For the last few years, I have aspired to write about every show I see. In reality, I have not even come close to doing so, I have barely written anything, which is a shame… for me, at least. So, I’ve tried to recalibrate my expectations of myself and am going to try and summarize each month of livemusic’n, hit some of the high points and try to wrap it up in a single theme that captures both the music and my thoughts on music and whatever. We’ll see how it goes!
ICYMI: October 2023: Nostalgia Acts
ICYMI: December 2023: Holiday’d
ICYMI: January 2024: Winter Jazzqueens
ICYMI: February 2024: Lil’ somethin’ extra
OK, so despite my best intentions, I did not get any writing done about music seen in the month of March. But I don’t want to just let it slide, so I’ve decided to lump March & April together and because I’m adding one month to another, I figured a worthy theme for this write-up is one of my favorite things to do: seeing more than one show in a day/night. New York City is ready-made for multiple-showgoing with its sheer volume of options that often stretch in both the earlier and later directions and the relative ease of getting from one venue to another via public transportation or just hooking it. In fact, 2 shows in a single calendar day isn’t really that big of a feat, so this write-up will focus on dates I saw 3 or more shows in March and April. There were 5 such outings during those two months, so let’s recap!
On March 17th, which now feels like ages ago, I saw four shows starting in the afternoon at Ornithology in Bushwick. While jazz clubs often have a reputation as being stuffy rule-driven places where you’re crammed next to your neighbor and forced to buy overpriced drinks (I’m looking at you, Blue Note!), the fact of the matter is, there are so many super-laid-back, downright comfy rooms where the highest level of jazz can be seen for whatever you want to throw in the bucket. Ornithology is one of the best of these, a true living-room-with-a-bar vibe in a semi-out-of-the-way spot in Brooklyn. On this afternoon, I was lucky enough to catch saxophone player Neta Raanan recording an album which was open to the general public looking to see some jazz on a weekend afternoon. It was my first time seeing Raanan and she was fantastic, taking some deep compositions pretty deeper with a killer band featuring two fellow young’uns in Robert Vega on trumpet and Tyrone Allen on bass, and one all — timer veterans on drums, Nasheet Waits. Was cool to see the creative process unfold, songs restarted when necessary, some discussion before and after and just a very laid-back album recording experience to witness. Looking forward to the record! From there I made my way to my favorite room, Barbes, which has music in the front room on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, with Sundays featuring the Clube do Choro: an open jam session of Choro music, where the musicians are sitting around the table. It’s a killer vibe to have an afternoon beer and the music is great. Once a month at 440 Gallery, a tiny art gallery that is literally around the corner from Barbes, they have solo performances and this happened to be the week. On the Sunday in question, the performer was bassist Stephan Crump who told enchanting tales through music, a hearty, soulful set of solo upright bass that was much more engaging and awe-inspiring than I was expecting. As day turned into night, I found myself in Manhattan at Cafe Wha? for Viv & Riley. I had somehow never been to this room and the ultra laidback Sunday vibe continued with a set of highly enjoyable folk at the legendary Greenwich Village club (Hendrix played there!). I really dig this duo, in the same vein as Gillian Welch/Dave Rawlings, with nifty stories in their banter, lovely harmonies, and some tasty guitar playing and more. Four stops of easy-as-pie livemusic without hardly breaking a sweat and home at a reasonable hour.
While weekends with afternoon shows are the easiest way to do the 3fer or 4fer as the case may be, it’s fun to try and make it happen on a weeknight as well. Fun if you’re completely psychotic like me, that is. The opportunity arose the following Wednesday which started at Roulette in downtown Brooklyn. Roulette has some of the more interesting bookings in town, one of those places where you are bound to see something creative, if not downright mindblowing. On this night it was somewhere in between as drummer Ches Smith led a large ensemble called Laugh Ash through compositions from the album of the same name. With horns and strings and more and featuring lots of personal favorites like Oscar Noriega, Anna Webber and James Brandon Lewis on reeds and Shahzad Ismaily on bass, among others, this band was built to take on whatever was asked of them… and plenty was. The set went many places, all of them interesting. Definitely check out the album. I was already halfway there, more or less, so I went from Roulette to Threes Brewing for Jeff Rum (fka Jeff Rum Trio), one of my favorite local acts who were playing every Wednesday in March in the performance space upstairs at Threes. The trio features Ryan Dugre on guitar, James Buckley on bass, and the incomprable Jeremy Gustin on drums. Going from Ches Smith > Jeremy Gustin, just a short walk from each other on a weeknight is one way to get rewarded for hitting more than one show in a night. Only in NYC! It was great to be back at Threes, a fantastic little room that is woefully underutilized. The set was fantastic as usual, the trio playing their easygoing surfy instrumental rock like they were in the middle of a monthlong residency. They brought up Tall Juan to sing a few and the whole scene was a very chill hang that suited their sound perfectly. Love that band. I was already more than halfway there, so it made sense to hit the late set at Barbes which on Wednesdays means the smile-inducing Malian jams of The Mandingo Ambassadors. It is nearly impossible to be in a bad mood watching and listening to Mamdou Kouyate and his rotating supporting cast and nearly impossible not to get your boogie on, even late on a school night. Absolutely the best way to end a Wednesday night, any week I don’t is a minor failure.
