Adam Rudolph’s Moving Pictures Octet @ Joe’s Pub 3/26/08

Another excellent Adam Rudolph project. I’ve now seen enough of his stuff to say it’s probably all worthwhile. I’m so glad he moved here. I can’t imagine him finding enough people to play with in L.A., but apparently he must have.

It was an all-star lineup. He said he will be doing it again on Monday at Roulette with a full orchestra. If it’s anything like the last time I saw him with an orchestra at Roulette, there could be about 30 artists or so.

The Octet: Cornetist/flugelhornist Graham Haynes, multi-reedman Ned Rothenberg, guitarist Kenny Wessel, bassist Shanir Blumenkrantz and trap drummer Hamid Drake

I would call it “experimental world music”. It was fantastic. Grooving at times, quite beautiful at times. Lots of percussion and the occasional oud. Lots of flutes or flute –type things. I love it when Ned Rothenberg plays the bass clarinet. There was one song where he really had me.

It was just absolutely amazing.

Tain & The Ebonix @ Jazz Standard 3/23/08

I would call it “damn good lively jazz” music. There was even a little experimental going on with a song with drunken in the title. Tain was in a very good mood for Easter and was very friendly toward the audience. They ended the set with “JC is the Man”, which they said was appropriate for the day. Before they played a note, and were chanting “JC is the Man”, it took me a minute to figure it out. Actually, I didn’t figure it out until they started playing, and then it was obvious. Trane! He died in April 67, and that might have been around Easter that year. He is the man.

Christian McBride was on bass, and he is phenomenal and grooving. The piano and sax were awesome. Tain was as great as usual. I’m so glad I made it. I’ve known about it for a couple of months, but it’s easy to miss those jazz shows when other things come up.

Tain & The Ebonix featuring Christian McBrideJeff "Tain" Watts – drumsDavid Kikoski – pianoChristian McBride – bassMarcus Strickland – tenor & soprano saxophones

Auktyon + Hazmat Modine @ Fillmore 3/22/08

I couldn’t get the info on if there was an opening band Sat, but it seemed like there should be. I was so glad when I got there Hazmat Modine was on the stage. I’m been wanting to check them out for a while, but haven’t had the chance. I have seen the guitar player before, and he is amazing. They have a lot of horns and do many different styles of music. It was enjoyable, but I don’t need to knock myself out to get there anymore. They said they got the call for the gig 5 days before, so I guess even the promoters hadn’t thought of an opener.

Auktyon is from Russia, but they’ve been touring with Marc Ribot, John Medeski, and Ned Rothenberg. They also have a cd with these guys. That is of course what brought me out.

The music was very good, but I have a hard time getting past singing I don’t like. There was way too much singing for me. The whole thing seemed kind of Euro-pop. I don’t exactly know what I’m talking about, it just was hard to enjoy the music through that singing and the other guy jumping around. I eventually had to leave early, but I am glad I made it out.

http://www.auktyon.com/

1920’s Night 3/21/08

I did something pretty different last Friday night. I went to a place in China Town where you dress up in 1920’s garb and dance to a 1920’s style jazz orchestra. There was even a Charleston dance lesson in the middle of the evening.

http://www.dreamlandorchestra.com/home.php

It was a lot of fun. The food was good and I enjoyed the band. One guy played the bass sax and sousaphone. Another guy had a soprano, clarinet, and alto. There were plenty of horns, a violin, piano and snare drum. They did 3 sets and there was a dj playing awesome 1920’s style music during set breaks.

There was plenty of NOLA music. It started making me wonder what NOLA must have been like in that era. I mean, they tend to have to do it differently. It must have been crazy.

Scotty Hard Benefit @ Highline 3/19/08

Last night was everything I had hoped, but probably more. I thought they did a great job putting on something that diverse. I’m also very impressed at the level everyone played at. It can be hard to pull something like that off, and it definitely didn’t look that way last night.

