What live music are you going to see tonight?

[Leeway]

9 hours ago, king ubu said:

15 hours ago, Steve Reynolds said:

First set only the trio without the drummer - not my cup of java - not sure it was expected - nice playing but 50 minutes of continuous improvisation without the drummer when I'm expecting the drummer took me over half of that 50 minutes to open up to listen. Roberts unaccompanied solo towards the end had me a bit interested. When the set ended at a few minutes past 10:00, Malaby said Ben Perowsky would be joining the group for the second set. I hadn't seen him in almost 20 years and I know he's good but.....maybe no one here would believe it if I told you....cuz I was planning on going home angry - I came to see a full quartet with a DRUMMER!!!

Perowsky shows up at 10:45 / band finally starts at 11:05 or so and I'm losing patience quickly - questioning why I stayed as I was trying to get out of there after the first set before Tony made the announcement....

the next continuous 50 minutes should be the best live jazz record of the past 5 years in an alternate universe but nobody knows or really hears my guy too well, I think - for me better now on soprano - in fact for me - pretty damn untouchable on the straight horn / never have I heard him wail and scorch the earth like he did last night and THEN!!! a section on the big horn a half hour in with the band in full fucking roar - holy moly - and Hank Roberts with a little stick - with both Formanek & Roberts bowing - vibrations to end all vibrations

 

and Perowsky is what Malaby said when he introduced him as the *great* Ben Perowsky / I had no fucking idea that Malaby was right / the roster of truly world class drummers in NY is insane - here is another one / a few people besides me screamed with joy or terror a few times when things got very very intense.

see I know none of you believe me,,,,ignore these dudes at your peril

 

blood and guts, baby

 

Steve, that second set does sound like an incredible experience. Don't know Perowsky at all but will be alert for him.

[Larry Kart]

58 minutes ago, Leeway said:

Steve, that second set does sound like an incredible experience. Don't know Perowsky at all but will be alert for him.

I remember hearing Perowsky and Donny McCaslin in a classroom  ensemble at Berklee when they were first-year students there and thought right off they were going to be really good -- heck, they already were. I told Gary Burton about them, he was then Berklee's dean of students, and  the next time Burton came to Chicago, Donny was his tenorman. Ben made a nice record with his tenorman father, Frank.

http://www.amazon.com/Bop-Pop-Frank-Perowsky-Trio/dp/B00006RZ4Y/ref=sr_1_5?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1463951875&sr=1-5&keywords=perowsky

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

this wk i saw: the who 3x & billy joel

[alankin]

16 hours ago, Leeway said:

Steve, that second set does sound like an incredible experience. Don't know Perowsky at all but will be alert for him.

Perowsky is also on some good Dave Douglas recordings from the late 1990s.

[Steve Reynolds]

1 hour ago, alankin said:

Perowsky is also on some good Dave Douglas recordings from the late 1990s.

This is the context I heard him in. Live show with Douglas, Uri Caine on electric keyboards plus a saxophonist(?) and bassist(?) maybe Knitting Factory maybe late 90's. 

What I heard Saturday night was a horse of another garage. So much more explosive and much more in my wheelhouse.

[jcam_44]

Saw Logan Richardson on Saturday. Pretty good set, only got to stay for the first one. Wasn't completely happy with the mix, guitar was way to loud. Logan was buried at times. Tommy Crane was on drums and that man was insane! 

Oh and should be going to Gavin Templeton on Wed. For his album release. He's a fantastic performer, I saw him a couple years ago with Vinny Golia and immediately bought his catalog. And as a bonus Joshua White will be on piano and he is fantastic as well. 

[kh1958]

Last night, New Orleans blues musician Chris Thomas King was rather inexplicably performing in Little Elm, Texas at a place called Rock 101. A 26 mile, though fairly easy, drive from my home, the venue turned out to be a bar/restaurant, but with a stage and decent sound. Chris Thomas King performed solo on electric or acoustic guitar and vocals--a mixture of country blues (Hard Times Killin' Floor Blues), modern blues (Hideaway), and his original material. A rather fine performance it was; I really enjoyed the set. The setting was not so great, as maybe 20 people or so were there to see Chris Thomas  King and listened attentively, while the rest of the place was populated by a loud, indifferent bar crowd.

Edited May 28, 2016 by kh1958

[jcam_44]

Was able to catch The Gavin Templeton Quartet on Wed. Best show I've seen in a loooooooong time. Blew Logan Richardson out of the water, as well as when I recently saw Greg Osby. Gavin with Joshua White on piano (absolute MONSTER), Richard Giddens on Bass and Gene Coye on Drums. Outstanding!!!!