My first 3+ outing in April was a couple weeks later and started at Valentino Park on a chilly Saturday afternoon for the recently-revived Freaks Day Out. Surprise! It was Jeff Rum again! Masters of the multipleshow. I proud of much, but FDO is one of the best ideas/executions I’ve had in my 50 years on this planet. This was characteristically awesome. A great afternoon at the dawn of outdoor music season. The evening started at the Stone which has a different musician curating each week. This week was percussionist Adam Rudolph, and the Saturday night set featured his Sunrise Quartet with Alexis Marcello on piano and percussion, Stephen Haynes on trumpet(s) and… percussion, and Kaoru Watanabe on percussion, percussion, and… more percussion! The confluence of instrumentation and sounds created a very textured set of music, often hypnotic, often far-flung, often psychedelic, ever engaging. You never know what you’re going to get at the Stone, but you are almost never going to be bored finding out. Some nights you hit a bunch of shows because they’re easy to get from one to the next, but this threefer was earned as the last stop was further uptown in the lobby performance space at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. The late set there featured Craig Taborn who curated an hour of piano music interleaved with some classical pieces on violin. This was a magical, dreamlike set, Taborn truly one of the masters of his instrument and showing it. A cool space, an even cooler bit of music and a perfect end to a threefer that stretched from deep Red Hook to middle Manhattan like nobigwhoop.
The next day was Sunday and I guess I was feeling it. First back to Clube do Choro, a great way to start a day of livemusic’n. From there it was to another spot that’s great for catching weekend afternoon sets, Skinny Dennis. On this Sunday, the band was Whiskey Biscuits, playing covers and originals in the city’s best honky tonk. Lots of fun. From there it was into Manhattan to Terra Blues for Hubby Jenkins. Hubby was a onetime member of Carolina Chocolate Drops and plays Terra Blues regularly and I’d been wanting to catch a set from him for a while. He did not disappoint, a set of old school blues and folk, playing guitar and banjo, stringing standards and traditionals together one into the next like someone who plays the room regularly. As the CCD used to be, it was part history lesson, part concert with an enchanting, entertaining storyteller at the helm. I will definitely return. I was already more than halfway there so I decided to roll the dice and head to Nublu. It’s a gamble with that room because while the music is almost certainly going to be awesome, you have no clue when it will start and might find yourself waiting a while twiddling your thumbs on a Sunday night. Which is… exactly what happened to me on this night. Watching musicians milling around doing nothing can be frustrating and I had to Google “sunk cost theory” whilst deciding whether I had waiting too long when finally they took the stage and started. The band was led by David Binney on sax with the always awesome Matt Mitchell on keys, Paul Cornish also on keys, Eivind Opsvik on bass and Nate Wood on drums. That is a killer band and the set was, I must say, worth the frustrating wait. Deep funkjazz jams with an allstar cast playing like the best in town. Real good shit, a far cry from Choro around a table in Park Slope.
