What live music are you going to see tonight?

[BFrank]

Saw the SF Jazz Collective last night. They're recording their new album celebrating the music of Chick Corea.

Good show - they're never "not" entertaining (I know......double negative there).

Some of the pieces included: Spain, La Fiesta, Matrix, and Space Circus (with Robin Eubanks using some crazy effects pedals in his trombone solo).

[Steve Reynolds]

Kris Davis Quartet with Mat Maneri, Drew Gress and Nasheet Waits

Now for a cat nap before my wife and I drive in to NYC

[tranemonk]

Was going to see Snarky Puppy @ Berklee but I'm too wiped out!

At least next week is McCoy!

[PHILLYQ]

Caught Red Baraat last night at Webster Hall in NYC. They're a Brooklyn-based band that plays largely bhangra music, Indian dance stuff, but with bits of klezmer and N'awlins brass band stuff. Their live shows are very energetic and danceable with some nice solos by the horn players. Last night was a celebration of Holi, a Hindu holiday of color. besides the excellent live show, they had two women on stilts dancing in the audience, and for their finale they had them onstage with them and about a dozen other folks! It was quite a blast and like a giant dance party all night.

Here's a Youtube:

[BFrank]

Caught Red Baraat last night at Webster Hall in NYC. They're a Brooklyn-based band that plays largely bhangra music, Indian dance stuff, but with bits of klezmer and N'awlins brass band stuff. Their live shows are very energetic and danceable with some nice solos by the horn players. Last night was a celebration of Holi, a Hindu holiday of color. besides the excellent live show, they had two women on stilts dancing in the audience, and for their finale they had them onstage with them and about a dozen other folks! It was quite a blast and like a giant dance party all night.

Here's a Youtube:

My friend caught them at SXSW a couple of weeks ago. Said they were great!

[PHILLYQ]

Caught Red Baraat last night at Webster Hall in NYC. They're a Brooklyn-based band that plays largely bhangra music, Indian dance stuff, but with bits of klezmer and N'awlins brass band stuff. Their live shows are very energetic and danceable with some nice solos by the horn players. Last night was a celebration of Holi, a Hindu holiday of color. besides the excellent live show, they had two women on stilts dancing in the audience, and for their finale they had them onstage with them and about a dozen other folks! It was quite a blast and like a giant dance party all night.

Here's a Youtube:

My friend caught them at SXSW a couple of weeks ago. Said they were great!

I saw them on 2/1 also and they were great then, too. Terriffic live band, and their two CDs are excellent, too.

[Steve Reynolds]

More later but suffice to say with the Great Jim Black in place of Nasheet Waits, Kris Davis' band with Drew Gress and Mat Maneri played two sets of free improvisations that were sublime to bordering on incendiary.

Tension was high, interplay at the highest level with a band that included a borderline genius pianist/thinker and a true improvisational giant on the viola.

And the best replacement drummer in the history of music

Edited March 31, 2013 by Steve Reynolds

[Steve Reynolds]

Still a bit speechless but I have to say that Jim Black really brought his a game even incorporated his groove stuff into some mighty trio passages with Gress and Davis.

Gress in the second set especially brought out some real abilities in his smallish sounds bag doing some very neat and apt things with the bow. Scraping, a bit rough and totally with Davis' sometimes very precise soft playing.

[jlhoots]

Gerald Clayton Trio

[Kevin Bresnahan]

McCoy Tyner is coming to the Regattabar in Cambridge, MA tonight. Gary Bartz on tenor will be interesting. I haven't seen Bartz in a long time.

[LarryCurleyMoe]

Caught Henry Grimes with Avreeyal Ra last night out here in Champaign, IL. Simply beautiful!

[BFrank]

Seeing Johnny Marr in about a week.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

McCoy Tyner is one of the greatest Jazz musicians still walking but it's painful to say that it doesn't look like that will be true much longer. He looked more than a little frail last night. Barely walking and barely talking. I felt like I did at Tommy Flanagan's last concerts - I think that I just saw McCoy for the last time.

And as great as the show was, it was incredibly short. They started late and played for about 45 minutes. The crowd gave them a standing O and they came back and played a short encore. I haven't been to a show with a set under an hour at a Jazz club in a long time. Short but oh so sweet. McCoy may be frail on his feet but he can still wail at the piano. It's actually pretty amazing to see him shuffle in and sit down and then see his hands and fingers start flying.

[kh1958]

Last night, Tuckers Blues in Deep Ellum reopened for the weekend. Andrew Jr. Boy Jones and Lucky Peterson performed, among others. Lucky Peterson was fantastic, as usual.

[king ubu]

Tonight: Häns'che Weiss Quartet

Tomorrow night: Mark Helias' Open Loose

[Steve Reynolds]

Enjoy Open Loose, Ubu

Let me know if Rainey destroys the world like he is wont to do from time to time!

I should be seeing them again on May 24th @ Cornelia Street. Tell Tony if you get a chance that Steve who sees him often at Cornelia Street says hello!

