Sunday, May 03, 2009
To the Hunt Real Estate Art of Jazz last night, a double bill with Frank Kimbrough opening on solo piano, then returning as part of the Kendra Shank Quartet.
I liked Kimbrough, who we already knew to be a versatile instrumentalist, having seen him in past seasons with the Maria Schneider Orchestra and with Dewey Redman. This evening we got a more cerebral performance, in both of his iterations: as a solo he was channeling his inner Keith Jarret, sort of, with a strong left hand setting up some interesting atmospherics. The Quartet was more about experimentation in rhythm, I think. Anchored by drummer Tony Moreno, and bass player Dean Johnson, Shank worked the post-bop style, frequently scatting and incorporating whoops, pops, and other unusual vocal techniques so that the overall effect was more or less instrumental. I liked the things she did with the numbers from her Abby Lincoln tribute-- particularly the opener, "Throw It Away", and I liked the two sort of standards. She slowed down "Blue Skies" and took it in a minor key, which is completely counter-intuitive. It personalized the song, I thought, although Jeff Simon singled it out for a slam in his review of her new side. Her set closer, "Black is the Color" was more up-tempo, and nicely incorporated all of the strengths of the quartet-- Johnson's limber bass, Moreno's expressive drumming, and, especially, Kimbrough's versatility. It was challenging music for most of the set, not really a singer with a trio behind her, more of a band performance, but although it took some concentration to stay with it, the overall sound was warm and pleasing.
It occurred to me as I sat there, and not for the first time, that what Bruce Eaton has done over the past ten years with this series is quite remarkable. There is a core of regulars in the room, in the audience and on the stage and over the years this has given the series a distinct personality. We are all smarter listeners because we have taken Bruce's programing on faith, and as a result we are a better audience. The auditorium at the Albright-Knox has become a room that the best jazz musicians working know about, and want to play. Bruce booked the Bad Plus a year before they broke because bassist Reid Anderson's had been through with Claudia Acuna and gave Bruce a demo of his other project. We have acquired a reputation as a good audience, and we work hard to live up to it. The other night PBS had a Bill Frisell concert-- a tape from a Rochester Jazz Festival show from a few years back-- and A. and I were reminded of the time Bruce brought him to Buffalo. In fact, Frisell was part of the first season, which also had Jack DeJohnette with David Sancious, and the Phil Woods Quartet. The audience was not as well prepared for Frissel as it would be today, and people were streaming out during the first half, prompting the guitarist to quip, "Now that the squares are all gone we can get down to business." That wouldn't happen today. Bruce Eaton has managed to turn Buffalo into a jazz destination by doing two things-- booking the best, and getting us to trust him.
I liked Kimbrough, who we already knew to be a versatile instrumentalist, having seen him in past seasons with the Maria Schneider Orchestra and with Dewey Redman. This evening we got a more cerebral performance, in both of his iterations: as a solo he was channeling his inner Keith Jarret, sort of, with a strong left hand setting up some interesting atmospherics. The Quartet was more about experimentation in rhythm, I think. Anchored by drummer Tony Moreno, and bass player Dean Johnson, Shank worked the post-bop style, frequently scatting and incorporating whoops, pops, and other unusual vocal techniques so that the overall effect was more or less instrumental. I liked the things she did with the numbers from her Abby Lincoln tribute-- particularly the opener, "Throw It Away", and I liked the two sort of standards. She slowed down "Blue Skies" and took it in a minor key, which is completely counter-intuitive. It personalized the song, I thought, although Jeff Simon singled it out for a slam in his review of her new side. Her set closer, "Black is the Color" was more up-tempo, and nicely incorporated all of the strengths of the quartet-- Johnson's limber bass, Moreno's expressive drumming, and, especially, Kimbrough's versatility. It was challenging music for most of the set, not really a singer with a trio behind her, more of a band performance, but although it took some concentration to stay with it, the overall sound was warm and pleasing.
