What live music are you going to see tonight?

[jeffcrom]

Went to a performance tonight of eight numbers from the Birth of the Cool album by a student nonet at Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Great session! Without amplification in an acoustically perfect studio theatre with audience of about sixty. Very high level of musicianship, scores perfectly executed with brief, competent trumpet, alto and baritone solos; swung throughout. I've been listening to this music on record for fifty years and this the first time I've heard it performed live. The presence of the tuba was much more noticeable than on record. So nice to see this adopted as part of the formal music education curriculum. I recall that when I first bought the album, the playing of jazz on the premises at that college was punishable by instant expulsion from the course! How far we've come!

How cool is that! I'd love to hear these charts live. Kudos to these students.

[Chalupa]

Saturday night(Halloween) I'm going to to 2 shows. Early show is the Sun Ra Arkestra and later is the Dead Milkmen.

[Guest Bill Barton]

Last night was:

http://www.earshot.org/Festival/artistinfo...dy_clausen.html

Earshot is on a roll. Another A to A+ concert. Andy Clausen is a name to remember. His laptop and electronic keyboard with trumpet, electric guitar, electric bass and drums painted a landscape in a non-stop set that reminded me of Nils Petter Molvaer, Jon Hassell, and Russell Gunn and Eric Truffaz at their best. He is a talent to WATCH. The preceding players names are provided as reference points only, he has his own take on it all already at an age when I had the attention span of a gnat.

The Tom Varner Tentet has a brand new CD on Omni Tone titled "Heaven and Hell."

http://www.omnitone.com/store/012210.htm

Music from the disc was performed in the second set With a high percentage of Seattle-based players, Varner has recorded perhaps his most adventurous and texturally complex work to date. Music that moans and swings, pulses and meditates, shapeshifts and morphs. There's a deep spirit at work here. This is a very fine CD and the concert was even better. It's really great to have Tom Varner here in Seattle.

[king ubu]

CéU tonight - looking forward a lot, bought her new disc yesterday!

[DukeCity]

Heading out with some buddies to a local casino to hear Tower of Power tonight. They have their original drummer and bass player (Dave Garibaldi and Rocco Prestia) with them these days, so the grooves are extra funky!

[Free For All]

Heading out with some buddies to a local casino to hear Tower of Power tonight. They have their original drummer and bass player (Dave Garibaldi and Rocco Prestia) with them these days, so the grooves are extra funky!

Bump City!

[DukeCity]

Heading out with some buddies to a local casino to hear Tower of Power tonight. They have their original drummer and bass player (Dave Garibaldi and Rocco Prestia) with them these days, so the grooves are extra funky!

Bump City!

Hey...uh...you holdin'?

It was a great show. The band was happening. Fantastic lead singer. And Mic Gillette is back in the horn section after 25 years away from the band. They did some tunes from their new CD of soul covers. Pretty nice.

[kh1958]

Friday: Tom Harrell at the Village Vanguard (with Wayne Escoffery on tenor, Danny Grissett on piano, Ugonna Okegwo on bass, and Johnathan Blake on drums). Two inspiring sets from this dynamic group.

Saturday: Go Home at the Jazz Standard (Charlie Hunter, Ben Goldberg, Curtis Fowlkes, Scott Amendola). I didn't know what to expect, but rather enjoyed this group, especially Charlie Hunter.

Pat Martino at Birdland (with Tony Monoco on organ, Jefftain Watts, and Eric Alexander). This group didn't entirely work; Martino and the organist sounded good, but I don't much care for Jefftain Watts; though I could have tolerated him if the group had been a trio; Eric Alexander was sonic wallpaper as usual.

Sunday:

Ron Carter Trio/Francisco Mela Trio at the Blue Note. The Ron Carter Trio, (Mulgrew Miller and Russell Malone), was very refined and elegant, and in fact very enjoyable. Cuban drummer Mela fronted an excellent latin jazz trio, with Cuban pianist (Arturo Rodriguez(?)).

Finally, back to the Village Vanguard to hear the last set of the week from Tom Harrell--really excellent.

