What live music are you going to see tonight?

[mjazzg]

Matthew Shipp/Sabir Mateen duo.

first time for Mateen so particularly interested, seen Shipp many times before but always produces in whichever combination

[king ubu]

Ubu - I can't wait hear about the bands you are seeing - especially your comments on the playing of Tony Malaby

I'll try and write some... not yet 100% sure I'll make it to Lake.

There was a rather big fire at the venue were Taktlos (the festival w/Malaby and Shipp/Mateen) is starting right now... but seems they'll do all the concerts, possibly in other parts of the building... hope it wasn't too bad!

[DavidB.Wilkerson]

Saw Benny Golson and the DePaul University Jazz Ensemble at The Jazz Showcase in Chicago. Great, particularly on "Along Came Betty," "Whisper Not" and "Blues March."

I don't normally ask for autographs, but Benny was so accessible and friendly between sets that I couldn't resist.

I asked him if he remembers much about The Jazztet's engagement at The Birdhouse in 1961, since the album they recorded there is a favorite. He said he seemed to recall that it was on the North Side; that the place didn't serve liquor, as it was a coffeehouse; and he remembered the arrangement the group did of "Round Midnight," which is on the LP. That's one of my favorite versions.

Edited May 12, 2012 by Nelson66

[jlhoots]

Brad Mehldau Trio

[king ubu]

Ubu - I can't wait hear about the bands you are seeing - especially your comments on the playing of Tony Malaby

I'll try and write some... not yet 100% sure I'll make it to Lake.

There was a rather big fire at the venue were Taktlos (the festival w/Malaby and Shipp/Mateen) is starting right now... but seems they'll do all the concerts, possibly in other parts of the building... hope it wasn't too bad!

Okay, so how was it... Taktlos is held the 29th time these days, it's long grown to be an institution, presenting the avantgarde of jazz and other related musics. Fire police have allowed them - on very short notice, it seems, since they did minimal five-minute sound checks ahead of each set - to use my favorite stage there, at the Rote Fabrik, the Clubraum, which is smaller than the regular venue for jazz concerts (the Aktionshalle) and hence looks half full, rather than three quarters empty. Anyway, I got there early, met a friend who showed me pictures from last week's Le Mans festival, where he heard plenty of amazing music (wish I'd been there!).

Tony Malaby, then... his quartet is named Paloma Recio and consists of Ben Monder on guitar, Drew Gress on bass and Flin Van Hemmen on drums. Never heard of Van Hemmen before, but he was great, with a lose yet controlled, swinging and fun style that could push the band quite some, if called for! Gress was way too low in the mix, alas, while Monder was often over-bearing, even more so when he started using distortion and other sound pedal effects. I'm afraid I didn't quite get how this group's music worked, though... they all had music stands in front of them but never changed pages (only once did Gress change something towards the end)... the dramaturgy of it lay in the dark to me, anyhow. They started playing rather quietly, until Monder for the first time fell out of his "jazz" style and started getting real loud. He and Malaby played complex lines in unison, while the rhythms kept changing underneath, solos would emerge - some great playing by Malaby, for sure! Wonderful sound, big at the bottom, but still rather slim... thin but beautiful in the high range - and he got pretty intense and wild doing plenty of falsetto stuff as the set unrolled. Monder fit in well mostly, but kept being somewhat overbearing throughout the concert. They reached a climax after some forty minutes of continuous playing, then took a break, but after Malaby announced the band he asked if there was time for one more, and off they went onto an amazingly powerful, exhilarating flight. At the end I was pretty pleased by it all, but it took a while for the band to catch flight and for me to get into this rather complex and coolish sound.

Then break, changing the setup, dragging the baby grand to the center, setting up new mics... and a short sound check (Mateen in orange t-shirt). On it went with Matthew Shipp and Sabir Mateen - first on clarinet, then on tenor, and back to clarinet for the encore. A most powerful set, digging right into the music from the very first tones. All music, so to speak. Mateen has a wonderful tone on clarinet and even more so on tenor, very big, deep, rough. Both of them had a few unacccompanied passages, and Mateen's tenor one was the highlight of the night for me. Shipp was both quick and sparse, both dense and pointed - never heard him live and have been kind of an on and off fan of his... but this concert easily convinced me! At the end, all was said and done, no need for any more music, really! Amazing set!

