My goal for 2019 is to write at least a little something about every show I see, preferably by the next day, we’ll see how it goes. I will compile weekly and post here as-is. If you prefer to get these reviews in your inbox each day they are written, email me and I’ll add you to my mailing list.
So, in that spirit, this is the fifteenth of hopefully 52 posts…
8Apr19
Jeff Tweedy @ The Town Hall
Caught the first of two Tweedy Town Hall shows last night. I thought it was quintessential Tweedy, all the stuff you expect, meaning it was excellent. My review of the show is here.
I alluded to it in the review, but the crowd was rather bizarre. It almost felt like there were plants in the crowd who were instructed to do or shout out something inappropriate at certain intervals to give Tweedy some between-song material to riff on. I hope that was the case, otherwise there were some terrifically rude, bordering-on-awful people in the audience. It didn’t quite detract from the music and Jeff’s general presence, but it was a noteworthy thing. Toward the end I was cringing and sort of embarrassed to be a part of the audience and had no trouble ducking out a song early just to get out there.
I did want to also mention the superb opening set from James Elkington, who is, in my opinion, a headliner talent… maybe not Town-Hall-headliner, but he’s really great. I know him as an instrumental guitarist first (he has played in duo with his friend Nathan Salzburg who is now Joan Shelley’s duo-mate… if you have not heard their album, it is acoustic-guitar-duo heaven… really best-in-class, highly recommended), and he also spends time as the second guitarist in Steve Gunn’s band. He also had a wonderful album of his own material out a couple years ago and he played most of that stuff during his short opening set. He really has a guitar-first songwriting/performance philosophy… his songs are great, a sort of pastoral British folk with a dreamlike quality, but they all protrude out of a gorgeous fingerpicked guitar inner core. Judging by the crowd’s reaction, he made some fans last night.
Nels Cline/Jamie Saft/Bobby Previte @ Nublu Classic.
From Times Square it was a Lyft down to the East Village, got in while the opening band Costume was playing. This was a 4-piece jammer with very heavy, rather-obvious-but-that’s-OK Dead/Allmans influences. The 10 or so minutes I caught were pretty great, actually. Would check them out again.
Only in NYC would your second show on a Monday fucking night be Nels, Jamie and Bobby… Cline, Saft and Previte. These guys all on their own put the heavy in heavyduty and together they were, well, heavy fucking duty.
There is a lot of random artwork hanging around Nublu Classic and there was one painting to the right of the stage that had a mountain on it and across it was painted “motherfucker” and from where I was standing it was basically right off Nels’s right shoulder the entire set. If you ever wanted to try and close-caption a Nels Cline guitar solo, the text across the bottom of the screen might very well just read “motherfucker.” So it felt appropriate.
For the hearing impaired, the set last night went a little like this:
Motherfucker
Motherfucker
Motherfucker
Motherfucker
Motherfucker
Motherfucker
Motherfucker
Motherfucker
Motherfucker…..
Yeah, it was really great. They started out in a very aggressive space from the start. Sometimes you look at a line-up like this and you think “well, maybe it won’t be great, maaaaaybe it will be a mess,” but it rarely is and I can tell you with some certainty that this trio was freakin’ great. The combined strengths were formidable, just a tour-de-force of jazzrockmindblow jamming. Pretty sure it was all just making-shit-up jamming and it was rather glorious. The moved around “genres” pretty fluidly, straight jazz, straight rock, all permutations in between, dark synthfunk, expansive psychedelic, electronic boogie and a surprising amount of pure ambient beauty with Nels doing some very cool harmonics work with those freakishly long fingers.
I think Jamie Saft was my MVP of the nonstop jam session, though. He’s one of those quintessential that’s-the-same-guy!?!? guys, like Nels, who chameleon’s himself based on the setting quiet well. He ranges from serious death metal to quiet piano jazz, groovy organ trio to an album of lovely acoustic guitar music he put out a couple years ago. He’s Medeski, Mehldau and Benevento in a single package, and yet, he’s criminally under the radar. Last night he alternated between a very deep, soulstirring synthbass and decorating the jams with organ and a range of other keyboard sounds. Funky, engaging, thrashing, awesome… we got the full Saft last night and it was rather glorious.