[Chuck Nessa]

Last Friday night at Constellation in Chicago - Roscoe Mitchell Quartet with Maya Dunietz, Junius Paul and Mike Reed.

This was my first time seeing/hearing Dunietz and she played wonderfully.

[ghost of miles]

Mary Halvorson's playing in Indianapolis tomorrow night... would like to go, but not sure I'll be able to.

[Steve Reynolds]

On May 31, 2016 at 9:35 AM, ghost of miles said:

Mary Halvorson's playing in Indianapolis tomorrow night... would like to go, but not sure I'll be able to.

Looks like Thumbscrew with Formanek & Fujiwara

hope you can make it

[A Lark Ascending]

Lila Downs (Royal Festival Hall, London)

Varttina (KIng's Place, London) 

Two from the bucket list - concerts on successive nights so worth a trip.Both excellent.

Lila Downs - a bit like going to a wild party where you don't know anyone (I didn't half feel British...polite applause, clapping along on the wrong beat etc!). Huge Latin contingent in the audience going bananas from the off. A really exciting two hours with real instruments (no beat boxes etc that you get on her records in places). Tremendous voice - just as powerful live as on record, especially at the lower end. Not quite what I'm used to....this was a slick, choreographed 'show' with some cheesy cameos (an accordion 'duel') but once you suspended your disbelief, utterly compelling.

Proper review here: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jun/02/lila-downs-review-mexican-american-singer-royal-festival-hall-london

Varttina - no sign of London's Finnish population (probably already deported by Boris and Nigel) and only half full which was sad as this was a beautiful concert. Just the three women (no band which they usually have) with the focus on the vocals but really nice accordion, kantele (two!) and some flute-like things. The vocals were stunning - those amazing harmonies that make their records so wonderful pulled off with pin-point accuracy. Lots of percussion in the words, yelps and screeches. All in Finnish but the introductions and hand actions gave a rough idea of the song's content. 

Both concerts made a nice corrective to the poisonous xenophobia sweeping through this sad country at present.   

 

[jlhoots]

At a surprise birthday party last night, in walks Big Al Anderson (NRBQ) who lives here in Santa Fe. He did a lovely acoustic set in the host's living room. A treat indeed!!

[kh1958]

On June 3, 2016 at 0:08 PM, A Lark Ascending said:

Lila Downs (Royal Festival Hall, London)

Varttina (KIng's Place, London) 

Two from the bucket list - concerts on successive nights so worth a trip.Both excellent.

Lila Downs - a bit like going to a wild party where you don't know anyone (I didn't half feel British...polite applause, clapping along on the wrong beat etc!). Huge Latin contingent in the audience going bananas from the off. A really exciting two hours with real instruments (no beat boxes etc that you get on her records in places). Tremendous voice - just as powerful live as on record, especially at the lower end. Not quite what I'm used to....this was a slick, choreographed 'show' with some cheesy cameos (an accordion 'duel') but once you suspended your disbelief, utterly compelling.

Proper review here: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jun/02/lila-downs-review-mexican-american-singer-royal-festival-hall-london

Varttina - no sign of London's Finnish population (probably already deported by Boris and Nigel) and only half full which was sad as this was a beautiful concert. Just the three women (no band which they usually have) with the focus on the vocals but really nice accordion, kantele (two!) and some flute-like things. The vocals were stunning - those amazing harmonies that make their records so wonderful pulled off with pin-point accuracy. Lots of percussion in the words, yelps and screeches. All in Finnish but the introductions and hand actions gave a rough idea of the song's content. 

Both concerts made a nice corrective to the poisonous xenophobia sweeping through this sad country at present.   

 

Last year, I went to see Lila Downs at the House of Blues in Dallas, which is literally right across the street from my office.--it was a short walk to a total cultural transformation, it was like I had walked to Mexico City. She's definitely got a lot of power in her voice and has a good band. 

[A Lark Ascending]

1 hour ago, kh1958 said:

Last year, I went to see Lila Downs at the House of Blues in Dallas, which is literally right across the street from my office.--it was a short walk to a total cultural transformation, it was like I had walked to Mexico City. She's definitely got a lot of power in her voice and has a good band. 

I was amazed at the sheer enthusiasm of the crowd - she's hardly a household name here. I experienced something similar several years ago when the London Barbican put on a 50 Years of Bossa Nova concert with a host of famous Brazilian singers and players from that genre - a huge and vociferous crowd going nuts for music that gets little notice in the musical world at large here. 

Agree about the voice and the band. 