It occurred to me as I sat there, and not for the first time, that what Bruce Eaton has done over the past ten years with this series is quite remarkable. There is a core of regulars in the room, in the audience and on the stage and over the years this has given the series a distinct personality. We are all smarter listeners because we have taken Bruce's programing on faith, and as a result we are a better audience. The auditorium at the Albright-Knox has become a room that the best jazz musicians working know about, and want to play. Bruce booked the Bad Plus a year before they broke because bassist Reid Anderson's had been through with Claudia Acuna and gave Bruce a demo of his other project. We have acquired a reputation as a good audience, and we work hard to live up to it. The other night PBS had a Bill Frisell concert-- a tape from a Rochester Jazz Festival show from a few years back-- and A. and I were reminded of the time Bruce brought him to Buffalo. In fact, Frisell was part of the first season, which also had Jack DeJohnette with David Sancious, and the Phil Woods Quartet. The audience was not as well prepared for Frissel as it would be today, and people were streaming out during the first half, prompting the guitarist to quip, "Now that the squares are all gone we can get down to business." That wouldn't happen today. Bruce Eaton has managed to turn Buffalo into a jazz destination by doing two things-- booking the best, and getting us to trust him.
Monday, January 29, 2018
To Monty Alexander at Bruce Eaton's Albright-Knox Art of Jazz series yesterday. At these concerts
there is usually some sort of a pre-show event. Sometimes it's a movie, occasionally it is an artist's talk, but usually it is Bruce Eaton talking about the context that the music we about to hear comes from. Mr. Alexander is from Jamaica, and the arc of his career is a long one. To illustrate the history of Jamaican music Bruce elected to describe the career of a Jamaican guitarist/producer Ernest Raglin. Mr. Raglin was an early mentor to Mr. Alexander, and the two of them nicely illustrate the influence of jazz on trans-Caribbean music. It's an interesting way to think about this stuff: I am used to thinking of the Afro-Cuban sound that Dizzy Gillespie found and ran with, and of course there are many other ways to think about the jazz diaspora. All it takes is big ears.
Mr. Alexander himself played in a trio that was mostly straight-ahead, and reminded me a bit of Errol Gardner-- melodic improvisation, with a lot of witty quotation and just enough fancy flourishes to make it clear that he wasn't just showing off-- they were having fun up on stage, and wanted us to have fun too. He's a bit of a raconteur, and had some stories about earlier visits to Buffalo, interactions with Frank Sinatra and Miles Davis, and other topics near to my heart, but what was most notable was the way he integrated reggae material into the set. A very nice afternoon.
there is usually some sort of a pre-show event. Sometimes it's a movie, occasionally it is an artist's talk, but usually it is Bruce Eaton talking about the context that the music we about to hear comes from. Mr. Alexander is from Jamaica, and the arc of his career is a long one. To illustrate the history of Jamaican music Bruce elected to describe the career of a Jamaican guitarist/producer Ernest Raglin. Mr. Raglin was an early mentor to Mr. Alexander, and the two of them nicely illustrate the influence of jazz on trans-Caribbean music. It's an interesting way to think about this stuff: I am used to thinking of the Afro-Cuban sound that Dizzy Gillespie found and ran with, and of course there are many other ways to think about the jazz diaspora. All it takes is big ears.
Mr. Alexander himself played in a trio that was mostly straight-ahead, and reminded me a bit of Errol Gardner-- melodic improvisation, with a lot of witty quotation and just enough fancy flourishes to make it clear that he wasn't just showing off-- they were having fun up on stage, and wanted us to have fun too. He's a bit of a raconteur, and had some stories about earlier visits to Buffalo, interactions with Frank Sinatra and Miles Davis, and other topics near to my heart, but what was most notable was the way he integrated reggae material into the set. A very nice afternoon.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
To the Tord Gustavsen Trio last night, part of Bruce Eaton's Hunt Real Estate Art of Jazz series at the Albright-Knox. Because his style is quiet and contemplative Gustavsen draws comparisons to Bill Evans, but although anyone who likes Evans would probably enjoy Gustavsen the comparison falls down when you consider the way the two pianists swing-- Gustavsen's swing is elongated, and is as much about the space around the composition as it is his left hand-- a common quality among the artists on the ECM label, as Bruce pointed out in his pre-show talk. Sometimes this sort of thing can seem dry, but last night it hit me just right-- I found myself thinking about how warm and inviting this music was-- deceptively complex, another point in common with Evans, or Keith Jarrett, but also friendly, in the reserved way most of the Scandinavians I know are. If you were in Oslo on a cold night, you would be pleased to find yourself in a room where this group was playing, although the chances are it would be in a church or a small auditorium rather than a club. Even if it were in a club, you would not expect anyone in the room to acknowledge that you walked in, and you would order your drink by pointing.