Can’t believe we have late Monday options like that… like, this city keeps serving this shit up and it still blows me away that this is what we get to do.
Finally, a word about Nublu Classic which I love in its dumpy kind of way. It’s the Yang to Nublu 151’s Yin, but has this cozy, lived-in feel to it for all its oddities. It feels like a jazzrock Wetlands to me, a little more conducive to a dark-and-dirty late night than the new space (which, don’t get me wrong, I love…); wish there were more shows there and shows I wanted to see. Can’t remember the last time I was in there… or I can, but it was for an admittedly-moving Beyond Jewish service and that doesn’t count.
9Apr19
Andrew Bird @ National Sawdust
One downside of writing about every show I see (and seeing too many of them) is that I am beginning to fear that I’ll run out of words. How many ways can you say “the show was great?” I guess that’s part of the fun and the challenge, but, like, take last night for advantage. We use the word “talented” to describe so many musicians. “He’s so talented!” And then you go see Andrew Bird play at National Sawdust and you realize that, sure, Nels Cline is talented. Julian Lage is talented as fuck. That’s the truth. But if that’s true, then Andrew Bird, on the other hand, is in another universe from whatever “talented” means. Even “genius” doesn’t seem to capture to depth and quality of his capabilities and mastery. So, here we are, trying to describe the indescribable.
I had many thoughts running through my head as I watched Bird and his superb band play in such a perfectly intimate space. I love discovering new musicians that I’ve never seen before, I love it more than almost anything, but, there’s something to be said for a long history with a band or musician. Last night, I couldn’t help but let my personal history with Bird inform my listening, it’s impossible not to and so it’s best to succumb to the sensation of years of experience flavor the here-and-now. I thought about how the first song I ever downloaded off the internet was by Andrew Bird (have I told this story before?), how I was long ago naively resistant to listening to music on my computer, to downloading mp3’s, a strange catholic sense of separating where I worked (my computer) from what I loved (music). I used to read a great music blog written by Thomas “Doveman” Bartlett on Salon.com, he gave great recommendations, a perfect place for music discovery and when he described the new single from Andrew Bird, “Lull,” (checking now, this was back in 2003(!!)) I was so intrigued I broke down and had to listen to this song and so I figured out how to do it and how to play the thing on my computer and… wowwwwww. That was a lifechanger moment for many reasons and for a short while at least, that was the only song I had on my computer and so I listened to it about 100 zillion times over and over and damn, that’s a good song. Since then it’s been a love-love relationship, seen him about 10 times, loved all his albums, but it’s not about the quantity of it, it’s about the range of possibilities in each show, from seeing him at the Beacon to festivals to more intimate shows like the radio taping at the Greene Space or Rough Trade or the wild, multisensory show at Riverside Church years ago to last night, to the is-that-Andrew-Bird?? sit in at a Dan Zanes kids’ show in Prospect Park or the is-that-Andrew-Bird?? time we saw him at the beach taking a swim the day before Newport Folk Fest many years ago… or the albums, not just the great “big” shit, but also the weird little instrumental albums recorded in a canyon or with his feet in a river… when I watched him last night it was all there, all of it compressed into a single human being and what a beautiful, beautiful human being he is.
So, the show last night was remarkable in that this guy is standing there in the small space, a band behind him, playing through his new album, his wonderful best-of-year album, and yet, all of that other stuff is squeezed into that man, like matter and light under the pull of a musical black hole. Damn! And that’s there as he’s playing those songs. If you have kids you’ve probably read them the book “Pat the Bunny” and how each page is like a different texture: fuzzy, soft, scratchy, smooth… that’s Andrew Bird, an incredibly tactile musician who gives so many different feels, all bound in the same board book. The viscous tenor singing, the scratchy violin playing, the fuzzy whistling, a soft guitar (great 12-string action!). What’s fascinating to think about is that he has a signature violin playing style… I mean, I saw this guy playing in the park in New Orleans, playing a violin like Andrew Bird and it was unmistakable… he was playing a style of an instrument that’s been played for centuries, fucking centuries, and the style is quite obviously Andrew Bird. How many people have their own violin playing sound? It’s a beautiful thing, and the whistling just the same.
