8 posts tagged “live”
I picked this because I recently was listening to some Gavin Harrison instructional material on subdividing beats, and because their latest album,
, is fast becoming my favorite Porcupine Tree album.
I caught Meshell for the fourth time last week (and the first at the Independent, a venue where I last was to see Tack>>Head and saw N'Dea Davenport and Kudu back when it was called The Justice League).
As with all the other times, she surprises, and she thrills. The more I see her, the more in awe I am of how much the woman is capable of, and sad that most of the record public doesn't know that. She seems to be following her muse into ever more varied territory, and following a pattern of not having a pattern. Her most visible material has been deeply rooted in funk and soul and hip-hop, but her capacity to morph, absorb and transform everything she touches into something inherently Meshellesque is something to behold. Case in point, her show this time around was almost completely new material from her Article 3 EP, some as-yet unreleased material, a token dip into her own back catalog with the extended take of Free My Heart, and a Joy Division cover that far surpassed the original.
Yes, Meshell Ndegeocello did a Joy Division tune. And did it damn well.
If I had to describe this show, it was Meshell on a serious Post-Punk tip. But she was not just aping stylistic conventions as much as absorbed the general aesthetic and married it to a melodicism and a pastiche of her other musical faces into something that would not be out of place on tour with Bloc Party or Davis Sylvian or Seal.
Breathtaking.
Her band, as with all her bands, was top notch. The only name I was familiar with was her keyboardist Jason Lindner, whose own jazzier solo work is worth seeking out on its own merits. Bassist Mark Kelly (no relation to Marillion keyboardist of the same name that I can tell) was a monster, and his interlocking work with Meshell was a bass-lovers utopia. Meshell has the same bad habit as Prince and Steve Coleman, in that she continues to always have a topline monster in the drum throne. She went from Gene lake (Screaming Headless Torsos, Steve Coleman), to Chris Dave (Pat Metheny, Mint Condition) and now one Charles Haynes, who can pummel, prod and pull the beat in all manner of directions.
I originally got into Jojo Mayer when the debut album from Screaming Headless Torsos hit. He is a monster player, but his mixing of jazz and jungle in a live setting is something else.
I am at Barefoot Coffee Roasters and an Austin, TX man in a sharp suit and skinny tie plays a double bass, a cheap guitar, and sings. His name is Chris Black, and he ain'ttoo shabby. Apparently he is touring coffeehouses and dive joints across America.
So I rented Van Halen - Live Without a Net. I relived a sliver of adolescence, watching it as I did the first time I saw it in the late 80s as a full broadcast on MTV (remember, they actually used to play music) - on my couch with a beer . I never really noticed that Alex Van Halen has a largely electronic kit behind his wall of roto-toms, that Michael Anthony's bass solo was effectively a booze chugging contest masked as a feedback extravaganza while running laps onstage, and that Hagar had one of the biggest caucasian afros ever seen. But one thing was still very clear; in the decade of hair metal bands, VH was set apart. They could play incredibly well, wrote memorable songs, and live were a completely authentic rock and roll spectacle.
So Living Colour recently did another leg of touring, this time in Europe. Since they are one of the few clueful bands that allow non-commercial audiotaping of shows, their gig at Porgy & Bess last month is now available.
They are way too slept on. It is a free download of an entire show. Do yourself a favor and give it a listen or three.
A Love Supreme Live
DVD
Anyone who knows me well enough, or reads enough entries here will figure out rather quickly that I have a numerous opinions about various members of the Marsalis clan, usually about Wynton. All of those opinions are bad.
His brother Branford is another story alltogether. The only member of the lot who i think is truly worthy of greatness, and the only daring player in the lot (although Delfayo had some moments n his token solo album back in the 80s). This DVD gives a short but sweet explanation as to why, but I will lay themout for you here:
- He has immense chops, but feels no need to wank for its own sake; he is inherently musical in every avenue he takes. Even the career hiccup of his Buckshot LeFonque project (which I thought was not so much a bad project as badly produced and il timed) showed that there is a place for flash and a place for function.
- He has reverence for the material he plays, but is irreverent as a player. There are no aires in his personality, and this shows in how he plays, and that happens whether he is playing Trane as a leader or as a sideman to someone like his imperial Stinginess.
