What live music are you going to see tonight?

[kh1958]

Last night, my first trip to a dive bar since before COVID, with Tutu Jones and His Twisted Soul Band, at the Goat. Dallas' best active bluesman sounded great, playing a 75 minute set of instrumentals (with a single vocal exception).

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I am watching the weather this week, as Ricky Ford is making his first trip to the Boston area in many years on Thursday (2/23) when he is scheduled to play at Arthur's House of Jazz in Methuen. They are currently predicting an ice storm. Shit.

I honestly can't remember the last time I saw Ford play live but I'm thinking it was sometime in the late-90s. I'm a bit surprised that he's chosen to play at Arthur's, as it is a rather small club and I have to wonder if he wouldn't pull a crowd at one of the larger venues in the area. Maybe he wants to go small?

[Chuck Nessa]

1 hour ago, bresna said:

I am watching the weather this week, as Ricky Ford is making his first trip to the Boston area in many years on Thursday (2/23) when he is scheduled to play at Arthur's House of Jazz in Methuen. They are currently predicting an ice storm. Shit.

I honestly can't remember the last time I saw Ford play live but I'm thinking it was sometime in the late-90s. I'm a bit surprised that he's chosen to play at Arthur's, as it is a rather small club and I have to wonder if he wouldn't pull a crowd at one of the larger venues in the area. Maybe he wants to go small?

He's scheduled to be here in Buffalo on March 2 with my old friend Thurman Barker on drums.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

3 minutes ago, Chuck Nessa said:

He's scheduled to be here in Buffalo on March 2 with my old friend Thurman Barker on drums.

He's got Yoron Israel on drums scheduled for his visit Thursday. It's a rhythm section of Berklee professors. I was actually hoping he would have brought Barry Altschul, his usual drummer in France, with him on this tour, I've never seen Barry.

[BFrank]

Saw the Mingus Big Band on Saturday in NY. Fun show, as it always is. Some of the players in this edition were: Eric Mingus, Wayne Escoffery, Earl McIntyre, Abraham Burton, Bruce Barth

[Gheorghe]

47 minutes ago, BFrank said:

Saw the Mingus Big Band on Saturday in NY. Fun show, as it always is. Some of the players in this edition were: Eric Mingus, Wayne Escoffery, Earl McIntyre, Abraham Burton, Bruce Barth

Sounds interesting. Well I still saw Mingus himself, and the first ghost bands still they all were musicians who had played with him. But in general there are few musicians around who play Mingus compositions. I did it when I was young and we were just a band that rehearsed for the few gigs we had. I remember having to "sing" the "Mingus rap" on "Cumbia" . It would have been supposed that the bassist does the rap, but they said that I have more that snarled voice to get the sound. Oh my god, me and "singin´" , I get hoarse as quick as  making announcments ...😀

[mikeweil]

Tonight it will be the Larry Goldings Trio with Peter Bernstein and Bill Stewart at M8 in Mainz (Mayence) just over the tiver Rhine. This was scheduled for 2020 but cancelled when the pandemic started, The local guitarist who runs the Jazz Initiative there does a good job, but as they have no piano in there it is mostly guitarist bands he features,

[Gheorghe]

1 hour ago, mikeweil said:

Tonight it will be the Larry Goldings Trio with Peter Bernstein and Bill Stewart at M8 in Mainz (Mayence) just over the tiver Rhine. This was scheduled for 2020 but cancelled when the pandemic started, The local guitarist who runs the Jazz Initiative there does a good job, but as they have no piano in there it is mostly guitarist bands he features,

Thanks God the clubs over here in Vienna all have good pianos. We´ll play on 09.03. at "Zwe" with Allan Praskin. They have a very fine baby grand, it was donated by a wonderful guy who is my favourite pianist over here. 

But for gigs in other federal countries it happens that they don´t have a piano. I manage to get thru with a stage piano with a good acoustic sound.....

[mjazzg]

Tomorrow at Ronnie's, Xhosa Cole with a sextet plus tap dancer interpreting Monk. Should be interesting. Will at the very least be an opportunity to see Cole live for the first time 

[sidewinder]

1 hour ago, mjazzg said:

Tomorrow at Ronnie's, Xhosa Cole with a sextet plus tap dancer interpreting Monk. Should be interesting. Will at the very least be an opportunity to see Cole live for the first time 

Saw him at Swanage last year - where he covered some Monk tunes as well. No tap dancer though.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

On 2/19/2023 at 2:10 PM, bresna said:

I am watching the weather this week, as Ricky Ford is making his first trip to the Boston area in many years on Thursday (2/23) when he is scheduled to play at Arthur's House of Jazz in Methuen. They are currently predicting an ice storm. Shit.

