What live music are you going to see tonight?

[jlhoots]

Tin Hat

[Justin V]

I saw Jack DeJohnette at Manchester Craftsmen's Guild last weekend. You can stream the set that I attended here: http://mcgjazz.org/_wp/ (Click on the little banner with DeJohnette). It was a decidedly funky set. DeJohnette is is celebrating his 70th birthday at the top of his game.

EDIT: MCG will also be streaming the Lewis Nash/Steve Wilson duo on March 16th at 9:30 PM, a surprise archive concert on April 3rd at 8 PM, and the Brecker Brothers Reunion Band on April 12th at 9:30 PM.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Justin V

[A Lark Ascending]

Mark Lockheart's 'Ellington in Anticipation' band in Sheffield. The concert of the new CD - wonderfully quirky arrangements of well known Ellington tunes. Respectful but different.

A tremendous version of 'I'm Beginning To See The Light' that sounded like it came out of a New York loft in the 70s. Sadly, not on the CD.

[ejp626]

Rudresh Mahanthappa: Gamak

Hope it is great. Haven't seen Rudresh in quite a while. Don't think he heads this way that often...

I am off to see Mahan Esfahani play Bach's Goldberg Variations on harpsichord. Mostly I hope they don't stick an intermission in there.

[jeffcrom]

Jim Cullum with a quartet at Tucker's, a tiny club within walking distance of my hotel in San Antonio. I wasn't sure whether it would be worthwhile, or just corny revivalism - but I really enjoyed it. They played some tunes that I've never heard anyone play live before, like "Sweetie Dear" and Ellington's "Morning Glory." I was particularly impressed with pianist John Sheridan, whose playing was somewhat touched by Teddy Wilson.

[Steve Reynolds]

Saturday Night @ my favorite place - Cornelia Street Cafe:

Saturday, Mar 16 - 9:00PM & 10:30PM
TONY MALABY'S READING BAND
Tony Malaby, tenor sax; Ralph Alessi, trumpet; Drew Gress, bass; Billy Drummond, drums

[kh1958]

Last night, Evan Weiss/Davy Mooney Quintet at Scat Jazz on Fort Worth.

[Steve Reynolds]

Well from Tony Malaby channeling Coleman Hawkins to Billy Drummond reinventing Tony Williams as himself, a pretty great 2 sets.

Drew Gress is a groove monster and Ralph Alessi is precise yet at times exhuberent.

The second set ended with a Sidney Bechet piece followed by Grachan Moncur's Frankenstein.

Btw all tunes played were selected by Tony right before each set and played without rehearsal. Tunes included a Motian piece, a Chris Lightcap tune, a great Malaby original that was post bop groove based madness that ended the 65 minute first set on an extraordinary high note and Blessed by Mat Maneri.

The composition/performance was at times almost silent with the whole place as quiet as any club could be. Mat himself was in the audience and might be a harbinger of things to come for this music. The best composition of the night, IMO, and inspired some of the most precise, yet heartfelt improvising from the dual horns.

[Steve Reynolds]

A few more thoughts:

As some know Tony might be my favorite or second favorite saxophonist alive(along with Evan Parker) but he might also be inconsistent, maddening and mystifying. But he has his own sound, can play anything in any context and never settles for anything other than risk taking adventure no matter what the context.

There were moments last night when I KNEW I was listening to the greatest tenor player alive and there were also times I was thinking WTF is he doing?? And it seems to happen every time I see him. His extended improvisation during the Bechet slow blues was at times exasperating and then just as I thought that he again is going down some insane path of no return, he transformed his solo/improv into something teetering on genius.

The guy is the greatest high wire performer in all of jazz with practiced technique honestly untouched by most any other tenor players on the scene today. Maybe he is not the pure bop/post bopper that Chis Potter or Jerry Bergonzi, but as far as the sound of surprise and the idea of never knowing where he's gonna go or what the hell is gonna happen, he is unmatched in jazz today.

And last thing, Billy Drummond is a grand master and the in and out nature of the Malaby Reading Band showed him to be that master.