He played the album straight through, Side A and then a couple non-album songs, then Side B and a few more miscellaneous. If he hadn’t said that about playing it straight through, I don’t think I would have noticed or cared, it was a perfect flow. The new songs are quintessential Andrew Bird, some of his best material in years, which is saying quite a bit. They have a groove and a feel that are prime for deep listening, swaying, dancing, meditation, whatever… they transcend genre — jazz, folk, indie, rock, classical — which, again, is something I say regularly about a lot of musicians, so it doesn’t quite cover what these songs do. When one man is a genre and yet the word “genre” is insufficient. But, on top of all that, he’s having fun and he’s engaged with an incredible band, Alan Hampton on bass and Ted Poor on drums have been playing with Bird for a long while and the comfort level and wordless communication is palpable. You can feel the respect and interaction in the space between them. Madison Cunningham on guitar and vocals and Tyler Chester on piano were equally as good. The things inside Bird exude and consume those musicians around him, they are extensions of his musical ego and id, there’s no doubt that any note coming out of any of them is precisely what Bird wants it to be. He let Cunningham sing one song and it was a bit of a stunner, although a total change of pace and it made me wonder why I’ve never seen him let Alan Hampton (who does his own singer/songwriter stuff, performs or performed semi-regularly at Rockwood) do a song. A very small tinge of awkwardness.
And then there’s that in-between stuff, the real Andrew Bird magic, the thing that takes your breath away, his expert looping and layering. When I first saw him do it, it was a novelty, I had seen some looping, but nothing of the artistry of this guy. While many people do this kind of thing now, he is still the master. I liked how he was restrained in these moments, not every song, but for only select moments did he build these musical tapestries, violin, plucked and/or bowed, whistles and his voice, guitar, simple little riffs, when cycled and layered, creating the most majestic, soul-stirring sounds imaginable. The songs are amazing, but those are the moments in an Andrew Bird show. And, oh!, how good they sounded in that room last night. Again, language fails, how can you say “this is a great room,” or “it sounds great in here” for another venue in the city or the world and then you come to National Sawdust and how are you going to describe the sheer divinity of the space. It’s like a luxury spa for music, a place for notes and sounds to luxuriate, to soak in a hot tub of warmth, all tension leaving the presence. That’s another thing about Andrew Bird, it isn’t just the music, but it’s the delivery of it, his genius extends to creating and curating, whether it be those Gezelligheid shows (look these up, super special shit, I hope he brings them back to NYC soon), to doing livestream performances on Facebook with amazing guests (look these up, super special shit) to intimate shows to even his regular old theater shows… he is thoughtful about the space and manner in which he delivers his show and this extra care infuses the music, makes it a richer, more personal experience. The audience, sold out, of course, was great… does “great” properly capture the attentiveness. Great shows are a conversation and the greatest are conversations where maybe one side doesn’t have to speak aloud. The audience last night was exquisitely silent, a collective nod in agreement at every note, every chord, every song. “yes, yes” we were saying without any words leaving our lips. “yes, yes, yes.”
I don’t have much space left to get into specifics about this song or that, but after a very minor technical difficulty, the perfectionist Bird decided to add another song onto the encore which ended up being a take on Duke Ellington’s Caravan (with lyrics/vocals!!) and to say it was a “pleasant surprise” probably doesn’t capture how great an ending to the show that was.
Aaron Lee Tasjan @ Rough Trade
Of course, a sane man would say “that’s enough!” and go home to sleep on what he had just witnessed. But there was literally another show, a very appealing show, on the way between National Sawdust and my car and I had free entry, so why the fuck not??
