Dolphy: Freedom of Sound celebration/fundraiser—Pls. help!

[Steve Reynolds]

to me it sounded like a fair amount of light, but too many ongoing presentations. Lacked focus. But then, I may have edited out, in my head, anything that did not meet my expectations.

I'm sure it was a nice event, I just see too many of these prototypes which, to me, represent an uneven viewpoint or a lack of focused intent. It sounded like the kind of day in which I would have listened, gone out, and then come back and listened again.

Much truth to that Allen. I was only there for a few hours on Saturday. The set with Richard Davis, Aska Taneko, Angelica Sanchez and Andrew Cyrille was very fine and it was the only time a group was able to play long enough to find the core of the music and yet the set was only 40 minutes or so. Plus it appeared that they had signaled to the that the set should be shortened and then they played another 10 to 15 minute beautifully improvised piece of music.

Tar Baby ( I hate the name, fwiw) with Oliver Lake played 3 or 4 tunes for a total of 20-25 minutes. The opening band played 2 compositions for a total of under 15 minutes. We left after Reid / Gibbs and Aklaaf who played 2 rocking tunes(one a Ronald Shannon Jackson thing) and the other a pure rock out song that was good - my wife loved it - and they were done in under 20 minutes.

Glad I went but to compare it to, let's say, the sets I heard from the Lucien Ban/Mat Maneri Quintet with Tony Malaby, Bob Stewart and Gerald Cleaver @ Cornelia Street, there is NO comparison as far as the intensity, sound, vibe and ultimately the performance of the musicians.

For example I am much more excited to go to I Beam (a square cement walled box of a room in Brooklyn) on June 22nd to hear two different trios with Max Johnson on bass that feature Paul Flaherty and Mat Maneri. I will be right there in front of the band hearing, feeling and taking in every drop of sweat, sound and force of those musicians.

Seeing Nasheet Waits in a small club compared to that 980 one third filled auditorium is like Lobster compared to Chuck Steak. He was very fine and his solo was all Nasheet but it's nothing like when you are in danger of feeling like "this is fucking incredible" which can and has happened when I've seen drummers like Nasheet Waits live in the music rooms I normally see music in.

Plus even after the fine improvised 40ish minutes, there was nothing in the level of excitement that I got, for example, from Cooper-Moore when he was playing with William Parker's In a Order to Survive in June 2012 @ Vision Fest. No band I heard even approached the level of intensity of groove of that awesome ensemble with Drake driving the engine.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Steve Reynolds

[bluenoter]

At the Dolphy fest on Friday, May 30:

http://youtu.be/tTAJ5e-TuY8

Edited June 10, 2014 by bluenoter