A few people here might have died and gone to heaven hearing Frankenstein last night. Pure joy with not a sound of nostalgia in it. Alessi and Malaby during the heads and the stop time rhythm throughout with a great, great drum solo playing the melody before the classic theme ended the night

[Larry Kart]

Last night at the Hungry Brain:

Jaimie Branch (tpt), Jarrett Gilgore (alto), Anton Hatwich (bs), Frank Rosaly (dms)

Branch, who has been in living Baltimore recently, studying under Dave Ballou at Towson State, was excellent; Gilgore, age 21 from Baltimore, was scary good.

[BFrank]

RT at Antone's in Austin last Thursday

RT at the Parish in Austin last Friday

[Justin V]

I just caught the (Michael) Wolff & (Mike) Clark Expedition with Jeff Berlin. It was a very loose, fun set. Michael Wolff is an underrated pianist and Mike Clark, known for his distinctive funk style, is a pretty versatile drummer. I was pleasantly surprised by Jeff Berlin, whose playing is quite fluid. They all obviously enjoy each other's company as well, so their in-between-song banter was pretty funny. I'm looking forward to giving the new Wolff & Clark Expedition album a spin; it has Chip Jackson on bass, and he has a different style from Berlin and is on double bass rather than electric.

Edited March 21, 2013 by Justin V

[skeith]

A Tribute to Paul Motian - tonight at Symphony Space in Manhattan - incredible lineup of musicians.

[B. Clugston]

Off to see Evan Parker tonight--solo and small group. Archival LP of 1978 concert also will be released.

[Steve Reynolds]

Enjoy Evan Parker.

Would love to read a report on the band/performance, etc

[A Lark Ascending]

Fay Hield and the Hurricane Party.

Slightly different band than here (and last time I saw them at Sidmouth in the summer) but the same dress (was Fay Hield a Von Trapp child, doomed to wear curtains?).

Utterly brilliant - rumbling, squeaky ox-cart English folk. No modern instruments or laptops (unless you count an acoustic guitar and a nyckleharpa as inauthentic modernism!); mainly squeezeboxes, fiddles with a bit of banjo, cello and mandolin. The band worked up a wonderful head of steam in the instrumental passages (both within songs and in the non-vocal pieces), especially when there was just a melodeon and three fiddles scratching away.

Field's voice is a million miles away from gentle folksiness - there's a rough edge there and a completely distinctive sound. Playing here on her home ground (Sheffield), she was in her element.

Her last album, 'Orfeo', was one of my favourite records of last year. Live performance just proves she's up there with The Unthanks, Chris Wood and Jackie Oates in the keeping the flame alive stakes.

Edited March 23, 2013 by A Lark Ascending

[B. Clugston]

Enjoy Evan Parker.

Would love to read a report on the band/performance, etc

It was a great concert. Evan Parker opened the first set with a 25-minute soprano solo, circular breathing the whole time. I've seen Parker in many configurations before, but never solo, and it was quite amazing to experience. Surprisingly, he followed that up with a very brief rendition of a Monk tune, played in a Steve Lacy style! (I think it was "Well, You Needn't.") Set two was Parker on tenor with Gordon Grdina on guitar and oud and Kenton Loewen on drums. They played two improvised pieces--the second, featuring the oud, had a real Moorish feel to it and it was interesting to see what a great listener Parker is—he really adapted to what the others were playing. Both sets were recorded.

The LP release is from the same tour that produced At the Finger Palace. There's some details here: http://front.bc.ca/events/evan-parker-concert-and-lp-launch/

[Steve Reynolds]

thanks for the comments - I check every week or so to see who Evan will have playing with him when he is here in NYC in September....but not yet updated but if it is anything like the longer residency he had for his 65th birthday celebration in 2009, it will be mostly some of the best NYC area improvisors....

very much looking to seeing him again live and great to hear, as expected, that his playing is in fine shape.

[BFrank]

Tomorrow night at the Bottom of the Hill club - very small venue.

#BOTH (Aimee Mann and Ted Leo)

My friend is a big Aimee Mann fan, so we're going to check this out.