And man, am I glad I stopped by. Aaron Lee Tasjan is a dig-the-album guy for me, but when I saw him at Newport this past summer I was surprised at how great he was. If a music festival is doing its job, you discover some new musicians and when they come to town and you check ’em out and then you have a new favorite musician (or not). Well, the formula worked for me, because I was super impressed with the fantastic show he played last night. For some reason I keep having it in my head that he’s some sort of country musician, but, while there is a flake or two of that floating around in his sound, he’s really more of a kind of “classic rock” guy, a guitar-bass-drums trio that brought to mind a marriage of George Harrison and David Bowie. Swirly 60’s mildly-psych-rock, great songs, a few killer guitar-ragers… the whole thing was just fantastic. He had this great early-Elton-John look with big sunglasses and a top hat (actually, a little bit of Marco Benevento in there…) and a very, very enjoyable stage presence. It was a bit interesting to think about Jeff Tweedy, his playfully irascible presence and compare it, first to Andrew Bird (I mean, is there any doubt he’s a great guy?) and then Tasjan who just exuded good guy, the vibe of someone you want to succeed, want to follow, want to maybe even be friends with. Among the banter he told two killer anecdotes, one about interacting with Peter Frampton on Twitter (moral of the story: apologize when you’re wrong and be open to someone when they do apologize) and then another one about Rockwood Music Hall and Rockwood helping him get his career going in more than one way. His best line was when he introduced the band and then said “and my name is Aaron Lee Tasjan… is that how you pronounce it?” Classic.
So many good songs, one called “12 Bar Blues” where the “bars” in this case were 12 different drinking establishments, very clever, and name dropped 11th St Bar, natch. The penultimate song of the set was called ‘Ready to Die” and featured the longest, headiest, sickest guitar jam of the night. Tasjan writes good songs, has this twangy early-Bowie voice and a killer demeanor on stage, but damn, he can play that guitar as well. This was a total meltdown and eventually segued quite nicely into Tom Petty’s “Breakdown” to end the set. What a perfect cover for that band and, while obviously something well-rehearsed and probably something they close with every night, the pairing was superb. Very impressive. He brought the opener, Rorey Carroll and her violin player out for the encore and sang a duet version of “Helpless” which was also really great, an excellent violin solo in there. 100% a fan now. Glad I stopped by.
10Apr19 Karina Rykman Experiment @ Rough Trade
Great show last night. What a treat to watch someone start something from scratch and grow and evolve it the way these guys are doing it… really happy for Karina, they killed it.
11Apr19
I am having a very good week of livemusic’n, thanks for asking, hows about you?
Andrew Bird @ City Winery Loft
I got a very kind invitation (thank you Elizabeth!) to attend Andrew Bird’s WFUV Marquee show at the intimate City Winery Loft last night. First time in the room and it was a really nice spot for this, maybe half the size of National Sawdust or smaller. Perhaps to match the intimacy of the space, Bird went from the full band of the NS shows to playing in a duo with Madison Cunningham. What a fascinating thing to be able to see the same artist in two very different situations in a single week, playing a very similar setlist (that is, the bulk of the set was playing most of the new album). The set ran for about an hour with a interview break in the middle, so maybe 45 minutes of music and it was just as good as the show I saw Tuesday, with a different flavor of magic. Without the rest of the band, no drums or bass in particular, Andrew Bird himself was more of the focus… if that’s even possible! It’s like you see this beautiful man/woman looking quite good all dressed up and, surprise!, they also look really good with barely anything on at all, maybe even better… if that’s even possible!
This was mostly felt, by me, in focusing in on his lyrics. Without all that lush backing instrumentation, Bird really was scantily clad in only the talents his god gave him, and my word, what talents they are, as has already been well enumerated by me just the other day. So many amazing ideas, so much imagery, dense allusions and deft wordplay, the songs on the new album are masterpieces on multiple levels. So while “Sisyphus” and “Bloodless” were awesome, Bird still dazzling with his whistling — I think there is something subliminal going on in that whistle, like if you ran it through a computer and some Fourier transforms you’d find hidden messages about secrets of the universe, answers to prayers to God, all of it encapsulated in the waveforms of his whistle — and violin — oh, that violin! — and guitar, it was deeper into the stories told in “Manifest” and “Bellevue Bridge Club” that stood above and beyond last night. Still, it was all so awe-inspiring, so words-can-do-no-justice, a wonderful companion to the Sawdust show, so happy and lucky to see this.
