Adrian Belew Power Trio--The Starlite Room, Edmonton Oct.9, 2009

"I never liked playing in stadiums because it's not much of a musical event. The sound is usually horrible, the audience can't really see you or feel what you're doing or respond to you. I love playing smaller places because of those very reasons."
----Adrian Belew


Friday night's concert here in Edmonton had all three ingredients for a satisfying concert--skilled musicians, a small venue, and an appreciative audience--in spades. First, if you don't know who Adrian Belew is, good. That means that guys like me can get a table right in front of the stage for $30 and see some really wonderful instrumental music. If you have heard his name before, that is because he was discovered by Frank Zappa, then recruited by David Bowie, David Byrne of the Talking Heads and Robert Fripp of King Crimson. Now there is a serious movement afoot to get this guy inducted into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame.

But there was another element --that of pleasant surprise. It turns out that the other two thirds of the Power Trio are a brother sister team of Julie and Eric Slick, both still in their early 20s, whom Belew found at the Paul Green School Of Rock. They thrive from having to match the virtuosity of Belw on guitar, as Belew does from having these talented kids to play with. Just looking at the three of them I couldn't help but share the fun they were having. I even got to buy their live CD ("Four") from their mom, Robin Slick, in the lobby.

TO be sure this isn't exactly the more blues-based R&B and jazz that I am most fond of. On the trio's current tour you'll see him play over loops, plug his graphite Parker Fly guitar into keyboards and do all kinds of things to get fresh sounds out of the instrument, but only a couple of tunes--"Ampersand" and "Big Electric Cat" --really stick in my mind as having been all that catchy. He verges on gimmickry and virtuosity for its own sake (which are themselves tired criticisms, I know, that used to be levelled at Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton in the 60s), but he is saved by his own, and his band's, artistry. Belew's punchy and precise playing is abetted by his beautiful space-age Parker guitars, while Julie plays a huge-sounding Lakland bass ("I use a Lakland Bob Glaub into a Keeley C-4 Compressor, with the occasional effect: either a West Siberian distortion pedal (i bought with Tony Levin in Moscow) or a Korg AX3000B. This all goes into an Ampeg SVT (8×10 fridge of a cab)...In my opinion you can’t get a “growlier” chain.")

Situated somewhere between prog rock, experimental post-metal and jazz, what sets this music apart from so much of the new stuff is that it is about the playing. I would go to see them again in a heartbeat.

2009 Edmonton Jazz Festival Highlights: John Abercrombie, Branford Marsalis, Jimmy Cobb

I took in two concerts at the Edmonton Jazz Festival this year, and both were EXCELLENT. On June 28, there was a double bill featuring the John Abercrombie organ trio and the Brandford Marsalis quartet. Missing from Abercrombie's usual lineup was organist/composer Dan Wall; his absence explains why Abercrombie stuck to a more mainstream playlist for this concert. Nevertheless, the organist's spot was capably filled by Gary Versace. (Adam Nussbaum was his usual stalwart self on drums; so much so that he was invited to sit in on drums with the Marsalis group at the end of the evening.)

If circumstances caused Abercrombie to be slightly less adventurous than usual, the opposite was true for the headliner. Marsalis even remarked that the acoustics at the Winspear Centre (quite similar to Vancouver's Chan Centre) were so good that they could perform music that they either had flubbed in Calgary, or wouldn't normally attempt in most venues. Pianist Joey Calderazzo's beautiful "The Blossom of Parting" was a case in point. Prediction: 5 years from now Calderazzo will be recognized as one of the leading artists in jazz.

This August also marks the 50th anniversary of the recording of Miles Davis's Kind of Blue. On Saturday July 4, 2009 the festival was closed out by Jimmy Cobb's So What Band in the intimate confines of the 600-seat Maclab Theatre in Edmonton's Citadel complex. I was in the second row, about 10 feet from the stage. On drums was the sole surviving member of the Kind of Blue sessions; on trumpet was Miles's protege Wallace Roney. Watching that music being performed it was easier to visualize how Miles wrote music for his musicians and led that band: the trading of solos on "Freddie the Freeloader" and "So What", and the careful adaptation of Spanish themes on "Flamenco Sketches" are the epitome of what good improvisational jazz is all about.

James Hunter's Commitment to Soul and R&B

Van Morrison calls him "the best-kept secret in British R&B": James Hunter is working-class London's answer to the Commitments. He unapologetically embraces music from what is often assumed to be a simpler time, the 1950s and early 1960s; but (here is the point, perhaps?) it was actually a much more difficult time for most people in race-divided America and class-divided Britain. Which is probably why they naturally assumed that one of the main purposes of music was to make them feel better.