Sometimes the multiple’r kind of falls in your lap, like it did for me on 4/20. A free afternoon festival in Rockefeller Plaza was tempting, but when I got word that there would be a special set in Central Park, a short walk from Rock Center, it seemed too good a onetwo’er to pass up. The festival was called Indieplaza, indie rock in the plaza (obvs!) and I caught two great sets from Corridor an Snooper. Corridor was the more interesting to me, a Montreal band with an arty cool sound that bordered on prog. Would definitely check out again. Snooper was a brash and raw punkish band that was also a lot of fun and had props! Always fun to catch things you wouldn’t normally see. Walked up to the park after to a spot near the carousel called Playmates Arch and before too long, as promised, Shabaka Hutchings showed up and set up camp in the middle of the tunnel. There were maybe 25ish people at the start and Shabaka treated us to one long flute meditation after another. It was a super cool experience, but also the music was transfixing and transporting. I am such a sucker for middle-of-the-city music experience, where the city keeps humming along in all its loud, weird glory and somehow accomodates and accompanies the music. This was an extreme example of that, as it was in the middle of Central Park on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon. The set kept flowing while people walked by, kids in strollers, kids screaming, adults yammering on cell phones, dogs… anything you could imagine, accidentally accompanying this lovely, meditative music. I know that sounds kind of annoying, but really it worked, with the music being the dominant sound in that tunnel and the other noise just making brief appearances, somehow enhacing the hypnosis instead of breaking it. About 30 minutes in, already longer than I thought he might play, Shabake explained that he’d be playing an hour “we’ve just only begun.” From there, the mood kind of shifted to a communal experience, as he drew the audience in as co-conspirators, describing the flutes he was playing, explaining his practice routine (we were all basically watching him practice… sometimes he charges people, but we were getting it for free). Words cannot describe how special and enchating this experience was, only in New York, but somehow different than so many other only-in-NYC experiences I’ve had. The music was utterly mesmerizing, Shabaka was endearing and spiritual. This is what it is to be alive in the presence of greatness. You may not believe this, but from there it only made sense to go to Park Slope. You guessed it, to Barbes. You guessed it, for Jeff Rum now in the midst of a Saturday monthlong early-eve residency. No, I was not yet sick of them and still am not. This was a little extra special because I was literally the only person in the room when they started. The night ended back in Bushwick, where this long tale of long days and nights began. But instead of in a cozy jazz club, it was in the big rock club Elsewhere. The show was a true double bill featuring Minami Deutsch and Earthless. Both bands laid down a shredtastic set of scintillating jammed-out psychedelic rock and roll. MD was the jammier of the two, often reaching moments of Allmans/Dead-esqueness in between heavy skull-rattling rock-outs. They really crushed their set, knocked my socks off. Earthless played about 75+ minutes of nearly non-stop ass-kicking slayer near-metal guitar/drum/bass brainmelters. There’s intense and there’s intense and this set was infuckingtense turned to 11. In fact, this was the kind of set for which “it goes to 11” was made for. What a monster one-two punch and a killer way to end a monster day of music.
I would be remiss to get through a March/April write-up without mentioning perhaps the highlight of the two months, a trip to St Augustine for 3 nights of Widespread Panic. In some ways, it’s actually appropriate, like the exact inside out of seeing several different shows in one night in New York City is seeing the same band three nights in a row out of town. Without going into too much detail, the weekend was just a pure ecstatic livemusic party. One of my all-time favorite bands in an intimate amphitheater with awesome people I love hanging out with. The band did whatever the opposite of disappoint is. Killer jams, great songs, fun crowd. I wish I had written down all my thoughts right after, because now my memories are just a wash of joy joy joy, fun fun fun. I plan to see a bit more Panic this year, and will reserve the right for some more detailed writing for that time.
March Roundup:
27 shows = $54 donated as part of the #livemusicchallenge to the Larry Siegel recovery fund
April Roundup:
26 shows = $52 donated as part of the #livemusicchallenge to World Central Kitchen
Five Star Shows seen in March:
! Mannes Orchestra w/ Bill Frisell @ Alice Tully Hall
! James Buckley w/ Chris Kyle, Luke Marantz, Jeremy Gustin @ Valentino Park
! Widespread Panic (x3) @ St Augustine Amphitheater
! Sam Amidon w/ Bill Frisell, Shahzad Ismaily, Chris Vatalaro @ LPR
Five Star Shows seen in April:
! Daniel Villareal @ Knitting Factory
! Setting + Basic @ Public Records
! Shabaka @ Central Park
! Earthless + Minami Deutsch @ Elsewhere
! Juana Molina + Madison Cunningham @ Tarrytown Music Hall
Reviews written in March/April (for Bowery Presents):
Hurray for the Riff Raff @ MHOW