Madison Cunningham is also a force to be reckoned with. Without the “competition” of the rest of the band, her voice and subtle guitar accompaniment really popped. A delightful foil and companion voice for Bird. When it was pointed out to me that she was performing with the Live From Here this weekend I just assumed that she came to that role from playing with Bird. In fact, as Bird explained, it was quite the obvious, he discovered her from her performing with Thile on Live From Here and invited her to sing on the album, quite the opposite of what I had assumed, and quite a more interesting story. The chemistry is quite clear, they have a very balanced back-and-forth… his voice and style would probably mesh with anyone’s, but Cunningham seems to fill his hairline cracks perfectly, creating an impossibly smooth sound together.
So great. I left the show, my second Andrew Bird show in 3 days, checking to make sure his September shows were on my calendar, that they didn’t conflict with any Jewish holidays, already looking forward to seeing him in a big beautiful theatre, already wondering what will be different, what will be the same, knowing full well he’s going to bowl me over months from now and already not being able to wait.
Wayne Krantz, Kevin Scott, Ari Hoenig @ 55 Bar (early & late sets)
It was an almost too-perfect short walk up 7th Avenue to 55 Christopher, almost too perfect “they just started” from the door guy as we stepped into the crowded bar, diving straight into a set-opening “Once In A Lifetime,” like walking into a warm house from the cold outside, the transition from Bird, so meticulously beautiful, such a cozy, intimate experience, to the crisp infinite-sky April night to the pure blast furnace heat of Krantz… I don’t think I can sum up livemusic in NYC better than that one move.
Last night was my 11th Krantz show of the year, I’ve only missed two of them in 15 weeks of 2019 and let me just get it out of the way, I think it was the best one yet. Kevin Scott has established himself as king of the WK bass hill, a musician who is completely in tune with the nuances of the 55 Bar Thursday night ethos, a guy who knows how to fill a room with sound like few others. And Ari Hoenig? Siiiiick! The first set had this vibe where Wayne would repeatedly do a quick gesture, point to himself and then Hoenig, indicating that he just wanted to play with the drums, no bass. At first glance it maybe seemed like he was boxing Scott out, but in a rather genius move, the more the other two guys played without him, the more he highlighted him… because when Scott finally did come it, it was like the cluster bomb obliterating everything in the room, just time and time and time again Wayne and Ari fiddling around with a riff or a groove or whatever and then BAAAAAMMM!! in drops Kevin Scott like fee fie foe fum, I smell the blood of your poor unsuspecting souls kind of giant-eats-world shit.
That was the first set. The first set was ridiculously good. It was worth $15 ten times over and was better than pretty much anything else on the planet. And yet, and yet, and yet… it paled in comparison to what went down in the second set, which was an advanced graduate course in Krantzology, 3 guys clicked into place like they were inventing music itself. Scott’s friend and Widespread Panic drummer Duane Trucks was there sitting nearby and he was fully engaged in what I call the Krantzgiggle, that uncontrolled laugh that comes out of your mouth when your brain just can’t process what’s happening there, can’t rectify what it sees and hears with everything else that has informed its existence to that moment… and the only reaction is to spontaneous laugh out loud. There was a lot of it going down over the course of the set. They’d start up a song and just expand and expand and expand, completely leave any semblance of its origin behind and keep filling a balloon with new ideas and directions and fucking incredible jams. The jams were so disociated from where they came, it occurred to me that they almost felt scrambled, like the improv from the first song actually belonged with the 5th song and the one from the 4th song was for the 2nd and so forth… a total scramble. Indeed, at one point they were clearly playing a song they already played inside another one and if you’re not paying close attention you might miss such subtle genius and if you are paying attention, you might break your brain for a short bit. That was me, broken brain in the best way possible. That was the hardest I’ve ever chair danced in my life. The “U Can’t Touch This” was particularly fucktastic, a highlight-real improv of epic proportions. At one point Wayne took one of those no-accompaniment solos he does which are always great, but he had these two or three loops going and he’s playing with himself from 15 seconds ago as well as himself from 30 seconds ago as well as himself from a minute in the future and you’re kind of like “WHATTHEFUCKISGOINGON!?!?!” Like it kind of just sounds like a guy playing the guitar really well, but it’s really a lot more like “WHATTHEFUCKISGOINGON!?!?!” It really is. Still not quite sure, but I am looking forward to going back next Thursday to see if I can figure it out.