Sam Cooke, Al Green, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Booker T., Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, Lowman Pauling, the Memphis Horns. They played their hearts out, marrying the blues to gospel and making it swing. Hunter's singing voice is uncannily worthy of this tradition--and it's a bit shocking when you hear him speak in a cockney accent. He and his band not only faithfully reproduces the sound of this era, but if anything distills it into an even purer form: the sax and organ solos are choice, and Hunter's guitar playing and showmanship contain a few surprises of their own. His performance is no joke or parody, but it verges on tongue in cheek at times--this is about having fun.

It was a pleasure to see this band in the intimate confines of the Polish Hall in Edmonton on Friday March 13, 2009. It was relatively easy for everyone who wanted to dance or get close to the stage to do so. If Hunter's star keeps rising, that may become a rare privilege indeed.

Santana! Edmonton, Rexall Place, Tuesday September 9, 2008

Yes! Santana was great! Mind you, he has never been a guitarist whose technical skill had me shaking my head , saying "Wow he was amazing--how did he do that?" But then, what is music, m' love? Puff Puff.... When one thinks of his duets with John McLaughlin in the early 70s, McLaughlin may have "blown him of the record" as one critic put it, but it was his parts that were more pleasant to listen to. I would still put him on the top twenty list of electric guitarists....

At least four things make him great. First, Carlos Santana is the one who brought Latin music into mainstream rock. Second, he has his own, distinctive guitar voice, which is heavy on sustain but always infused with latin blues. Third, he has also forged a unique band sound that is rich in percussion and keyboards as well as horns and guitar sounds...currently noteworthy in this regard are second guitarist and vocalist Tommy Anthony and redoubtable jazz drummer Dennis Chambers, who opened the concert with a solo that set the tone perfectly....Fourth, Santana has been a tasteful interpreter and unflagging ambassador for the music of his heroes.

After his early commercial success and his religiously -infused middle period, ("Caravanserai" is my favourite Santana album) followed by a return to commercial success with "Supernatural", he has found a balance with a little something for everyone. Most of the hits were there, but my favourite part was near the end when we were treated to a medley paying tribute to some of his favourite musicians--starting with a delicate guitar solo of John Coltrane's "Peace on Earth", segueing into Dylan's "Hard Rain Gonna Fall", then "Stairway to Heaven", and ultimately climaxing with Hendrix's "Third Stone from the Sun"--except that unlike most musical references to the latter, he actually went into the solo part where the space visitors (deciding they don't like earth people and their surf music) decide to blow up the world. We were on the other end of the arena and I could feel my seat shaking .........

Caught: The Third Annual Guitar Women Concert Edmonton Oct. 5, 2007

If your favourite word is "beautiful" or "talented" or"redhairedwoman" then maybe you should have seen this. Then again, maybe not. Problem is, those are "icing" words. My favourite word is a "cake" word--- "dedication". Sue Foley is all about being the cake and not just the icing, and it was Sue Foley's dedication that shone through everything on Friday evening, as Edmonton's blues community gathered at the Myer Horowitz Theatre to take in her "Guitar Women" tour. Her dedication to the great women blues guitarists and singers who came before her, like her idol Memphis Minnie. And her dedication to the great young Canadian talents showcased on this tour--Quebec's Roxanne Potvin, Manitoba's Romi Mayes and BC's Rachelle Van Zanten.

As expected, the concert featured Sue Foley's choice blues guitar solos and the stellar slide playing of Calgary-based Ellen McIlwaine and (especially)Van Zanten. But this wasn't an electric "we can rock with the best of the boys" rave-up. It was an all-acoustic set that also contained a number of pleasant surprises.

One was the amount of original material. "Roots" was an important part of what was going on here, as it is in almost any acoustic blues concert, but at least three-quarters of the material that these women were playing were their own original compositions. It is clear that for these women the blues is not, as it is so often perceived, an artefact of 1930s and 1940s Mississippi or 1950s Chicago. The blues is dynamic and flexible, and still likely to be the most essential ingredient in almost any hybrid contemporary music. As a Jimi Hendrix devotee (for Hendrix, the blues was a multicultural and space-age medium), I was pleased to read that McIlwaine had been friends with Hendrix in his 1966 Greenwich Village days, in the year before he exploded onto the London scene. Her cover of "May This Be Love" (one of the ballads from Are You Experienced?) was true to his spirit as well as to her own. She spent most of her childhood in Japan, where she attended the Canadian Academy in Kobe. Part of her distinctive sound comes from the influence of Japanese classical and folk music. She actually tunes her guitar to get the classical Japanese sound for her takes on Hendrix, Albert King, and Al Green. Wild! Her latest CD, Mystic Bridge, is all about her revisiting her eastern roots, and it features a Fijian-born Canadian tabla palyer named Cassius Khan, who was trained in Indian classical music, and a sax player named Linsey Wellman, whom McIlwaine describes as "playing like John Coltrane goes to Egypt".

Sue Foley was no less adventurous. She has been studying Spanish flamenco music, and her new tune "Blue Farukka" explores some of the common elements of blues and flamenco music while showing off her newfound guitar technique. I wasn't expecting that!