- He is serious enough about music to not take it too seriously. While Wynton and his sycophantic, corpulent ogre minion Stanley Crouch go around trying to berate the jazz community into submission, Branford displays freedom by example. Freedom to play what you wish to, and including that which truly makes jazz potent from decade to decade...its ability to transform itself into a neverending set of permutations. Branford, unlike the humorless posturing of Wynton, knows how to have a good time for himself, and to pass that feeling to his audience.
This concert takes place in the Netherlands, and is is full recital of Coltrane's A Love Supreme; one of the few works whose larger than life mythology and relevance is warrented in full, without question. Branford puts together a rock-solid trio behind him, with Joey Calderazzo, Eric Revis and Jeff "Tain" Watts. The quartet does what I would find ideal, in that it pays homage and stays true to the material without simply trying to ape Coltrane, Tyner, Garrison and Jones. The melodic figures are there, and the rhythmic pulse that I associate with key sections always shows up, but this quartet puts its own stamp, much the same way Branford did with a truncated rendition of A Love Supreme over a decade ago on the Stolen Moments: Red Hot and Cool deluxe edition. The filming has excellent quality footage and editing.
There is a substantial amount of bonus material, including interview footage with all the members, a day in the life of Branford as he goes about getting things done before the show taping, and an interview with Alice Coltrane by Branford at what looks like her Ashram in Southern California.
Well worth checking out.
So I spent the past few days in Los Angeles on the impetus that some of my illustrations were to be used in a pre-concert show at the House of Blues, Anaheim stop of the BT/Thomas Dolby tour (I also ended up being shown in San Diego too). I wrote a long, wandering screed about it here, but this will focus on the show proper, as well as travel music.
I have to say the HoB in Anaheim is the most poorly managed and unfriendly in the chain that I have experienced. I blame the fact that it falls inside the Disney orbit. Thankfully, Disney did not sterilize the talent.
The opener was some acoustic/folkie type who did not sound bad at all, but I did not find compelling; there is a plethora of John Mayer clones waiting for their "Wonderland" moment. I however, am not.
The basic reason I came was my own vanity; seeing my own work projected on the stage at HoB was just too tantalizing to miss, but the chance to see Thomas Dolby was also something I did not want to miss. He played as a one man band, utilizing stacks of key/outboard gear (including an M-Audio Triggerfinger unit identical to the one I use) and covered a good cross-section of his catalog, including Hyperactive, Europa, and of course She Blinded Me with Science. He also played a heretofore unheard and unreleased cut called Your Karma Ran Over My Dogma, which was dated to 1991 and was a decent little curveball. And while I missed the first few cuts of the Dolby set due to finishing dinner a bit slow, I do not think he played either of the songs I really would have wanted to hear, I Love You Goodbye and the very rarely remembered collaboration with Ryuchi Sakamoto, Field Work. But he did play both Airhead and Windpower, also both high on my wishlist of cuts. He has aged incredibly well, with a relaxed and otherwise very upbeat and whimsied stage presence His stage banter was funny and an execise in how to properly engage with your audience (his recollection of dealing with K-Fed's pilfering of some of his work and the subsequent legal fallout was especially hilarious) without falling into self-congratulatory twaddle. The only negative I can think of is that it was clear since this was the start of the tour, that he had not gotten his vocal muscles flexing 100%, and he would sound pitch perfect on something more demanding like Science but had a few hiccups on Karma.
BT's performance was augmented by three additional musicians, and while their overall sound was extremely good, and the visual backdrops occasionally achieving an almost sublime quality, their actual stage presence as a quartet was far more inert than Dolby solo, which was somewhat surprising. His newest album, This Binary Universe, is his most fully realized statement, and it actually sounds better live than on cd, which is unusual for an electronica artist. To that end, the sound and projected visuals more than compensated for the lack of kinetic activity on the stage itself.
Generally a good show all the way around, even if HoB cuts of at midnight.
As for what I listened to on the long drives to and from LA, it was petty basic:
1. A mix of tracks from Saga, leaning heavily on the trio years.
2. Marley Marl (with guests like biz Amrkie, Heavy D, Rozanne Shante and Big Daddy Kane, you just cannot go wrong)
3. A mix of tracks from Level 42, leaning heavily on the years with the Gould brothers in tow.
4. Marillion - Brave
5. Eberhard Weber - Works (sometimes you just need to chill)