12Apr19 Ghosts of the Forest @ United Palace Theater
Last night I caught Trey’s new “concept” album project at the United Palace Theatre. That’s exactly what I found it to be, a concept album type work meant to be consumed in one piece, like something Pink Floyd or Genesis might have made in the 70’s. And that is that concept? During the show-opening title track, Trey sings “I’m drowning…” over and over, “I’m drowing in this, I’m drowning in that” (don’t remember exact lyrics) and this put a thought in my head that summed it up for me. There is a Phish song, “Theme From the Bottom,” and, of course, they didn’t play any Phish songs, but that was sort of the image, the music of someone at a bottom in their lives — sadness, loss, etc. And the thing about being at the absolute bottom is that you can’t look down, there’s nothing below you, it’s all looking up. There’s a line in that song “keep what’s important and know who’s your friend,” and that was pretty much the concept. Of course, the person down there looking up, looking up with love and optimism is Trey. This music was intensely personal. I couldn’t help but thinking that the band he chose to play this music, it had to be this band. Certainly he could have found anyone to play these songs, he could have done them with Phish if he wanted to, but no, this wasn’t music for Phish and it wasn’t music for just any band, it was music for these people, I mean know who’s your friend, looking at the band: Jon Fishman, Tony, Jennifer, Ray… when you’re going to just lay your soul out there for everyone to see, put it all out there, who are you going to ask to have your friends. This was Trey’s musical support system, they also happen to be great musicians and a good match for the material. It had to be that band and just as much, it has to be in front of crowds like last night’s (I’m sure most on the tour were the same), crowds of people for whom Trey has been and is an important part of their lives, and, collectively, us part of his. You could feel that interconnection, the history, in the room.
For all that, the music was unsurprisingly upbeat. If you looked at a wordcoud of the lyrics I’m sure LOVE would be big and central to the graphic. Love as a lyric and love as a concept were central to this theme from the bottom and the music totally reflected it. Lyrics and themes aside, the music was great, punchy and vibrant and optimistic, plenty of wonderful guitar parts and just enough room for soloing. This isn’t a “jam” band, this is a song-oriented group. It’s unfortunate that I saw this show in the same week I saw Jeff Tweedy and Andrew Bird because Trey’s lyricism is a bit simple and, at times, mawkish, and that stood out even more comparing them to two extreme masters and also the fact that I really wanted to lean in and savor the thoughts and words he was singing. But in a way, that sentimentality the, oh-I-wonder-what-that-song-was-about?, the simplicity, all of that was OK, had to be that way. This was really a “sit down and write what you feel” kind of lyrical exercise and if those songs are what came out, then great. That’s what they were. The music soared quite a bit, there were lots of songs that had sort of movements and sections and while the Phish songs in that vein sometimes feel like academic exercises (in a good way for the most part, in my opinion, but very much “look what I can do!”), there was a very natural, easy feel to even the more complicated songs. The band was great, Fishman especially, but it really was these guys backing Trey, even more so than in Trey’s “TAB” band.
I really liked that there was a visual element to the show that was unique and utterly unlike anything you’d see at a Phish show. It was a production in that way and the backdrop reflected that. The lights were a mix of kind of “modern” LED’s and what looked like paper cut-outs. The juxtaposition was interesting. The paper giving off this very temporary feel, fragile and muted, but also the feel of handcrafted warmth, like a bunch of kids had cut out these shapes and put them together. The LED’s giving off a techno-optimism, nothing fancy, but a sort of dreamlike manifestation of the music, a world of possibilities. There was one song where they illuminated this technicolor shadow of Trey, like a silhouette of his psyche. I have no idea that if you cracked open Trey’s soul and looked inside you’d see lots of colorful lights, infinite possibilities shining in every color of the rainbow.