[relyles]

Thursday, March 28, 2013 8pm

Bezanson Recital Hall Umass - Amherst, MA

HARRISON BANKHEAD QUARTET

Edward Wilkerson, Jr. and Mars Williams, reeds; Avreeayl Ra, drums

Edited March 28, 2013 by relyles

[Steve Reynolds]

Huge having Wilkerson and Bankhead on the east coast!

Enjoy the show. Look forward to hearing your comments

[Justin V]

Lee Konitz Quartet with pianist Vadim Neselovskyi, bassist Jeff Denson and drummer Ronen Itzik in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. I was very impressed with the entire group, none of whom I'd ever heard (excluding Konitz, of course). Konitz had apparently only just met Neselovskyi and Itzik; despite his unfamiliarity with them, he had the same adventurous spirit, first asking the audience for requests and then asking individual bandmates to start playing a song of their choice.

Other than Denson, the entire group was unamplified. As a result, I didn't need to wear earplugs, and sitting in the front row, I really got to soak up Konitz's gorgeous sound. To see Konitz at the top of his game, cracking jokes and leading a group of musicians 50 years his junior, is simply remarkable.

We may even visit Antietam after checking out of the hotel.

Edited March 29, 2013 by Justin V

[Larry Kart]

Last night at Elastic:

• Caroline Davis Quartet, with Mike Allemana, Matt Ferguson, Jeremy Cunningham
• Russ Johnson, Nick Mazzarella, Joshua Abrams, Damon Short

Hadn't heard Davis in some time. She's worked a lot on her sound, or maybe it's just evolved -- beautifully round and kind of cool-warm, somewhat reminiscent of the late Hal McKusick's sound at times. OTOH -- and this may have been the result of fairly worked out compositions -- she didn't seem to give/immerse herself in the act of improvisation as much I might have thought she would, a certain reticence. Also, at times she seemed rather soft-edged rhythmically, which of course could be a choice because Davis is basically a lyrical player, but when I noticed this I wondered a bit. More listening on my part is called for.

Was awfully tired by the second set, but it was a good one. Johnson's recent appearances have been a delight -- what a distinctive, mature player, with a fabulous but also more or less unobtrusive technique -- and the whole group, a new one, was fruitfully in tune with each other. Short is a fine partner for the horns and such a swinger; Mazzarella often gives me the feeling that his lines are almost literally in flames. That is, there's the slower moving basic melodic line, but the overtones/roughed-up timbres more or less add additional flickering/flaming, very "hot" melodic details to the core melodies. It's an effect we're all familiar with from Ayler and some periods of Trane, but it's not often heard on alto, except (in my experience) from that great Japanese player Sakata, and Nick's version of it is quite his own. I feel good that I felt that he was going to be something special when I first heard him maybe three or so years ago, when he was so drenched in Ornette that some thought that he was and would always be a mere imitator. But, no -- I knew right off that Nick was focused like a banshee and heading outwards. Had a similar experience about twelve years ago with Keefe Jackson, just knew right off that he would grow and grow, even in his case had a pretty good idea of HOW he would grow. Also had at least one experience the other way on this scene -- a player who shall be nameless who I and a lot of people were more or less knocked out by in the early and mid-2000s, and then IMO he began to run in place so to speak and lose a fair amount of his former creative intensity. Music can be a cruel mistress.

[Chuck Nessa]

Tonite it is the Roscoe Mitchell quartet with Hugh Ragin, Tani Tabbal and Jaribu Shahid at the Eldorado Ballroom in Houston.

[relyles]

Johnson's recent appearances have been a delight -- what a distinctive, mature player, with a fabulous but also more or less unobtrusive technique

Trumpeter, Ron Horton recommended Russ Johnson to me several years ago and I have been very grateful for that introduction. I have had the opportunity to hear him live several times and I think your description above is right on point. Although at the moment not documented by an official recording, I have loved what I heard of him in the Out to Lunch band with Roy Nathanson, Myra Melford, Brad Jones and George Schuller. Not usually a fan of the tribute bands, but this one works. I checked out Mazzarella on your recommendation and would be very interested to hear him with another horn like Johnson.