Edited June 5, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[kh1958]

Yesterday, I drove to Longview, Texas for the second day of the T-Bone Walker Blues Festival--a two hour drive from Dallas.

Clearly the people running the festival are on the rock side of the blues-rock spectrum, but the festival had two artists I wanted to see, so I made the trip.

There were two stages, an outdoor stage moved under cover due to recent prodigious rains. Basically, it was underneath a large shed suitable for farm animal shows, with sawdust covered floors. The other stage was seated and indoors, in the Maude Cobb Convention Center. The sound was pretty well done in both cases.

Starting off with the outdoor venue, I'm listening to the pride of Kilgore, Texas, a 17 year old high school girl (Ally Venable) leading a blues rock quartet. Not exactly my usual scene, but I must say this young woman is a very talented guitar player and a surprisingly effective vocalist. Her band was good too. I actually loved her set.

Shifting indoors, next we have blues-rocker Eric Gales, brother of the late Little Jimmy King. His group (bass guitar and drums) is at the start augmented by a trio of vocalists in the gospel vein. Kind of interesting and unusual in sound. After awhile the vocalists leave the stage and the focus is more on the power blues/rock trio. The bassist is in the Jaco mode, pretty good, and Eric Gales shows off his guitar chops at length. Again, not my usual genre, but if there is a better rock guitarist than Eric Gales these days, I'd like to know who it is. He generated some pretty high intensity.

So far the closest we've come to T-Bone Walker are some Chicago blues chestnuts performed by Ally Venable and Eric Gales, but next we have what is presumably the closest one can get to hearing T-Bone Walker live these days, in the person of 81 year old Roy Gaines and his Orchestra. After a couple of sets of mostly youngsters (well, Eric Gales is in his early 40s), the Roy Gaines Orchestra looked like it had been around the block a rather large number of times. A nine piece group with four horn players, they reminded me of B.B. King's group a bit. Roy Gaines is a perennial sideman originally from Texas, who actually played with T-Bone Walker, starting when he was 14 years old. I hadn't heard any of his late life leader dates, but he turned out to be an exciting performer, playing dynamic guitar in the T-Bone Walker tradition, with a taste of B.B. King. His band was terrific, very swinging, a throwback to the days when jazz and blues had less of a clear demarkation. It was a great set.

I do wonder about whether this festival will recur next year though. Attendance was not that great. That is, it looked like they were set up for an audience in the 2000-3000 range, and the actual audience looked like it was in the 500-600 range, between the two venues.

 

 

 

 

[Larry Kart]

Thursday  night at Elastic I heard two of best young players I’ve heard in a long time — Norwegian drummer Tollef Ostvang and Portuguese trumpeter (now resident in Stockholm) Susana Santos Silva.

 

 In a duo with alto and soprano saxophonist Nick Mazzarella, Ostvang (age 31) sounded something like a “free” Kenny Clarke who could read minds, remarkable fluidity of technique and a terrific sense of compositional rightness/wholeness. Not a stunningly different kind of drummer at first hearing, but I may change my mind on that — everything he played made such lovely sense.

 

Santos Silva (age 37) has superb chops, in terms of range and rapidity of note production/placement of same, and a fantastic ear for fairly busy collective playing — paired with alto and baritone saxophonist Dave Rempis, bassist Toby Cederburg and Tim Daisy, that’s mostly what she was up to. Her ideas were crystal clear (as was her sound) and rhythmically intense, and one felt sure she could shine in many contexts. Striking too — for all the speed, range, and power of her playing — was her utterly relaxed physical relationship to her instrument, even in what seemingly was (or would have been for most other players) top gear. She reminded me some of Herb Robertson, especially in her occasional use of mutes for essentially rhythmic rather than coloristic purposes.

 

Some Ostvang:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUuOxMYMfHY&list=PL5qgKuOqliQH_xr1ht1s4_xxXn6gJbF_H

 

 

Some Santos Silva:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gA93zC-ckQ

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ml4K8GNNj8

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmh1-5KmTX8

Though none of the above, nor the albums of theirs I bought, good as they are so far,  quite matches what I heard from them Thursday night.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

this chick corea fest at the blue note is out of control--- this must be a lot of work to prepare all these bands and music

 

Oct. 19-23 – The Chick Corea Elektric Band: Corea (keyboards), Eric Marienthal (saxes), Frank Gamble (guitar), John Patitucci (bass), Dave Weckl (drums)

Oct. 26-30 – For Miles: Corea (keyboards), Kenny Garrett (saxes), Wallace Roney (trumpet), Mike Stern (guitar), Marcus Miller (bass), Brian Blade (drums)