It bears mentioning that this was one of only five stops in North America for these musicians, on this tour, and that they are generating a buzz that is almost louder than their music. I don't know what Bruce Eaton's secret is, but he is consistently in front of the field when it comes to bringing the best in jazz to Buffalo. Gustavsen and his trio's other stops were San Francisco, LA, and Knoxville (for the Bijou Fall Festival of the Arts), and it is pretty cool to think that the Queen City of the Lakes is on the map for musicians working at this level.
It bears mentioning that this was one of only five stops in North America for these musicians, on this tour, and that they are generating a buzz that is almost louder than their music. I don't know what Bruce Eaton's secret is, but he is consistently in front of the field when it comes to bringing the best in jazz to Buffalo. Gustavsen and his trio's other stops were San Francisco, LA, and Knoxville (for the Bijou Fall Festival of the Arts), and it is pretty cool to think that the Queen City of the Lakes is on the map for musicians working at this level.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Captain X lent me Geeta Dayal's "Another Green World"-- part of Continuum's 33 1/3 series. I'd forgotten how much I love this album, in part because I never bothered getting it on CD. My vinyl copy is still in the stacks-- when did I buy it? It would have been before 1978, because we were well-familiar with Eno before "More Songs About Buildings and Food"-- and before Devo, for that matter. It must have been about 1977, and we back-filled pretty quickly.
Is it my favorite Eno record? I think it may be, although "Before and After Science" is pretty great. "Another Green World" is like "Pet Sounds"- a realization through studio technology of a very specific individual vision. You can deconstruct it-- it has, for example, some of the prettiest guitar work Robert Fripp ever put down-- but it is best understood as a whole. Unfortunately Ms. Dayal's book doesn't do much to add to what I already knew about the album, and it doesn't really work as a pure appreciation either. That's how it goes with the 33 1/3 books, I've found. Sometimes there's a wealth of detail that borders on the OCD; sometimes there is literary experimentation; sometimes it all clicks; and sometimes they fall flat. Bruce Eaton's "Radio City" works because it is framed by a story-- he found the side in a cut-out bin, and ended up playing on stage with Alex Chilton. I like Mark Polizzotti's "Highway 61 Revisited"-- straight up Dylanology, well told, with details I'd never heard before. Robert Janovitz' Exile on Main Street is likewise first-rate-- Janovitz tells you what kind of microphones the Stones were using, but also gets into the relationships among the principals with insight and clarity. I'm less of a fan of Hayden Childs' Shoot Out the Lights. Childs thought it would be interesting to create a fictional character whose career parallels Richard Thompson to narrate the book, and the fiction tromps all over a story that is compelling without embellishment.
All that said, it is a brave act to take on a 33 1/3 I think. The only people who are going to read a book like that are going to be as obsessed as the author, so success is going to be dependent on a combination of insight and creativity that is hard to pull off. In most instances, even if access to the participants in the making of the recording is available their recollection is going to be compromised-- and most of the time access isn't even going to be possible. (If Bruce Eaton had waited a year on his project, for example, two of the members of Big Star would have been lost to him forever.)
Is it my favorite Eno record? I think it may be, although "Before and After Science" is pretty great. "Another Green World" is like "Pet Sounds"- a realization through studio technology of a very specific individual vision. You can deconstruct it-- it has, for example, some of the prettiest guitar work Robert Fripp ever put down-- but it is best understood as a whole. Unfortunately Ms. Dayal's book doesn't do much to add to what I already knew about the album, and it doesn't really work as a pure appreciation either. That's how it goes with the 33 1/3 books, I've found. Sometimes there's a wealth of detail that borders on the OCD; sometimes there is literary experimentation; sometimes it all clicks; and sometimes they fall flat. Bruce Eaton's "Radio City" works because it is framed by a story-- he found the side in a cut-out bin, and ended up playing on stage with Alex Chilton. I like Mark Polizzotti's "Highway 61 Revisited"-- straight up Dylanology, well told, with details I'd never heard before. Robert Janovitz' Exile on Main Street is likewise first-rate-- Janovitz tells you what kind of microphones the Stones were using, but also gets into the relationships among the principals with insight and clarity. I'm less of a fan of Hayden Childs' Shoot Out the Lights. Childs thought it would be interesting to create a fictional character whose career parallels Richard Thompson to narrate the book, and the fiction tromps all over a story that is compelling without embellishment.