[ejp626]

Well, it was a few days ago, but I saw Vijay Iyer with his new trio at Chicago Symphony Center. Very good. Mostly playing material off of Historicity but also Andrew Hill's Smokestack. (Both Vijay and Jason Moran have always given props to Andrew.) The bass player's string broke right as they were tuning up! Somehow he managed to get through the performance and still sound great. I believe that was why he had to lean over the bass much of the time and play at the very bottom of the strings, trying to get the correct notes.

After the break it was Dave Holland, Jason Moran, Chris Potter and Eric Harland on drums. As you would expect, they were also very good. I'll look over my notes to see what they played, but it was essentially all originals by the various members of the super-group.

[David Gitin]

Tonight TRIO 3 was smoking at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, CA. Oliver Lake on alto and soprano played Dolphy-ish lines over St. Louis riffs accompanied by the unerring Regge Workman and Andrew Cyrille. The interplay between those two was uncanny. Great night!

[fasstrack]

There's an absolute renaissance going on in NY right now. Last night I heard my colleaugue James Chirillo with the John Bunch Trio (other member being Jay Leonhart). It was a delight. Most Mondays try to hear Howard Williams' big band at the Garage. I highly recommend them. Howard's writing and the players (and Vicki Doney, vocalist) really are worth it. Fat Cat has excellent bands every night for $3 admission! Plus they are great guys and it's my hangout. Super cool joint.

Edited November 4, 2009 by fasstrack

[Guest Bill Barton]

Tonight TRIO 3 was smoking at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, CA. Oliver Lake on alto and soprano played Dolphy-ish lines over St. Louis riffs accompanied by the unerring Regge Workman and Andrew Cyrille. The interplay between those two was uncanny. Great night!

They're in Seattle Friday! At first I didn't think that I'd be able to make it to this concert, but after reading your review, David, I have to figure out a way to get there.

[king ubu]

double-posting this, for those who don't follow the "gig a month" thread:

On Wednesday (Nov 4th), I caught Dave Douglas' Quintet (Donny McCaslin, Uri Caine, Matt Penman, Clarence Penn). Excellent concert. Great tunes, funny, charming, groovy, from marching band to dixie, from Masada to gypsy, from Monk to Ornette... Douglas and McCaslin were excellent, both with plenty of dirtiness in their sound, and lots of punch. Clarence Penn was terrific as well, very lose in his feel, very relaxed yet very poised and often very busy, sort of a groovier/funkier version of Elvin at some times, it seemed. Penman had some fine spots as well, but they were rather few. He and Penn were excellent in their backing though. Uri Caine was - interestingly enough, as Douglas kept pointing at him "the GREAT Uri Caine on piano, these tunes were written especially for him, and especially for him on grand piano" - pretty superfluous and boring. Of course he has great technical skill, but the piano was totally uncalled for in these tunes. They'd be much more open-ended without a harmonic instrument, and the clean sound of the piano (as Caine played it) was not a good match for McCaslin and Douglas' sonic inflections. Anyway, on top of that, Caine totally lacked humor in his playing...

Still, it was an excellent concert!

[BFrank]

Going to see Savion Glover tap dance to Trane at the SF Jazz Fest tomorrow night. Should be in-ter-est-ing.

[Guest Bill Barton]

I recently returned from hearing Trio 3 at Cornish College's PONCHO Concert Hall. There's no question that these three gentlemen - Oliver Lake, Reggie Workman and Andrew Cyrille - are living Masters of adventurous jazz. It had been many years since I'd last heard Cyrille in performance and almost as long since I'd heard Lake. And it was my first time checking out the powerful and imaginative Workman live. All I can say is, WOW. This is a truly volcanic trio. It wasn't all fireworks either. Plenty of lyricism goin' down too. And some POTENT grooves. I'll bet that the ghosts of Eric Dolphy and Julius Hemphill were smiling after Lake's beautiful and searching version of "Gazzelloni" that opened the set. Some fine compositions by all three players as well and one by Curtis Clark. A fine, fine performance. A+

[clifford_thornton]

Wish I could have seen that.

However, not a bad day yesterday in Austin: Death, the Jesus Lizard, Melt-Banana, the Sword, Times New Viking, Shonen Knife... my one day at Fun Fun Fun Fest was pretty nice.