Third band was a Swiss one called Phall Fatale, featuring two singers (Joy Frempong and Joana Aderi), both also using samplers and electronics, John Edwards and Daniel Sailer on double basses, and drummer Fredy Studer (of OM-fame). Good beats and grooves from the basses (Edwards is wonderful, needless to say), but I found the whole thing pretty boring and the singers not too convincing (and the lyrics pretty... uhm, uninspired and flat). Anyway, I should have left after Shipp/Mateen anyway, so maybe I'm being somewhat unfair.

[king ubu]

Forgot to mention: spotted in the audience: Irene Schweizer and Gerry Hemingway - the later came to chat with Ben Monder and seemed to have a good time.

[sidewinder]

Saw Benny Golson and the DePaul University Jazz Ensemble at The Jazz Showcase in Chicago. Great, particularly on "Along Came Betty," "Whisper Not" and "Blues March."

I don't normally ask for autographs, but Benny was so accessible and friendly between sets that I couldn't resist.

I asked him if he remembers much about The Jazztet's engagement at The Birdhouse in 1961, since the album they recorded there is a favorite. He said he seemed to recall that it was on the North Side; that the place didn't serve liquor, as it was a coffeehouse; and he remembered the arrangement the group did of "Round Midnight," which is on the LP. That's one of my favorite versions.

Pretty cool !

[BillF]

Looking forward to this one in Southport on Sunday afternoon:

The Leon Greening Quintet

Alex Garnett (alt/ten), Ian Shaw (tpt), Greening (pno), Michael Janisch (bs), Steve Brown (dms)

This gig was originally advertised as the Leon Greening Quartet featuring Vincent Herring, but I hear that Herring cancelled his tour.

This could be a good one Bill. Both Garnett and Greening are pretty vigorous players.

Yes, it was very good indeed. The rhythm team were such a straight ahead swingin' machine that my wife said the horns were superfluous. I think she had something there.

[Steve Reynolds]

I had a similar experience the first time I saw Tony Malaby as the second set was with Ben Monder, a bassist I do not remember and Nasheet Waits. Monder was also overbearing that night and it masked to my ears the greatness of Mr. Malaby. As with the music you saw/heard it was in the end quite impressive but it could have been so much better if Monder showed a modicum of restraint. I also was mystified at times with Malaby's approach on the upper register at times and it has taken some time and numerous concerts for me to completely get with his approach. The last few times I have seen him (as you may have read) he has been as captivating a tenor saxophonist as I have heard/seen in recent years.

good news - looks like the Novella band will be within my sights on June 23rd @ Cornelia Street Cafe as well as an another appearance of the Sanchez/Malaby/Rainey trio:

fwiw - the 9 piece band is pretty damn great live....

Saturday, Jun 23 - 9:00PM

TONY MALABY TRIO

Tony Malaby, tenor saxophone; Angelica Sanchez, piano; Tom Rainey, drums

New music dedicated to an angel flying over the Iberian Peninsula by a trio of omni-directionally improvising masters of ecstatic lyrical elasticity.

$10 cover plus $10 minimum

Saturday, Jun 23 - 10:30PM

TONY MALABY'S NOVELLA

Tony Malaby, tenor saxophone; Ralph Alessi, trumpet; Michael Attias, alto saxophone; Ben Gerstein, trombone; JB Goodhorse, bass clarinet; Andrew Hadro, baritone sax; Dan Peck, tuba; Kris Davis, piano; Tom Rainey, drums

Later that night, Tony Malaby presented his new group, Novela, with improvised or notated music as conducted by the pianist Kris Davis. In its collapsing of structure and intuition it had roots in some older experimental jazz — Roscoe Mitchell, Butch Morris — but it was still strong and strange, properly bewildering. Ben Ratliff,NY Times

$10 cover plus $10 minimum

[king ubu]

Hm, guess it will take a few decades until I've heard Malaby dozens of times, alas...

Just returned from a highly energetic set by Tarbaby with guest Oliver Lake.