Edited April 9, 2013 by Steve Reynolds

[king ubu]

Häns'che Weiss was amazing! Best guitar jazz I ever heard live ... wonderful sweet sound, it was heaven! His solo on "Time After Time" (the original) was drop-dead gorgeous, his lines, his attack, his rhythm ... wow! He had a fine rhythm guitar player with him by name of Holzmanno Winterstein who played a few wonderful solos in the second set (on both Django titles they played, a wonderfully lyrical "Nuages" and an engaging and pretty wild "Minor Swing"). The rhythm guitar and the bass of Weiss' longtime partner Vali Mayer on bass (a local guy) were the engine of the group, propelling the music with an infectious swing. The programme was a mix of standards and originals, there was a waltz, there was some gypsy stuff (I couldn't tell what it really was, balcans for sure, but ...) and there was some singing and some showmanship too (mostly from Mayer who did a short segment on banjo opening the second set). Pianist Mickey Bamberger played an entertaining mix of Garner and Jamal, if that makes sense, sometimes a bit too flashy I found, but still good. And he engaged in some wonderful exchanges with Weiss, too.

When Weiss was soloing, I was really in jazz guitar heaven - it was probably the closest I'll ever get to the greats of what's a long bygone era. It felt like I was listening to Tal Farlow/Johnny Smith/Jimmy Raney there, live and in person. Truly magic!

Bottom line: Häns'che Weiss smokes the asses of all those post-bop retro guys ... easily so!

Edited April 9, 2013 by king ubu

[king ubu]

Open Loose last night ... rather short concert and it took them a while to get warm, but the second half of the first set and some of the second, including the encore, were really good. Rainey was amazing, Helias sometimes reminded me a bit of Charlie Haden, at least in his more quiet moments, when he allowed his bass to sing. Malaby was tender and brutal at the same time, early on I found his switching between the two rather unorganic, but it got pretty darn intense and the best few tunes were mighty good. However, I still have some quibbles ... Malaby sounded like he was in his own way, seemed like he just never could let loose and just play - and that was the part of this group that I missed. They had their tricky (and often beautifully crafted) tunes and arrangements and rhythms - and Rainey was LOOSE! - but somehow it all sounded a bit too technical and too restrained to me - not quite living up to the band name, really. But it was still a pretty good concert, altogether.

[ejp626]

I saw the Borodin Quartet in town last night. They were going to do Shostakovich String Quartets 3 & 5 and Tchaikovsky's Quartet Movement in B flat. The first violin and maybe one other member were fairly ill, and having a bit of trouble keeping it together (even coughing between movements and once during a movement!). I salute them for doing as well as they did. They dropped the Tchaikovsky and did two encores instead. The Scherzo from Shostakovich's 1st Quartet and something else by Shostakovich. I think it was a bit of film music, but hard to track down so far. I thought they did a nice job and I'm glad I saw them.

But Pacifica was definitely better when I saw them, particularly in that ultra-tricky ending of the 3rd Quartet. So they really will be my go-to ensemble for these pieces, though I'll still listen to the Fitzwilliam recordings as well.

Edited April 10, 2013 by ejp626

[Steve Reynolds]

thanks for the comments, Ubu

I agree that if that band would really let loose throughout more of the sets, that it would be more fitting to their name.

Malaby also sometimes drives me mad with his sometimes seemingly obstinate refusal to simply play. The first few times I saw him, I was aghast at the seemingly incongruous (inorganic is an apt description) use of soft long tones and extreme (excessive??) harsh technique. In the end it is part of his sound and part of varied approach. I have found that within a set or two, I can hear playing that is uneven, uneventful or brutal along with saxophone playing of the absolute highest order.

I have come to believe that his greatness comes from what he does and does not do. It allows the really good tunes/passages/improvisation to sometimes be great rather than him simply playing.

and Rainey is great, amazing and exceptionally powerful when the band gets past the cuteness of some of it's tunes/arrangements.

[alankin]

Ars Nova Workshop presents:

Tonight! Thursday, April 11, 8pm
ICP ORCHESTRA
with Michael Moore, alto saxophone + clarinet; Tobias Delius, tenor saxophone + clarinet; Ab Baars, tenor saxophone + clarinet; Thomas Heberer, trumpet; Wolter Wierbos, trombone; Mary Oliver, violin; Tristan Honsinger, cello; Ernst Glerum, bass; and Han Bennink, drums

International House Philadelphia, 3701 Chestnut Street
$15 General Admission

[Steve Reynolds]

and ICP in Brookyn on Saturday night:

Littlefield Performance and Art Space

622 Degraw Ave Brooklyn, NY

Doors: 8:00

Show: 9:00

I be there by 7:30

I gotta get close to Bennink's kit - real close - and hopefully near the *great* Wolter Wierbos on the trombone - to this day, my favorite trombonist of them all.

'Drums are made for Swinging'

from Han Bennink - spoken last spring at his 70th birthday celebration @ Columbia University

and drums are also for quite a bit else, of course........

[jlhoots]

Tracey Grammer

[jeffcrom]

I walked a half mile from my house tonight to hear a couple of hours of improvised music headlined by the Wrest Trio (saxophonist Jack Wright, bassist Evan Lipson, and percussionist Ben Bennett). Also on the bill were local boys Robert Cheatham playing saxophone with a guitarist I didn't know, and my buds Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel - an ensemble that is every bit as cool as you would think. I had heard Wright (from Philadelphia) and Lipson (now based in Chattanooga) before, but this was my introduction to young Ben Bennett, and I was very impressed. He's insane, in a good way. He sat on the stage, surrounded by his paraphernalia - a snare drum with no bottom head, several drumheads, bells, sticks, a trowel, a piece of aluminum, etc. He and his equipment were in constant motion, creating a seamless, yet constantly changing web of interesting sounds.

[jlhoots]

Eric Taylor