi Karnusian: Miniatur Orchestra

Malcolm Braff Voltage (w/Patrice Moret & Marc Erbetta)

*) Schweizer should have appeared with the Where's Africa Trio with Makaya Ntshoko and sax player Omri Ziegele.

I just read that Ziegele has had some accident and will be unable to play for about a month... as much as I love the Schweizer/Favre duo, I'd have loved a Schweizer/Ntshoko duo even more and was very much looking forward to seing Ntshoko live finally... well, guess it was not to be this time...

Wow, wow, wow! The Schweizer/Favre set was absolutely stunning! One of the most beautiful concerts I've witnessed!

Malcolm Braff's "Voltage" is - as the title suggests - plugged in. He's playing a modified/extended fender rhodes (some "pad" and an ibook on a desk next to him, but he never "played" that, I guess it was just there to steer the stuff), and Marcello Giuliani/Marc Erbetta of Erik Truffaz fame were the rhythm section. Giuliani had this huge sound, you couldn't make out notes, you saw him playing but could only feel it in your guts, and mightily so! Very cool!

The band in between took me a while to get into... it's a septet with trumpet, trombone, tenor, clarinet and bass clarinet, as well as two drummers. Sort of minimalist at times, the pieces being short, mostly composed and written out (with some room for solos, the bass clarinet guy was terrific, Araxi herself, more or less the leader of the band, had a few fine spots on tenor, too). Anyway, the very special world of sound they're creating started really opening up to me about a quarter of an hour in, and it got beautiful at spots, intriguing at others (imagine some funk rhythms by the group, and some very easily and flowingly done 15/8 stuff etc, paired with beautiful voicings and quite some humour, too).

Bought the "Voltage" (two gentLemen records, 2010) and Miniatur Orchester discs (the later is titled "Pro Specie Rara", Unit Records 2010). Got the most recent Schweizer/Favre disc of course, the magnificient "Ulrichsberg" on Intakt.

Posted

Last night, again the Lucky Peterson band at Tucker's Blues in Deep Ellum.

It was another fine night of music, performed in two long sets. Featuring Lucky Peterson on organ, piano, guitar, bass guitar and vocals, with Tamara Peterson on vocals. Backed by a trio of bass, drums and percussion. The band is very smooth and accomplished--either of two bassists and two drummers may appear on a given night. The club has clear sound from any vantagepoint, and is not excessively loud.

Commencing in somewhat of a jazz vein, with Stanley Turrentine's Sugar (Lucky on piano), followed by a Grover Washington song (Piano followed by organ). Moving on to a Lucky Peterson original (Something is Holding Me Back), with powerhouse organ playing. The set then shifts into a blues vein, with Lucky switching to guitar. It was amusing to watch the incredulity of people at the table next to me, as having demonstrated superior facility on piano and organ, Lucky switches to guitar, which he also plays with the best in the blues field.

The second set featured a guest on keyboards (they performed one of his compositions and it was amazingly infectious)--the bassist wasn't there at the start of the set, but no problem, Lucky steps in on the bass until he shows, the rest of the set Lucky mostly performs as a vocalist, picking up his guitar a couple of times to play some wicked solos. This was mostly a soul/r&b set--it was quite enjoyable.

I'm wondering how long this will continue (the audiences at the club are moderate in size)--but I'm really enjoying the opportunity to hear a long-time favorite musician on a weekly basis.

Posted (edited)

Last night at Poor David's Pub, before a meager crowd of about 30, Guitar Shorty. It was a fantastic show--two hour and a half long sets. Shorty has not slowed down in the least and sounded amazing, with a fine backup band (guitar, bass and drums).

Edited by kh1958
Posted (edited)

Just saw the Tubby Hayes Legacy Orchestra at the Southport Jazz Festival. Superbly disciplined, roarin' big band that really delivered a punch. All the charts were by Hayes - particularly liked Bud Powell's "Strictly Confidential" and "Parisian Thoroughfare" and Hayes' own "Dear Johnny B". Strongest soloists were Peter King, Alan Skidmore and Brian Dee. (Simon Spillett didn't show). Really the best British big band I've seen!!! (I won't make invidious comparisons with American bands I saw in my youth: Ellington, Basie, Hampton, Herman, Jones/Lewis, Gil Evans. :) )

Edited by BillF
Posted

Saw Charles Lloyd at CSO last night. To be honest, a big part of the draw for me was to see Jason Moran on piano. That did happen but for probably only 1/3 of the show. The main focus was on his Sangam grouping with Eric Harland on drums and Zakir Hussain on tabla. Charles came out and did a somewhat loopy introduction where he talked about being inspired by Billy Higgins and so forth. He lost his train of thought a few times, particularly when distracted by some late-comers and the sound check guy. He wasn't nearly as nasty as Jarrett can be, but it was still a little off-putting. Even Zakir, who probably hears this spiel a lot, was getting bored and starting playing a little bit in the background to try to get him to wrap it up. After the talking was over, it got a lot better. :smirk:

Harland and Hussain have really got quite a rapport, throwing stuff back and forth, with Charles occasionally playing on sax or flute (a bass flute perhaps?). Then the second piece, Lloyd went over a played the piano a bit, and eventually Harland moved behind him and started messing around with it, making it play like "prepared piano" (in the context sounding a little like a sitar) and sometimes directly pounding the inside to get some bass sounds. In performance it sounded better than I am describing it. Anyway, then Charles moved over to Harland's drum kit and did some messing about (shades of an AEC concert perhaps). It was all very odd and a bit trance-inducing. The only thing that concerned me was that if they were going to mess around on the piano, I thought it would be better to do this after Moran had a chance to play it, since they certainly didn't have time to retune it. So these two pieces took about 45 minutes. Then Moran and a bass player made a quartet and Hussain sat out for a bit. They did a Monk composition and something else which I probably should know, but don't know the name of. Then Hussain rejoined and they did a relatively short piece. All enjoyable, but the strongest stuff had been the Sangam material.

Then a lot of people fled for their Metra trains when the group left the stage. Lloyd seemed a bit put off by this when he came back on. The five musicians did an encore, and this next piece was probably the single most beautiful music they did. Would love to get a sound check of that... Then it was 10, and time for me to leave. Apparently, Lloyd came back out for a second encore, maybe playing solo, but I was through for the night. Enjoyable, though if the whole set had featured all five musicians and they could have sustained the magic of that first encore, it would have been truly incredible.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...