All that said, it is a brave act to take on a 33 1/3 I think. The only people who are going to read a book like that are going to be as obsessed as the author, so success is going to be dependent on a combination of insight and creativity that is hard to pull off. In most instances, even if access to the participants in the making of the recording is available their recollection is going to be compromised-- and most of the time access isn't even going to be possible. (If Bruce Eaton had waited a year on his project, for example, two of the members of Big Star would have been lost to him forever.)
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
2013 Highlights:
- Rudresh Mahanthappa at Bruce Eaton's Hunt Real Estate Art of Jazz series at the Albright-Knox
- Kittens!
- The Pastrami Project
- A friend's subsequent recovery
- Bob Dylan at UB
- Gretchen Parlato at Bruce Eaton's Hunt Real Estate Art of Jazz
- Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud at Hallwalls (Hard to believe I'd never seen it before.)
- The Hold Steady at Thursdays at Canalside
- CLA's Hopkins Commencement
- I am never more aware of my citified ways than I am when the trees are taller than the buildings. (In a way, a comment that fits the whole year, if not my whole life.)
- Tim Newell as Claudius in the Shakespeare in Delaware Park Hamlet
- Todd Rundgren at Canalside. (As Captain X says, we went thinking that it might be great or it might be terrible, and if it was terrible it would still be great. It was unabashedly terrific.)
- "Just Look At It!" (For some reason the NYSBA Journal hasn't gotten back to me on this submission.)
- Alaska
- LCA in Cabaret!
Monday, March 13, 2006
To Dewey Redman at Bruce Eaton's Microsoft Art of Jazz yesterday, expecting something along the lines of Ornette Coleman, and getting more of a hard bop thing, which was mighty fine indeed. Anchored by Matt Wilson, and featuring Frank Kimbrough on piano (he'd just been through with the Maria Schneider Orchestra)the band swung along beautifully. Eaton's pre-show talk was something of a preview for next season, and something of a discussion about the state of jazz. Like most aficionados, Eaton is troubled by the fact that this music is less appreciated in the US than abroad. I'm not so sure that this is a bad thing-- the reality is that the economics of the music industry is changing radically-- in all genres. Jazz more than most has been a form that has depended upon the sale of recordings, really from its inception, and that's not how music is distributed in the 21st Century. If musicians are going to make money, they are going to have to do two things: they are going to have to get out and tour-- a lot-- and they are going to have to sell their music themselves, over the web and at their performances. Maria Schneider gets it, but too many people haven't worked this out yet.
I got a call last week from a singer who wanted to go work in Japan, and had some legal questions. You could back a truck up and fill it with what I don't know about Japanese law, but I knew where to send her, and I wish her luck. I think it is terrific that Paulette McWilliams is appreciated in Japan, and can make a buck doing what she loves-- and I think it is terrific that she is out there doing it for herself, instead of waiting for Blue Note to do it for her.
I got a call last week from a singer who wanted to go work in Japan, and had some legal questions. You could back a truck up and fill it with what I don't know about Japanese law, but I knew where to send her, and I wish her luck. I think it is terrific that Paulette McWilliams is appreciated in Japan, and can make a buck doing what she loves-- and I think it is terrific that she is out there doing it for herself, instead of waiting for Blue Note to do it for her.
Monday, May 09, 2011
To the Pete Malinverni Trio at the Albright-Knox Saturday night, the final show in Bruce Eaton's Hunt Real Estate Art of Jazz series this season. Bruce deserves every plaudit I can think of for working this project the way he has-- I am inclined to believe that it is one of the most important cultural institutions in the region. It sprang from his forehead full-blown, and now it has acquired a world-wide reputation-- pretty impressive. Usually at the end of a season Bruce lets us in on who is coming next season, but this year we just got a teaser. Charles Lloyd went back to his label after his performance and said that the Art of Jazz audience was the best they'd played in front of on their entire tour. ECM, which already liked the series and the venue, came back with this news, and told Bruce that they have an artist who'll be playing three dates in the US next year: one in New York, one on the West Coast, and when would be good for the Albright-Knox date?