I thought the crowd was really excellent last night. There was a lot of respectful silence (or relative quiet) at moments, not a lot of random hooting or Phish-song-call-outs (which would have been seriously cringe-worthy). I do think the show lost a lot of people who ended up congregating in the lobby, which is fine. There’s definitely no expectation that you will love it and that’s fine, I mean read what I wrote, this isn’t exactly party music. I would have a blast if I went back tonight, but I have no drop-everything-I’m-going-back urge. It was incredibly satisfying in one sitting. I ended up bouncing around the theatre and taking it in from different vantages with different people and I enjoyed that. I had no problems moving around like that and finding different spots to watch and listen and dance. Still, the whole process of getting into the place left a very bad taste in my mouth, I marvel at a theater that’s been around for decades and decades that can’t properly get people inside and seated without worry in a timely fashion. It’s a very much you have one job situation. I’d be embarrassed to be a part of that shitshow. I hope they are in better shape today, but in the end that bad taste went away and I enjoyed almost every moment of the night.
I went in more or less completely blind and loved the feeling of discovery. So much of Trey’s/Phish’s new material was first heard by me live, probably the same for most people and so that’s how I wanted to take it in, fresh and new from the stage in a theater like last night. That worked for me. Would it have been a different experience if I knew the songs? Maybe. Who’s to say. I don’t think it’s a definite yes/no thing either way. If you think it’s something you might not enjoy, probably a good idea to listen first.
Over postshow cocktails, someone asked me what my favorite song was afterward and hearing that question, it seemed like a strange way to think about this project. There were moments for sure, obviously there were guitar solos that stirred that spot inside more than the lyrics did, but probably to their intended effect. Trey channels those feelings of optimism and love and friendship through his guitar playing better than any lyric. I actually like that these were just solos, that the band was contained, not looking to jam things out too much. There was one song that Trey played acoustic on, an instrumental, that I really loved. Like after the band played it, I was like “I could listen to a whole album of that.” It was so different than anything I’ve heard from Trey, like a forgotten Who instrumental from Tommy or something. That was good. But really, it all was one continuum with few stops, little banter… like I said, meant to be consumed in one sitting. There was a great arc to the show, the first section really getting all these themes out, like a long tell-me-how-you-feel session at a psychologist, and then the latter half, all this love in the air, the music really picked up in energy and became more interesting as things went along. To me at least.
Someone else said “special” afterward and that was sort of the feeling I have about the show. Not “blow you the fuck away” special, not “that was sooooo much fun!” special… a much deeper kind of special, watching this guy you’ve “known” for pretty much my entire adult life lay his soul out for all to see… and sounding pretty good, too.
14Apr19 The New Masada Quartet @ Village Vanguard
There is something about seeing a show during the afternoon. Like daydrinking, the livemusic buzz is a little peppier, hazier, brighter… something unnatural about it that sharpens the edges a bit. This afternoon the effect was exponentially so due to the nature of the music, an otherworldly set of music, a bright-side-of-the-moon hour that could very well be the best music I’ve seen this year.
For those of you who don’t know, Masada is not a band, nor a genre, nor like anything else out there. It’s best described as a “songbook,” or more accurately 3 songbooks, a gazillon songs each written by John Zorn in 3 batches. The thing they have in common is that they are written in the “Jewish scales” and so they have a distinctive feel to them. I guess a close modern day equivalent is the Grateful Dead catalog which has become a sort of living, breathing thing independent of the band the Grateful Dead, played by jazz bands and bluegrass bands and cover bands of all flavors. The Masada songbook is its own entity, played by a range of ensembles in all sorts of styles, usually, but not always, with an improvisational spirit. It is one of my favorite musical things out there, both in its uniqueness, the broad range it encompasses, the freedom held within these simple compositions, the infinite possibilities packed into a riff or a line of music, and also, not for nothing, because the people I see playing it happen to be some of my favorite musicians on the planet.