Another aspect of this concert was its strong sense of purpose. The Guitar Women Silent Auction sold a guitar and art pieces and numerous photos and paintings to raise money for Rachelle van Zanten's project the Rocker Girl Camp ,for girls age 10-17 "who want to rock". The women also donated 10% of their proceeds from CDS and merchandise for this cause.

The event was recorded for CKUA and the estimable Holger Peterson was on hand to emcee the proceedings. If you missed the concert, try to catch the radio broadcast. It might just be your piece of cake.

Emily Haines's moody blue voice and enigmatic lyrics

Speaking of unique female artists with quirky rythmns and good singing voices---
Emily Haines is a chip off the old block--her father Paul Haines (1932-2003) was a poet-songwriter-crtic for the jazz and progressive rock scene in Paris New York, New Delhi (where Emily was born), and New Mexico until he moved to Canada, and most famously wrote the libretto for Carla Bley's sprawling 1971 meisterpiece Escalator Under the Hill. Emily came up through the Toronto club scene fronting a band called Metric. I just purchased an EP yesterday called What is Free To a Good Home? and I liked it enough to jump at a chance to see her live if she comes through town again. Her lyrics are just a little mysterious without being opaque; her voice is like a cool breeze in November; and her piano self-accompaniment is sparing and competent. A good example is "The Bank," in which she sings of how so many work so hard just to be able to fill up their time with empty pursuits:

Whatever it is spit it into a bottle and sell it to me/I’m looking to buy freedom from my sobriety/Just like Huey Lewis/I need a new drug/I need a new drink/I need a new drug that does what it should/So take me to the bank/Take me to the bar/Can you take me to the hot spot?/This is what we worked so hard to afford /but...Take me to the bank/Can you take me to the bar?/Can you take me to the hot spot?/This is what we worked so hard to afford/ but how I wanna hide/The next time you visit me here/How about coming out to my place/We can sit on the floor and play my brother’s records/We can sit on the grownup bed/Couple with the coin/Lighting up to join the coping crowd/My big brother said to stay unsatisfied/Never work a day to pay off your desire/Couple with the coin/Lighting up to join the coping crowd

My only concern is about whether Haines has enough variety in her compositional and stylistic repertoire to sustain a career. Perhaps she and her new band, The Soft Skeleton, have answered that question already. They have just released a full-length album, Knives Don't Have Your Back. I haven't heard it yet, but I recommend checking it out, starting with the band's website. The album is a compendium of songs reflecting on episodes in her life from the past decade--mourning the loss of her father, the early days of Metric and its growing commercial success, and the dilemmas of artistry. Not coincidentally, the album design matches that of Escalator Over the Hill.

Mary Margaret O'Hara: Building a Mystery

I had neither seen nor heard Margaret Mary O'Hara before yesterday's concert at the Edmonton Folk Fest. I didn't even know that Maureen O'Hara had a sister.

After the concert, I wanted to tell Mary Margaret about the ethnic restaurants in my neighbourhood.--African food for Africans, Chinese food for Chinese people, Vietnamese for Vietnamese: she would like gastronomic authenticity, or so I think. Sure, there have been few murders around here lately, and you wouldn't want your kids to run around in their bare feet, and several prominent signs have been posted recently stating that "This Community Does Not Tolerate Prostitution", but hey...she and her band would like to eat in some of these places, I can tell just by looking at them.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find her address and she doesnt' even have her own website. After recording the critically-acclaimed album Miss America in 1988 (named by MOJO magazine as one of the top 100 albums of all time), she never recorded another, except for the Christmas EP and the recent soundtrack to the recent film Apartment Hunting. In Canada, Chart Magazine recently named Miss America #14 on its list of best Canadian albums ever. Fittingly, she has recently been named to the Alternative Canadian Walk of Fame for "achieving international music legend status on the strength of one 17-year-old album, and for refusing to play celebrity"

Interestingly, on the way home from the concert I began associating her in my mind with the old Carla Bley/Paul Haines collaboration Escalator Over the Hill. Then I found out on angelfire.com that she had contributed a track to the 1993 Paul Haines Album.

According to writer J.J. Ecto -- if that really is his name--"Seeing Mary Margaret O'Hara let fly elicits a level of emotion not unlike that of being witness close up to the product of Van Gogh's madness." And I would add that--rather unusually for artists of this ilk--I think that she has a very good singing voice, one that I imagine would sound very good in a country and western context, which unfortunately is not weird enough for her occasional humourous forays into extemporaneous scat-rap. She successfully marries the most heartfelt of lyrics (Yes I even thought of Patsy Cline) with an outre improvising jazz sensibililty, because that is who she is. Check out "When You Know Why You're Happy" and "Not Be Allright"---already two of my favourite songs.

She also refuses to record anywhere that is not within walking distance from several Catholic churches, as she claims these are her favorite places to "hang out".

She's even been on You Tube.

What a find. Who knew?