[bertrand]

If you are in D.C. tonight, there is a group of local players led by trumpeter Joe Herrera that is playing the entire Unity album by Larry Young plus tunes from Into Somethin' and possibly other things from the Shaw/Henderson/Young repertoire. The incredible Harry Appelman is on organ. I saw this two weeks ago and it was fabulous. I plan to be there again.

The show is at Twins' on U street starting at 8.

Bertrand.

Edited November 8, 2009 by bertrand

[medjuck]

Tonight? Reptet!

[ejp626]

Well, I saw part of Stefon Harris' set at the Jazz Showcase. I am on the verge of getting sick, and my son was coughing a lot as well. So we sat in the back in case we had to leave early if we became too much of a distraction. So let than ideal conditions. My mood did not improve when they started 30 minutes late. The opening song (Gone) was quite nice, but then immediately they switched to a vocoder for the song "For You." I absolutely hated it, though some in the audience were digging it. Probably only a few years back, Joe would have pulled the plug. Anyway, this is one of the featured tracks on their new album Urbanus and I probably will pass on the album specifically because of this song. (To my taste, even worse than Jason Moran's Bandwagon stuff.) Sadly, 40 minutes in, we were feeling worse and worse and decided to bail, which was particularly disappointing as I liked what they were playing as we left.

[bertrand]

The Unity gig was fabulous, but unfortunately poorly attended. Anyway, here's the set list:

First Set

Back-Up (Young)

Softly As In A Morning Sunrise (Romberg/Hammerstein)

Monk's Dream (Monk)

Zoltan (Shaw)

Second Set

Ritha (Young)

Paris Eyes (Young)

The Moontrane (Shaw)

If (Henderson)

Bertrand.

[Johnny E]

Tonight? Reptet!

Thanks for coming out Joe. Sorry I couldn't yak more with ya', but I had a bunch of people there that I hadn't seen in a while as well as the president of the Santa Barbara Jazz Society that wanted to talk biz. I hope you and your friends had a good time. Playing that high up in the air was a bit bizarre, not to mention the passive/aggressive staff that couldn't make up their mind on whether they wanted us to play inside or outside...but I thought the show was lotsa fun. Our workshop at CalArts the following day went VERY well too.

[aparxa]

should have seen Abdullah Ibrahim, the ticket is still in my backpack... not fun.

[Chalupa]

I recently returned from hearing Trio 3 at Cornish College's PONCHO Concert Hall. There's no question that these three gentlemen - Oliver Lake, Reggie Workman and Andrew Cyrille - are living Masters of adventurous jazz. It had been many years since I'd last heard Cyrille in performance and almost as long since I'd heard Lake. And it was my first time checking out the powerful and imaginative Workman live. All I can say is, WOW. This is a truly volcanic trio. It wasn't all fireworks either. Plenty of lyricism goin' down too. And some POTENT grooves. I'll bet that the ghosts of Eric Dolphy and Julius Hemphill were smiling after Lake's beautiful and searching version of "Gazzelloni" that opened the set. Some fine compositions by all three players as well and one by Curtis Clark. A fine, fine performance. A+

I saw them last year here in Philly and they did the Dolphy too. Yes, they really are amazing.

[Chalupa]

Wish I could have seen that.

However, not a bad day yesterday in Austin: Death, the Jesus Lizard, Melt-Banana, the Sword, Times New Viking, Shonen Knife... my one day at Fun Fun Fun Fest was pretty nice.

How was The Jesus Lizard?? I'm going to see them next Wednesday. I have a couple of the Scratch Acid releases on vinyl that I'll use as a primer.

Tomorrow...

JOHN BUTCHER

HANS KOCH +JACK WRIGHT

http://www.bowerbird.org/newsite/events/091113/

[medjuck]

Tonight? Reptet!

Thanks for coming out Joe. Sorry I couldn't yak more with ya', but I had a bunch of people there that I hadn't seen in a while as well as the president of the Santa Barbara Jazz Society that wanted to talk biz. I hope you and your friends had a good time. Playing that high up in the air was a bit bizarre, not to mention the passive/aggressive staff that couldn't make up their mind on whether they wanted us to play inside or outside...but I thought the show was lotsa fun. Our workshop at CalArts the following day went VERY well too.

Everyone had a great time. Sorry we couldn't stay for the 2nd set but 10:30 on a Sunday night is late in Santa Barbara. Hope it went as well as the first.