Pete Malinverni, to get back to the artist under discussion, is originally from Niagara Falls, although he is now based in New York, so he had a hometown crowd to work with, full of family, relatives and friends. He reveled in it, and put on a bright, energetic performance that was a pleasure to hear. Really, when you get right down to it there are few things that sound as great as a piano trio. The pre-concert feature was a movie: Bill Evans in Helsinki, which documented Evans and his trio playing in a Finnish living room in 1970. At one point Evans said that the trio he was working with (Eddie Gomez, bass and Marty Morell, drums) played together "like water pouring from a faucet". I'd say that Malinverni and his group (bassist Lee Hudson and drummer Eliot Zigmund-- an Evans alum) were more like a mountain brook-- bubbly and bright, and more powerful than they first appeared. The opener was a Malinverni composition based on the changes from "What is This Thing Called Love"-- Malinverni titled his piece "Good Question" and that sense of humor pervaded the entire performance.
Pete Malinverni, to get back to the artist under discussion, is originally from Niagara Falls, although he is now based in New York, so he had a hometown crowd to work with, full of family, relatives and friends. He reveled in it, and put on a bright, energetic performance that was a pleasure to hear. Really, when you get right down to it there are few things that sound as great as a piano trio. The pre-concert feature was a movie: Bill Evans in Helsinki, which documented Evans and his trio playing in a Finnish living room in 1970. At one point Evans said that the trio he was working with (Eddie Gomez, bass and Marty Morell, drums) played together "like water pouring from a faucet". I'd say that Malinverni and his group (bassist Lee Hudson and drummer Eliot Zigmund-- an Evans alum) were more like a mountain brook-- bubbly and bright, and more powerful than they first appeared. The opener was a Malinverni composition based on the changes from "What is This Thing Called Love"-- Malinverni titled his piece "Good Question" and that sense of humor pervaded the entire performance.
Monday, February 01, 2010
To Mostly Other People Do The Killing yesterday, at Bruce Eaton's Hunt Real Estate Art of Jazz series at the Albright-Knox. Bruce had promised that we were in for something special and they were all that, a terrific blend of Ornette Coleman, traditional New Orleans jazz, hard bop, "In A Silent Way" era Miles and probably six or seven or a dozen other things that I could hear but not identify. A lot of what happens in their music seemed to be going on in between the individual sounds that each member of the quintet (drums, bass, tenor and trumpet) were making. It was fun, and charming, but also challenging, often characterized by cacophony collapsing into lyricism. I'd rank it among the top shows I've seen over the course of the 11 years Bruce has been producing this program. I love it when jazz musicians show that the form is still growing.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Friday, June 12, 2009
Naturally enough, I think of Bruce Eaton as a jazz guy, but he has written a book about Big Star, and apparently Bruce was a punk rocker.There were some great clubs in Buffalo back then-- The Continental was the one I knew best, but Bruce played with Alex Chilton at McVan's, which was also a magnificently seedy venue. There's a Wilson Farms store on the corner of Niagara and Hertel where McVan's used to be, and I think someone is trying to turn the Continental into condos. Although there's something of a tour market for old Buffalo bars, it seems to center mostly on the blue color joints where people who had jobs drank after shoveling grain for ten hours. It would be interesting to go on a tour of some of the sites where Buffalo's punk rock scene flourished before flaming out-- dog-collar bars, I guess you'd call them. One of the other great rock institutions of those days was Gary Storm's Oil of Dog program. I think I'd want a recording of an Oil of Dog program, with the wolf howling at the intro, playing on the tour bus, to replicate the experience of driving to Hotel California, or the Central Park Grill at 2 AM on a Saturday.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
To Guinga last night, the concluding event of this year's Albright-Knox Microsoft Art of Jazz series, and the final stop on his first North American tour. We really didn't know what to expect with this performance, but a leap of faith with Bruce Eaton is an easy step to take. We knew that Guinga was Brazilian, and Eaton may have mentioned that he has a day job as a dentist. I assumed guitar, and went in figuring that, except for the dentist part we knew enough to be confident of hearing something at least pleasant, even if it turned out to be nothing more.
As it happened, it turned out to be a great deal more, informed by Brazilian musical traditions, but informed as well by American popular standards from the 30's and 40's, and mostly sounding like straight-on be-bop. Two guitars, supplemented by clarinet (which gave things a Gershwin feel,) and a trumpeter/flugelhorn who blasted licks that reminded me of Dizzy Gillespie. Mostly it was very fast, witty unison playing, broken up with an occasional solo by one of the horns while the guitars vamped behind. The playing was incredible-- the kind of thing that just makes you laugh when you realize what they have done, the way a Charley Parker solo works-- and you could see that they knew it too. They were on, and they were amazing. Guinga has big hands, and worked up and down the fretboard mostly picking out rhythm licks behind the lead playing of Lula Galvão on a hollow-bodied electric guitar. It was great to watch-- they were in perfect synch together, running down the changes at breakneck speed, usually with a look of concentration, occasionally glancing over to the other, just to make sure they were going to the same place, then finishing with a flourish, and breaking into smiles.