Lake has played in Zurich regularly over the past years... this was the fourth time I caught him, and I know of at least two concerts I've missed. Tarbaby is Orrin Evans (p), Eric Revis (b) and Nasheet Waits (d) and they're very powerful, very NYC tough - and very loud, too.

The tunes they did were pretty wild (I thought of Dolphy now and then), often rhythmically very tricky (I once thought of Monk very much, too), and left lots of space for free flights by Lake and Evans.

The biggest surprise to me was Revis, whom I've heard so far in mostly Wyntonite context... big sound, plenty of technique, lots of ideas, very good time and groove... he mixes with Waits and Evans very well. Evans was mostly in what seemed a McCoy bag... incorporating perfectly the tough, muscular, yet lyrical post-Coltrane/Tyner black music continuum.

Lake was all over the place, the first set could mostly be heard as in that Trane/McCoy tradition, I guess... but after the break they returned and shifted gears quite some, both in levels of energy and in style. They did some mean funk, with Lake overblowing his alto (no flute tonight, just alto) and going for broke each time he started to blow.

The most amazing thing though, all through the two sets, was watching and listening to Nasheet Waits... what a powerful, great drummer! Rather small set (bass drum, snare, hi-hat, one tom, the big tom standing on the floor, a ride, and one more big cymbal next to the ride, maybe a second ride, really?), sounding very good, and putting layer and layer of rhythm on top of each other... truly amazing, and all as good as I'd been expecting!

Very intense night, to say the least!

[BeBop]

Janiva Magness, tomoow night at Jazz Alley, Seattle

Edited May 15, 2012 by BeBop

[jeffcrom]

Javina. Magness, tomoow night at Jazz Alley, Seattle

She's great. Organ player's not bad.

[Steve Reynolds]

yes - when Nasheet gets it going, there are few who can get the intensity and groove to that kind of level - one night with Ellery Eskelin and Gary Versace, he pushed the trio to some incredible heights plus my wife thought he was so great he should be on TV in prime time.

sounds like it was a great night

[king ubu]

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings

[king ubu]

WHOAH! Marcus Wyatt in Basel, doing his Blue Note Tribute - wonderful music, full of life - warm, celebratory, but not denying bitterness, sadness. When I approached Wyatt between sets, he said they were slowly getting there, but were not quite yet as crazy as the Blue Notes were. But it was more of a Blue Notes, Brotherhood of Breath and Dyani thing, really, repertoire- and style-wise.

Great band, a mix of South Africans and Swiss:

Marcus Wyatt (t), Siya Makuzeni (tb, voc), Donat Fisch (as), Domenic Landolf (ts), Afrika Mkhize (p, fender rhodes), Fabian Gisler (b), Ayanda Sikade (d).

Drummer Sikade had just flewn in from the Cape... he was on fire, and so was Gisler (Dyani lives! Goddam!) and the rhythms really were cooking like mad! Mkhize played a wonderful piano, running the gamut from Dollar Brand to McGregor to what sounded to me like some Don Pullen-like moments. An amazing flow of ideas, a very warm sound, plenty of humor and complete lack of fear as far as being melodic, elegic even, is concerned. These guys are warriors!

In front, there were Makuzeni on trombone (and a pair of stunning, intense vocals), a small lady with a big sound - her bell was pointed straight at me, sitting front row - wonderful to experience the 'bone sound, it's rare that one gets to hear some good trombone players, really! Then there were Landolf (he had two stellar solos in which he kind of fought against melody, against flow, and created his own microtonal stuff, licks, repetitions, turning into some rather frenzied moments) and Fisch (more melodically flowing with a nice bitter-sweet sound) and on the end of the stage, Marcus Wyatt. For long parts he was more like the guy running the game, but he played some wonderful solos too, full of wit and with great feeling for timbre and melody.

A marvelous night for sure - the spirit of the beloved gone ZA giants really was invoked, yet the resulting music was different and was these guys' (and the gal's) own, which makes it all the more wonderful.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Tonight at Scullers in Boston - Eric Alexander & Vincent Herring with Harold Mabern on piano. Should be a good one!

