Christian Mc Bride Band & Burton/Ozone

[Aggie87]

I'm repeating my postings from AAJ over here, in case anyone's interested. I saw this double-header on Friday night, and had a great time!

Gary Burton & Makoto Ozone:

Burton and Ozone were in good form, and seemed to enjoy playing with each other. They played a variety of numbers, including a tribute to each of Red Norvo, Milt Jackson, Cal Tjader, and Lionel Hampton. They also played a few cuts from their Virtuosi disc, including the Rachmaninoff and Ravel pieces. The encore was Ozone's "Bienvenidos al Mundo", which had Burton referring to the sheet music, as he wasn't that familiar with it yet.

Highly recommended if anyone's on the fence about seeing them. I believe they're continuing with a show in Hamburg tomorrow night, and then some dates in the U.S.

Christian McBride Band:

McBride's quartet includes Ron Blake on sax/flute, Geoff Keezer on piano/keyboards, and Terreon Gully on drums. They opened with Technicolor Nightmare, and it was even more impressive than the studio version on Vertical Vision, IMO. Afterwards, Christian mentioned that it was inspired by "the rock band Yes" of all things. They also played Wizard of Montara, his tribute to Bobby Hutcherson, and Ballad of Little Girl Dancer. No Boogie Woogie Waltz, unfortunately. They also did covers of "Aja" and "Walking on the Moon" (I would've bet money on a Sting cover, McBrinde being in his band also), that were nice, but didn't do that much for me.

Ron Blake & Terreon Gully played very well. Blake stuck to the tenor all night, even though he had a soprano and a flute on stage with him. Geoff Keezer was ok, but didn't really get too fired up. He also had some technical problems with his sound early on, but those got cleared up. Christian alternated between acoustic and fretless electric throughout the show, and really grooved. Highly recommended!

[Jim Alfredson]

Ron is a fantastic musician. Risking sounding like a broken record, he plays on three tracks on our new CD. His work in the studio was extremely professional and fun.

I haven't actually seen him play live in some time. I'd love to see the McBride tour, but I think I missed them when they were close by.

[Joe G]

Actually Jim, April 4 and 7 are when Ron will be at CMU and WMU. I haven't confirmed if those are McBride dates, but I do know they aren't organissimo dates!