It is a little fuzzy, and I’m probably wrong on some of the details, but here’s my best attempt at summarizing:

I was happy I had a physical ticket and could bypass the long willcall line to get in. I got in just as Scofield and Medeski were joining the first band, which included DJ Logic, Vernon Reid and a bass player. It was great. I think they did 2 songs. Then, they did a little bit of seemless switching of people for the Medeski, Martin, Scofield, Rivard, Logic set. And what a great little set that was, probably about ½ hour. I usually get bored with Scofield after a bit, but I was enjoying it last night. Medeski was on as always. We would be seeing a lot of him throughout the evening. There was one great bluesy song with a horn section that included Briggan Krauss, Steven Bernstein, and Mike the tenor, who I don’t know his last name but have seen before.

Then it took a bit of time to do the changeover, early evening snafus or whatever. And then we got the one bad, somewhat painful set of the evening. It could have been great, it was the bass player that ruined it for me. He was way too loud and I hated his sound. He was a Bootsy Collins wannabee, but couldn’t hold or get anywhere near a candle to Bootsy. Too bad, because there was also Bernie Worrell, Graham Haynes on trumpet, and an electronic guy. It could have been a great funkdown. Fortunately, that set wasn’t too long.

Next was a really nice jazz ensemble. A nice way to cancel out that horrible bass from before. There was a murmur of talking for a while, until the horns kicked it up. It was easy for me to drown all of that out and enjoy the jazz.

Next up was A Big Yes and A Small No, a band with Joe Russo and Kevin Kendrick. It was fun watching Joe on the drums, but not my type of music. I guess that’s why I haven’t bothered to check them out. I’m glad I got to see a few songs and realize it’s not for me, so I don’t have to bother.

Then it was Vijay Iyer, Marcus Gilmore, an upright bass, and Liberty Ellman. That’s when everything went to a new level. I had plenty of enjoyable moments before that, but from here on in was greatness for the rest of the night. Liberty Ellman was the star of that very long song. His solo was unbelievable.

Sexmob was phenomenal. They played a few tunes that Scotty Hard produced. Steven Bernstein mentioned that he was most proud of producing Sexmob. It wasn’t the regular sexmob. I don’t know that bassist was in place of Tony Scher, but he was great. There were lots of extra horns up there and Medeski and Logic. It was blown away amazing.

Tommy Hamilton, Joe Russo, and another guitarist from American Babies were great. I often don’t like it when Joe Russo plays guitar, because I prefer him on drums. But, I really enjoyed that mini set. I now have a mental note to catch American Babies at my next opportunity. It was also a nice time to have them on. I liked the switching around of genres.

Next was the best Soulive ever! I must admit, I try them and often have to leave early. But, this was Neil, Kraz, and Deitch! It was smoking! One song, and it was great.

Then, even better, Russo, Benevento, and Hamilton do a song that was just perfect.

Then, we get all 6 of them up together. Finally, 2 drummers on the stage at once! I felt like I was being teased all night with those 2 kits all night. And, if you’re gonna have 2 drummers at once, Russo and Deitch is a great choice. I’m still stunned from that kickass Zeppelin. I mean when I think about it now, I’m again blown away. That alone was worth the whole thing last night.

Antibalas was grooving and great. They had extra people like Medeski, which took it to a new level. There was no encore jam because they ran out of time, but that was OK. There was plenty of jamming all night.

I’m leaving a lot out, but I will say there was lots of Medeski on the stage, Cochemea was out there a few times, Briggan Krauss had his baritone sax, and I was very happy with DJ Logic.

It also worked on me. I was very touched by the outpouring of love for Scotty by all these stellar artists. I ended up getting a great cd, “Scotty Hard’s Radical Reconstructive Surgery”, a bar of soap made by Steven Bernstein’s wife, and even a comfy HardWear T-shirt from Ropeadope to help support the cause.

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.

Joshua Redman is a tough ticket

Well, I was way too slow. I did want to see Joshua Redman with Brian Blade, but it looks unlikely it’s going to happen. I knew to make a res early, I just didn’t want to commit to the night. The Vanguard guy mentioned there is probably a slim chance of just showing up and getting in, but you would have to get there pretty early. I do want to go, but it’s not THAT dire.
http://www.villagevanguard.com/frames.htm

The Trevor Dunn thing in Old Office looks great, so hopefully I will make it there. It’s nice and early, and I do have to rest up for tomorrow night.

http://www.knittingfactory.com/show.php?event_id=111948