Nov. 2-3 – Three Quartets Band: Corea (piano), Steve Gadd (drums), Eddie Gomez (bass), Ben Solomon (sax)

Nov. 4-6 – The Leprechaun Band – Corea (keyboards), Steve Gadd (drums), Gayle Moran Corea (vocals), Steve Wilson (sax & flute), Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Steve Davis (trombone), Eddie Gomez (acoustic bass), TBA (electric bass)

Nov. 9-10 – Experiments In Electronica: Corea (keyboards and computers), Marcus Gilmore (drums), Leading Genre-Defying Electronic Explorers (TBA)

Nov. 11-13 – Chick’s Flamenco Heart: Corea (Keyboards), Jorge Pardo (sax & flute), Niño Josele (acoustic guitar), Carles Benevant (bass), Tom Brechtlein (drums), Luisito Quintero (percussion), Flamenco Dancer (TBA), Vocalist (TBA)

Nov. 16-17 – The Chick Corea Big Band: Corea (keyboards), Erlend Skomsvoll (arranger & conductor), the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra - 13-Piece Big Band (8 horns, guitar, bass & drums)

Nov. 18-20 – Chick Corea Piano Duets: Corea performing with a different pianist each night

Nov. 22-23 – Chick Corea & Gary Burton with the Harlem String Quartet: Gary Burton (vibes), Ilmar Gavilán (violin), Melissa White (violin), Jaime Amador (viola), Felix Umansky (cello)

Nov. 25-27 – Origin II: Corea (piano), Ravi Coltrane (sax), Steve Wilson (sax & flute), Steve Davis (trombone), Carlitos Del Puerto (bass), Marcus Gilmore (drums)

Nov. 30-Dec. 4 – The Music Of Return To Forever and More (Acoustic): Corea (keyboards), Ravi Coltrane (sax), Hubert Laws (flute), Avishai Cohen (bass), Lenny White (drums)

Dec. 7 – TBA

Dec. 8-12: The Music Of Return To Forever and More (Electric): Corea (keyboards), John McLaughlin (guitar), Victor Wooten (bass), Lenny White (drums)

 

[Leeway]

Universal Indian with Joe McPhee, Windup Space, Baltimore, June 8, 2016

Universal Indian: John Pikeman (ts), Jon Rune Strom (b), Tollef Ontvang (d).  Joe McPhee: pocket trumpet, plastic alto sax, alto sax. 

Two fire-breathing sets from this group that harkened back to earlier days of free jazz, with some incredibly hard blowing and very free improvisation. It always amazes me how much blues McPhee can get into the free jazz idiom. McPhee's cream-colored plastic alto was something to see (and hear), although I preferred him on the "regular" alto. An exciting evening. 

[BillF]

Teamed up with fellow Org member Sidewinder in Sale, Greater Manchester to see Lady Sings the Blues, a celebration of Billie Holiday by singer Wiseman, ably supported by Alan Barnes, Bruce Adams, Roy Williams, Brian Dee and Len Skeat.

[jlhoots]

"Tootie" Heath Trio

[Steve Reynolds]

On June 9, 2016 at 2:12 PM, Leeway said:

Universal Indian with Joe McPhee, Windup Space, Baltimore, June 8, 2016

Universal Indian: John Pikeman (ts), Jon Rune Strom (b), Tollef Ontvang (d).  Joe McPhee: pocket trumpet, plastic alto sax, alto sax. 

Two fire-breathing sets from this group that harkened back to earlier days of free jazz, with some incredibly hard blowing and very free improvisation. It always amazes me how much blues McPhee can get into the free jazz idiom. McPhee's cream-colored plastic alto was something to see (and hear), although I preferred him on the "regular" alto. An exciting evening. 

Cannot wait to see the *great* Joe McPhee on the 21st

I never take seeing these dudes live up close and personal for granted.

Very grateful for when I can see a few of the Giants Who Walk This Earth

McPhee is one of them - one of the great pure improvisors who has seemingly never run out of ideas

[OliverM]

I also feel very lucky to have seen Joe McPhee a few times in different settings in the last couple of years, and to be seing him again next August with The Thing.

Last february with Chris Corsano at the Instants Chavirés was a summit for me, McPhee was in a very playful mood on arrival and they gave a great hommage to Ornette Coleman!

 

[OliverM]

Next week will be seing Harry Partch's opera Delusion of the Fury arranged by Heiner Goebbels. Harry Partch's instruments were all recreated according to the instructions he had left, since the original ones are not functional anymore. The stage looks impressive:

[Alexander Hawkins]

Wow - beautiful!