Trevor Dunn's Proof Readers play the music of Ornette Coleman

That was another great show. I mean, it had to be, given the lineup and the agenda.

They did a 1 hour set starting about 8:10 and then took a ½ hour break and did another set. It was really great. They picked many Ornette Coleman songs, some rare, but all from the avant-garde era. They didn’t delve into anything earlier.

I thought it was awesome to see those guys playing someone else’s songs, as they hear them on the records. These are usually improvisers and can get very out there. At setbreak I found out they threw it together on 1/2/08, when they were asked to do something and there weren’t a lot of people in town. I’m so glad they are continuing to do it. It sounded great.

They were all of stellar caliber. I could have watched any one of them for the whole time. Instead, I found myself immersed in one or another throughout. I was blown away. That was my first time seeing Darius Jones, but I will have to look out for him more. He’s got a lot of power. He was really amazing. Sawyer has been on my list ever since the Charles Gayle show. He’s amazing. At one point, he was playing the ice in his glass by shaking the plastic cups with remnants of ice.

Trevor Dunn was just as amazing as always. It was awesome to see Nate Wooley in that way. I’ve only see him do super out there stuff.

Darius Jones (alto sax) Nate Wooley(trumpet) Ryan Sawyer (drums) Trevor Dunn (bass)

I left around 10:15 because I was pretty tired. It was very hard to drag myself away. It was cool how when they were debating on stage about playing a long set or taking a set break, close to when they would break, Sawyer said “ask them”, and pointed to us. It was so smart of them to get the audience to commit. People said to play one more and then take a break. They looked like a Zebulon crowd and most stuck around. I thought that was pretty clever of them to ask. I hope I get to see it again as it was superb.

I also kept thinking this would be at Tonic if it was still around. It felt even more like Tonic when you could hear very loud bass line coming through the ceiling from the show in the Tap Bar. The only thing different was at Tonic it was coming through the floor.

Even though it was unlikely it would sell out, I stopped on my way home for my ticket. I was happy they gave me the advance price instead of the day of. Everyone else would have given the day of price. I mean it was only $7, a savings of $3, but percentage wise that was big.