[jlhoots]

Gillian Welch / Dave Rawlings

[jeffcrom]

Just got back from Chattanooga, where I heard two great sets of free improvisation by John Butcher, Gino Robair, Thomas Lehn, and The Shaking Ray Levis (Dennis Palmer on synth and Bob Stagner on drums). Butcher's music is very controlled, in a way, so it was interesting to see/hear him respond to Dennis Palmer's unpredictable wildness. I'm not sure he had ever come up against anything like Mr. Palmer, especially when Dennis started speaking in tongues.

Edited June 6, 2012 by jeffcrom

[Pete C]

tomoow night

Were you there until the cows came home?

Edited June 6, 2012 by Pete C

[clifford_thornton]

Just got back from Chattanooga, where I heard two great sets of free improvisation by John Butcher, Gino Robair, Thomas Lehn, and The Shaking Ray Levis (Dennis Palmer on synth and Bob Stagner on drums). Butcher's music is very controlled, in a way, so it was interesting to see/hear him respond to Dennis Palmer's unpredictable wildness. I'm not sure he had ever come up against anything like Mr. Palmer, especially when Dennis started speaking in tongues.

Oh nice!

I saw the trio (minus any local ringers) in Austin, and they were very good. Been meaning to check out the Levis; thanks for the reminder.

[Pete C]

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings

When she did the Celebrate Brooklyn summer series two years ago she got the largest turnout they ever had, close to 30,000, at least half of whom couldn't get into the bandshell area and had to sit on the lawn outside. She's a hometown girl (by way of Georgia), but I had no idea she had that big a following. The opening act was Budos Band (another Dap-Tone band) and Lee Fields was a special guest.

[jeffcrom]

Just got back from Chattanooga, where I heard two great sets of free improvisation by John Butcher, Gino Robair, Thomas Lehn, and The Shaking Ray Levis (Dennis Palmer on synth and Bob Stagner on drums). Butcher's music is very controlled, in a way, so it was interesting to see/hear him respond to Dennis Palmer's unpredictable wildness. I'm not sure he had ever come up against anything like Mr. Palmer, especially when Dennis started speaking in tongues.

Oh nice!

I saw the trio (minus any local ringers) in Austin, and they were very good. Been meaning to check out the Levis; thanks for the reminder.

I like them a lot, both as musicians and as friends. I think I said something like this before, so forgive me for repeating myself:

The Shaking Rays play improvised music somewhat out of European free music tradition, but it somehow has a Southern, backwoods flavor. Part of it is something teetering around the edge of the music - a suggestion that, no matter how wild and atonal the music is, they boys could break into an old-time reel or a Southern funk beat at any time. (Something like the latter happened last night for a few seconds.) And Dennis Palmer does occasionally pull a microphone close and start vocalizing - speaking in tongues like a synthesizer-playing Pentecostal preacher or singing an other-worldly hillbilly song with almost-intelligible syllables. It's startling, funny, and kind of magical.

If you can manage to track down a copy, you should get their CD False Prophets or Dang Good Guessers - the first CD of an American ensemble ever released on Incus. It took me a while to find one, and I gave my copy to Bob Stagner last night, because he had told me that even he didn't have a copy.

But you can get an excellent 30-minute CD from their website - Live at Lamar's. It's Derek Bailey with Bob and Dennis, recorded at a Chattanooga restaurant in 1999.

And they have formed a remarkable non-profit organization, The Shaking Ray Levi Society, who do an incredible job of make the arts a flourishing part of life in Chattanooga, including bringing some amazing avant-garde musicians to that little city. God bless Bob and Dennis.

[clifford_thornton]

Sweet, sounds like my kind of stuff!

[jeffcrom]

John Adams' opera A Flowering Tree, by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, with Jessica Rivera, soprano, Russell Thomas, tenor, and Eric Owens, baritone. It was a minimally-staged performance, with the chorus and orchestra on stage and projections on a large screen behind the chorus. It was pretty wonderful.

[BFrank]

Saw Brendan Benson last night. One of the more underrated power pop artists on the circuit these days. His new album on his new label is worth checking out.

BTW, if you aren't familiar with him, he's also the other "half" of The Raconteurs.