I honestly can't remember the last time I saw Ford play live but I'm thinking it was sometime in the late-90s. I'm a bit surprised that he's chosen to play at Arthur's, as it is a rather small club and I have to wonder if he wouldn't pull a crowd at one of the larger venues in the area. Maybe he wants to go small?

Postponed. Bummer.

[ejp626]

Weather is not great.  Roads should be in better shape tomorrow.  Assuming transit (and esp. busses) is more or less back to normal tomorrow, I will plan on seeing Allison Au at The Rex.

[kh1958]

This evening, Shelley Carrol at the Kitchen Cafe.

[BFrank]

On 2/21/2023 at 11:32 PM, Gheorghe said:

Sounds interesting. Well I still saw Mingus himself, and the first ghost bands still they all were musicians who had played with him. But in general there are few musicians around who play Mingus compositions. I did it when I was young and we were just a band that rehearsed for the few gigs we had. I remember having to "sing" the "Mingus rap" on "Cumbia" . It would have been supposed that the bassist does the rap, but they said that I have more that snarled voice to get the sound. Oh my god, me and "singin´" , I get hoarse as quick as  making announcments ...😀

Sadly I never saw Mingus. The closest I got was seeing the Adams/Pullen Quartet a few times. The only musician in this edition who played with Charles was Earl McIntyre

[Gheorghe]

1 hour ago, BFrank said:

Sadly I never saw Mingus. The closest I got was seeing the Adams/Pullen Quartet a few times. The only musician in this edition who played with Charles was Earl McIntyre

I had to look to find informations about him. Wikipedia only says that he worked with Mingus in the 70´s but I couldn´t find sources (record dates, touring dates etc. ). Being a trombonist I suppose he might have worked in a larger band format for studio recordings, like maybe "Let My Children Hear Musik" or something similar. 

I only saw touring bands. Then the personnel was Jack Walrath, Ricky Ford, Danny Richmond of course, and piano was on one occasion Danny Mixon and on the other occasion Bob Nelmons. 
The Adams-Pullen unit I also saw immediatly after Mingus had died. Then, they still performed Mingus repertory. 

I saw a Mingus-Ghostband only once, and they still had some Mingus musicians in there. George Adams, John Handy as much as I remember. It was conducted by no one less than Jimmy Knepper, but it was very very disappointing and even embarrassing to look at. Jimmy Knepper seemed to be completly uninterested in it and his "conducting" just was like a parody of conducting, and hot players like George Adams and John Handy just sat in their rows and didn´t have the fire they had when really playing with Mingus.....

Maybe Jimmy Knepper still was mad with Mingus even posthumous and this uninspired spectacle was his way of paying back for the incident that had happened before the Town Hall Concert. 

When Jimmy agreed to play trombone on some of Mingus´ last compositions I had thought that they had made peace, since it was Mingus, who had phoned Knepper telling him "Jimmy, please come and help me, they are destroying my music!" So I had thought they had made piece. I don´t have no idea what had happened on that Mingus-Ghost Band. 

There is another possibility: After Mingus´ death there was an interview with Knepper who refused to comment the posthumous attempts of keeping Mingus´ music alive , stating that "no one could play his music than he himself" ... or something like that. 

Maybe they offered him a fortune to conduct the Mingus Ghost Band, but maybe money is one thing and thinking as an artist is another thing....

[BFrank]

On 2/23/2023 at 10:29 PM, Gheorghe said:

I had to look to find informations about him. Wikipedia only says that he worked with Mingus in the 70´s but I couldn´t find sources (record dates, touring dates etc. ). Being a trombonist I suppose he might have worked in a larger band format for studio recordings, like maybe "Let My Children Hear Musik" or something similar. 

I only saw touring bands. Then the personnel was Jack Walrath, Ricky Ford, Danny Richmond of course, and piano was on one occasion Danny Mixon and on the other occasion Bob Nelmons. 
The Adams-Pullen unit I also saw immediatly after Mingus had died. Then, they still performed Mingus repertory. 