The CD I picked up will take some listening-- it is very orchestral, and not what we had last night. I get the feeling that Guinga has decided that the time is right to turn towards music. He is established in Brazil, but his dental practice is what pays the bills. He doesn't speak much English, but he mentioned that his two daughters are now 22 and 24-- a good time in his life to start seeking out a larger audience.
As it happened, it turned out to be a great deal more, informed by Brazilian musical traditions, but informed as well by American popular standards from the 30's and 40's, and mostly sounding like straight-on be-bop. Two guitars, supplemented by clarinet (which gave things a Gershwin feel,) and a trumpeter/flugelhorn who blasted licks that reminded me of Dizzy Gillespie. Mostly it was very fast, witty unison playing, broken up with an occasional solo by one of the horns while the guitars vamped behind. The playing was incredible-- the kind of thing that just makes you laugh when you realize what they have done, the way a Charley Parker solo works-- and you could see that they knew it too. They were on, and they were amazing. Guinga has big hands, and worked up and down the fretboard mostly picking out rhythm licks behind the lead playing of Lula Galvão on a hollow-bodied electric guitar. It was great to watch-- they were in perfect synch together, running down the changes at breakneck speed, usually with a look of concentration, occasionally glancing over to the other, just to make sure they were going to the same place, then finishing with a flourish, and breaking into smiles.
The CD I picked up will take some listening-- it is very orchestral, and not what we had last night. I get the feeling that Guinga has decided that the time is right to turn towards music. He is established in Brazil, but his dental practice is what pays the bills. He doesn't speak much English, but he mentioned that his two daughters are now 22 and 24-- a good time in his life to start seeking out a larger audience.
Monday, January 28, 2019
To Joe Lovano with Trio Tapestry at Bruce Eaton's Hunt Real Estate Art of Jazz at the Albright-Knox yesterday, as fine an afternoon of jazz as you'll find, and the opening gig for this group. As Bruce put it in his introduction, for an hour or so we were at the center of the jazz universe.
The secret weapon in this group is pianist Marilyn Crispel. Listening to this music you could hear why Lovano wants to play with her- she is a terrific complement to his somewhat angular lines, and seems to breath along with him.
The secret weapon in this group is pianist Marilyn Crispel. Listening to this music you could hear why Lovano wants to play with her- she is a terrific complement to his somewhat angular lines, and seems to breath along with him.
Sunday, November 07, 2010
To Las Vegas for AHIA last week, on which more anon. (AHIA is always a good program; this one was exceptionally so.) I was in the air as A and LCA were at the Hot Club of Detroit show-- only the second of Bruce Eaton's Art of Jazz shows that I've missed. Bruce was double-booked, and had to pass on Dylan in Rochester-- the setlist suggests to me that I'd have preferred the Hot Club show. (Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 is on my bottom five Dylan songs list, and come to think of it, so is Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power).
Monday, March 01, 2010
To the Cedar Walton Quartet at the (deep breath) Hunt Real Estate-David Kennedy Art of Jazz at the Albright-Knox yesterday. I've been hoping Bruce Eaton would book Walton since I realized that the series was an ongoing affair, and I think Bruce has had him on his list for a long time too. He was as excited as I've ever seen him before the show, and it soon became clear why: these guys (Javon Jackson tenor, David Williams on bass and drummer Billy Drummond) swung into their set with smooth power. It was like being in a Blue Note album. There are moments when I'm listening to this sort of hard bop music when I am pretty convinced that the musicians who came out of the post-war jazz scene made the greatest contribution to American culture of anyone in any other field-- literature, cinema, you name it. This was one of those moments. These four cats were consummate pros, with a deep and profound understanding of the jazz idiom, and listening to them imbued us with insight. The pre-show this time was a movie about Horace Parlan, another pianist from that time, and at one point in the film Parlan, who has lived in Denmark since 1973, talked about the pressures of living in New York and being a creative artist in the 60s and 70s. It has to have been a difficult road for these artists, and we are fortunate that they stayed the course because the work they are producing is still as exciting, engaging and important today as it has always been.