That was certainly the case this afternoon as “the New Masada Quartet” consisted of Zorn himself on saxophone, Julian pick-yo-jaw-off-the-floor Lage on guitar, Jorge Roeder on bass and Freak-Ball-alum Kenny Wolleson on drums. That’s a fucking band. I think it’s worth noting that the “new” differentiates this quartet from the “original” Masada, when “Masada” really was just a band, that being Zorn, Dave Douglas on trumpet, Greg Cohen on bass and Joey Baron on drums. Not for nothing, those guys are probably in the conversation for best on their respective instruments at some point in the careers if not right now. That was one helluva band. The new quartet is one helluva band as well, and then some. Today they put the MAS (mutual admiration society) in MASada, each guy kind of equally impressed with the other three, as seemingly blown away by the music they were making as the packed matinee crowd at the Vanguard was. Everyone in the room was smiling from ear to ear by the end of the show, including the not-always-smiling Zorn who seemed to be relishing in what he had brought together as much as I ever have seen him.
I believe they played mostly, if not all songs from the original Masada songbook, which is kind of interesting in an insider-geek-out kind of way. Those songs just don’t really get played anymore. They started with a rather raucous piece. There are several different flavors of Masada composition, sort of Ornette-style freejazz chaotic things, quiet things of pure beauty, more entrance to group improvisation and then the sort of sound-collage conducted improv things. The first piece was pure free jazz, of they why-fuck-around variety, the group hitting the ground at full speed which for this group is pretty fucking highspeed. Damn! The second piece was gorgeous bliss, something so damn good if they had just said “thanks for coming” afterwards I would have gotten my money’s worth. I mean, wow! What was truly remarkable was how well these four guys locked in. There were solos throughout, but it really was an ensemble effort, often during a solo it was more interesting to let your ears latch on to Roeder or Wolleson as a way of trying to take it all in… which was tough. Because “all” with this group was a whole lot. For only their third gig ever and second with Wolleson on drums, it was like watching a band that has toured extensively. That’s partly on Zorn who demands that level of play just by being present in the room. His music demands it. Masada, 25+ years of it, played by the best in the world all over the world, it demands the highest level of play. You can see it on the musicians faces. But about a third of the way into that second song, those looks on their faces because looks of sheer joy, because they knew they had it, that they all four had it. You could sense it just click, like “we can do anything right now,” and they did.
The rest of the set was just a stunning stretch of music. Like I’m literally stunned thinking about it. I enjoyed hearing songs I recognized from other Masada ensembles played by this group. Like how I feel about JRAD at their peak, like they owned this material, made it their own, redefined it. You could see Julian mouth “wow” after a song or Zorn with an uncharacteristically goofy grin on his face. “This feels like a real band!” he exclaimed at one point. Do you understand how cranky a guy John Zorn can be, even in the face of some of the more amazing music being played directly in front of/for/because of him? He is a tough parent to his bands and gets the most out of them, but today was a side I’ve rarely seen, a proud parent letting his children roam free, giving them independence and being rewarded with undeniable brilliance. It feels ridiculous to point out any one of these guys, but it also feels ridiculous to point out that even in a group like this Julian Lage is on another level. To watch a guy play guitar like that, with so much talent that he doesn’t even have to think about doing these fantabulous things with his hands, they just do them. To listen to him listening to what’s going on around him, to see him luxuriate in his bandmates and then to take that technical talent and make something that is so beautiful, so ephemeral and mystical. It’s a sight to see. We are lucky to get a chance to see a guy like that play music like this in a place like the Village Vanguard. I wouldn’t let opportunities to do so pass you by. This is generational greatness playing the music of the Mozart of our time here on earth. They are playing again in June, I suggest you go.
The final tune was one of the several I “knew” from all the Masada shows I used to see. And oh, how we used to go see all those different Masadas semi-regularly, at Tonic and then in “marathon” shows in bigger, nicer venues, but now… now it’s so rare I can’t remember the last time I saw John Zorn perform. So this final tune was one that Electric Masada used to play and when they played it it was a rager, like heavy metal, Black-Sabbath-esque headbanger music with Marc Ribot at his most shredtastic and double drummers plus percussion making your head pound. It was some deep, heavy shit. This band played the song like they were playing the colors of a sunset over the desert, like incomprehensible beauty, quiet, subtle, textured, muted, perfect. And that is Masada right there, the music playing the band, Zorn knowing how to bring together musicians and the compositions, a place between the written notes and improvisation, the music, the room. What a moment that was. What a show. What a band.