I saw a Mingus-Ghostband only once, and they still had some Mingus musicians in there. George Adams, John Handy as much as I remember. It was conducted by no one less than Jimmy Knepper, but it was very very disappointing and even embarrassing to look at. Jimmy Knepper seemed to be completly uninterested in it and his "conducting" just was like a parody of conducting, and hot players like George Adams and John Handy just sat in their rows and didn´t have the fire they had when really playing with Mingus.....

Maybe Jimmy Knepper still was mad with Mingus even posthumous and this uninspired spectacle was his way of paying back for the incident that had happened before the Town Hall Concert. 

When Jimmy agreed to play trombone on some of Mingus´ last compositions I had thought that they had made peace, since it was Mingus, who had phoned Knepper telling him "Jimmy, please come and help me, they are destroying my music!" So I had thought they had made piece. I don´t have no idea what had happened on that Mingus-Ghost Band. 

There is another possibility: After Mingus´ death there was an interview with Knepper who refused to comment the posthumous attempts of keeping Mingus´ music alive , stating that "no one could play his music than he himself" ... or something like that. 

Maybe they offered him a fortune to conduct the Mingus Ghost Band, but maybe money is one thing and thinking as an artist is another thing....

Earl McIntyre was introduced that night as the only musician in the band who played with Mingus. I can't give you any more information than that, though.

I've seen various incarnations of the Mingus Big Band (mostly when Sue was alive and running the organization), but they were almost always engaged and put on a good show.

[kh1958]

11 hours ago, BFrank said:

Earl McIntyre was introduced that night as the only musician in the band who played with Mingus. I can't give you any more information than that, though.

I've seen various incarnations of the Mingus Big Band (mostly when Sue was alive and running the organization), but they were almost always engaged and put on a good show.

In the early days of the band at the Time Cafe, Britt Woodman was on trombone. Did he ever sound great.

[Guy Berger]

I caught James Brandon Lewis’s trio at SFJazz (it was an event in the Noise Pop Festival).  He was backed by an electric bassist and drummer who had a strong punk (and occasionally funk) vibe. Great music though very loud!

[BFrank]

10 hours ago, Guy Berger said:

I caught James Brandon Lewis’s trio at SFJazz (it was an event in the Noise Pop Festival).  He was backed by an electric bassist and drummer who had a strong punk (and occasionally funk) vibe. Great music though very loud!

I saw the 2nd show. Pretty interesting - kind of like Trane/Rollins/Ayler, but with a rock band.

On 2/21/2023 at 10:38 PM, BFrank said:

Saw the Mingus Big Band on Saturday in NY. Fun show, as it always is. Some of the players in this edition were: Eric Mingus, Wayne Escoffery, Earl McIntyre, Abraham Burton, Bruce Barth

[Guy Berger]

20 hours ago, BFrank said:

I saw the 2nd show. Pretty interesting - kind of like Trane/Rollins/Ayler, but with a rock band.

 

The guy that comes to mind when listening to Lewis in this context is David Murray - though “cerebral technique” is a bigger part of Lewis’s style than Murray.

[kh1958]

Last night, Buddy Guy, with Ally Venable and Eric Gales, at the Majestic Theater.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Not tonight, but tomorrow night - The Cookers at Scullers in Boston. I've caught this band on every swing through the area. This is a "can't miss" event for me. I'm posting a little early because there are still a few seats left to both shows. I'll be right up front for the first set.

[tranemonk]

On 3/10/2023 at 8:17 AM, bresna said:

Not tonight, but tomorrow night - The Cookers at Scullers in Boston. I've caught this band on every swing through the area. This is a "can't miss" event for me. I'm posting a little early because there are still a few seats left to both shows. I'll be right up front for the first set.

I was also there. Good show. Billy Harper was so impressive.

[adh1907]

On 2/22/2023 at 6:06 PM, mjazzg said:

Tomorrow at Ronnie's, Xhosa Cole with a sextet plus tap dancer interpreting Monk. Should be interesting. Will at the very least be an opportunity to see Cole live for the first time 

Bit late to this, I think that would be Annette Walker. I saw her tap dancing to Oleo at the Nu Civilisation Orchestra tribute to Joe Harriott in 2021. Xhosa was in the band but I think Nathaniel Facey accompanied her. She was brilliant.
 

Have booked to see Xhosa at Cheltenham with Black Top. Thin pickings at this year’s festival. Too much pop pap. Jazz has been mainly exiled to a small arts venue. 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

8 hours ago, tranemonk said:

I was also there. Good show. Billy Harper was so impressive.

My seat was right in front of Billy. It was awesome to see him rip through those long solos.