Friday, January 02, 2009
I've said it here, and I've said it in the pages of Spree: the best place to hear great music in Buffalo is in the vicinity of Bruce Eaton. Running down the Village Voice Jazz Poll I see that thanks to Bruce we saw Rudresh Mahanthappa (#2) and Vijay Iyer (#4-- same show, actually), as well as Lionel Loueke (#12). Bill Frisell's (#9)show, back when the series started is still one that I think back on, and Dave Holland (#17) was one of the most amazing things I ever saw.
Friday, March 19, 2010
With some artists its when you find your way in. Christgau had been saying for years that Alex Chilton was putting out sides that were worth picking up, but I couldn't find "Like Flies on Sherbet" or "Feudalist Tarts"-- and I didn't know about Big Star. What I ended up with was "High Priest"-- the one where Chilton covers "Volare". Hard to say if it is his quirkiest side-- Bruce Eaton makes the argument that Chilton was misunderstood, and not really quirky. Excentric maybe. Bruce would know. Chilton is an interesting figure in American pop-- the Box Tops material is almost certainly his best known stuff, but his influence-- particularly with Big Star-- is remarkably pervasive. In an odd way Chilton really was a pure artist working in a genre where pure artists are not really acknowledged-- it's called pop, after all, because the goal is to be popular. You have really made it as a pop star when they use your music in car commercials, and even though Chilton wrote a song that became the theme to a sitcom he doesn't seem to have been interested in working towards that goal. As I scanned the obits and the tributes I was struck by how some media outlets understood his significance and others didn't really get it.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
My collection contains enough of both the top 100 jazz CDs and the top 100 released in the last ten years to suggest that both lists are useful starting places for those times when I feel like getting some new music, but I'm not sure what I'm looking for. I have slightly less than half of the sides on the all-time list; my holdings on the contemporary list are less extensive, although the number of artists represented compares favorably. I owe Bruce Eaton a thank you on the contemporary stuff-- as I've said before, the best place to hear music in Buffalo is somewhere in Bruce's vicinity.
Monday, January 28, 2008
To the Lionel Loueke Trio at Bruce Eaton's Hunt Real Estate Art of Jazz at the Albright Knox yesterday. Probably jazz is America's greatest contribution to world culture, and Bruce has been booking acts that demonstrate that the world is giving it back; Loueke is from Benin, in West Africa, his drummer, Ferenc Nemeth is Hungarian, and his bassist, Massimo Biolcati is from Italy, and is half Swedish. So what does it sound like? Well, there is a recognizably African sound that runs through the blues. It is a guitar sound, mostly-- one of the ways that this music mutated when it came to the New World was that pianos came into it. You hear it in the way that the Reverend Gary Davis plays, and it runs through Muddy Waters and on into jazz. It's related to the "wild, mercury sound" that Dylan says he was trying for on "Blond on Blond", and it's in the South African parts that Paul Simon used on "Graceland" and that Peter Gabriel has employed in his world music experiments. Loueke has that sound, and it is interesting to think about the fact that the guitar-- a modified lute that was invented in Spain back before centuries had three digits-- has migrated around the world, and become the foundation sound of so many musical forms. So Loueke sounds like that, and sometimes he sounds a little like George Benson.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Bruce Eaton has been writing about the concerts he booked as a student at Hobart & William Smith. Today's post is about how he brought Bruce Springsteen into town, and is pretty great.
Friday, August 10, 2007
The Art of Jazz series is looking ambitious this year: The Carl Allen – Rodney Whitaker Project; The Tord Gustavsen Trio; The Lionel Loueke Trio; James "Blood" Ulmer; The Vijay Iyer Quartet; and The Russell Malone Quartet. As usual, some I know, and some I've never heard of. The ones I know are all artists I've been interested in seeing for some time, and the ones I've never heard of I trust Bruce Eaton on. I'm pleased to see that Jim Santella is slated to give a pre-show talk, too. Dick Judelson-- "Dr. Jazz" has been involved with this program from the start, but more WBFO involvement would be a good thing for both the Art of Jazz and WBFO. I'm also excited by the fact that the slate has an international flavor again this year. Bruce has turned Buffalo into a jazz destination, at least for the artists, and that is a pretty cool accomplishment.
