Concert review: Ramsey Lewis Electric Band graces Jazz at the Bistro, Wednesday, November 30

facebook.com/RamseyLewisJazz

There is something about the opening number of a jazz act that is timeless. On the first night of a four-night stand in St. Louis, Ramsey Lewis Electric Band kept it cool with electric jazz that captured that feeling all through the night.

Wednesday night I attended the performance of Ramsey Lewis Electric Band at Jazz at the Bistro located on Washington Street across from the Fox Theater. Lewis is the current feature for the Jazz St. Louis 2011-2012 season. His career spans over five decades and includes three Grammy awards. Pianist Ramsey performed with his newly assembled quintet that includes Henry Johnson (guitar), Tim Gant (keyboards), Joshua Ramos (bass) and Charles Heath (drums). The electric band is in town for a four-night series that includes both 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. sets.

Jazz at the Bistro is a common venue for the St. Louis jazz scene. Many jazz acts, local and national, frequent the wedge building in Midtown. St. Louisans that enjoy a combination of jazz and casual dining are likely to be familiar with the location. For those who are not familiar with it, Jazz at the Bistro is a two-story restaurant and intimate concert venue with a small stage located on the ground level.

Ramsey Lewis and his electric band came out for their second set at 9:30 p.m. sharp. To the stage walked five well-dressed gentlemen who were ready to perform. Five suits inched their way across the narrow stage before separating between the scattered instruments to take their places. Without delay they jumped right into the night.

The opening was luscious. There is something about the opening numbers of jazz performances that never ceases to amaze the audience. It seems as if the band pulls some magical collection of chords and notes out of thin air to create a mystical melody that you replay in your thoughts throughout the entire night. However that process works, Ramsey and his electric band accomplished it. Their introduction blended traditional jazz with contemporary style to produce the perfect balance of smoothness and rhythm.

Speaking into the microphone, Mr. Lewis welcomed the crowd to the “midnight, not quite” set. After making his opening statements he led the band into the selection “Love Song.” The piano-driven tune evoked a calming effect with the grace and tranquility that is synonymous with love. By the end of the piece the crowd was feeling the joy. “That’ll work!” uttered an attendee in approval. The nice thing about small intimate performances is that you can see and hear each audience member making a personal connection to the music.

The quintet carried on with their rendition of “Oh Happy Day.” Ramos on bass reminded me of how small the Bistro’s stage was as tried to groove in a stiff posture to prevent from bumping into Johnson who was to his right. A full-sized piano, a second piano, two keyboards, bass and guitar complete with separate amps, additional audio equipment and five musicians doesn’t leave much room for movement in a corner the size of an SUV and a half. Nevertheless, their performance did not suffer from the cramped space one bit.

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Posted by | December 1, 2011 | Concerts | Comment 

‘What am I not hearing?’ An interview with Greg Saunier of Deerhoof

Deerhoof

en.wikipedia.org / Simon Fernandez

After playing its first show in St. Louis this past September, Deerhoof was on its way again up to New York state. A few days later, I got a chance to call and talk to founding member of Deerhoof and consistently ecstatic, creative force-of-nature drummer, Greg Saunier, about a shared favorite album, Tony Williams, making music with the greatest living Congolese musicians and the current state of American music.

Mike Herr: After a long summer and spring abroad, is it good to be back in America?

Greg Saunier: Well, no because I’m just seeing everybody put away their summer clothes basically, which I completely missed. The only summer clothes I saw was us playing to like thousands of people wearing raincoats and holding umbrellas and standing in the mud, you know, over in Europe. I’ll never get summer 2011 back again. It’s very sad.

Yeah it is kinda sad. You can imagine what it was like though.

[Laughs] Imagination only takes me so far.

I saw you the other night in St. Louis, it was great.

Oh, thank you for coming!

Actually, I was the dude with the “On the Corner” t-shirt on, if you remember that.

Oh yeah! [laughs] Miles Davis. … It was a funny coincidence. I always bring my iPod, and I’ve made a special playlist that’s always playing at our shows between the bands. And I’ve got “Black Satin” on there, which is one of the songs on “On the Corner,” and it’s so funny that you walked over with that shirt on.

I felt like a big dork.

Well, you should’ve felt authorized! You should’ve felt vindicated. You should’ve felt pumped up.

I did feel validated.

Miles … Many times we’ve tried to, you know, we’ve just taken the music of Miles Davis in that period — from “Bitches Brew” ’til maybe “Get Up With It,” that sort of stretch in the early to mid-’70s — and like if we’re working on an album or something, we’ll play it back to back with that, and just be like, “What’s wrong with ours?” and just try to make it sound more and more like that.

And actually, it was Nels Cline, currently of Wilco, who first noticed that. And he thought that we were gonna, maybe not get sued, but he thought everybody in the universe was gonna be pointing it out. There’s this clapping part in one of our new songs, called “I Did Crimes For You,” that’s almost a complete, direct rip-off of the clapping part in “Black Satin,” which is on “On the Corner.” It’s not exactly the same thing, but it’s very close. It’s this really awkward-sounding, fast clap thing. The band sounds like it’s at the other end of some cavern like the Fillmore or something like that, but then for some reason there’s these weird clapping things right in your ear, and it’s just the most bizarre overdub.

And there’s no way in the world you can imagine Miles Davis having bothered to be the one to go do this clapping overdub. It’s like Teo Macero, the producer, or Paul Buckmaster, who did the string arrangements or something. No, there are no strings, I don’t know what he did on that thing. I guess he was just helping produce it and add a bunch of weird sounds.

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Posted by | October 24, 2011 | Interviews, Music | Comment 

Concert review: Fans of Stevie Wonder, KDHX and local talent converge at Off Broadway for an action-packed night, Friday, September 30

Kim Massie performing at Higher Ground: A Tribute to Stevie Wonder at Off Broadway, September 30, 2011

Kim Massie. Photo by Kate McDaniel.

Smiles were the only permanent fixtures onstage as dozens of musicians paid homage to one of the most beloved songwriters of all time during Higher Ground: A Tribute to Stevie Wonder and Benefit for 88.1 KDHX.

The evening had the feel of a well-oiled jam session featuring top players in the St. Louis local scene, and it was kept rolling along thanks to emcee Dr. Jeff Hallazgo, host of KDHX’s the Big Bang!

With 11 acts, there was little downtime between sets, yet both stage and sound were managed smoothly, as was bar traffic inside of the accommodating Off Broadway located in the Cherokee-Lemp district.

The Rhythm Section Road Show was first to leave the gate. The band’s two permanent members, Andy Coco of KDHX’s the Rhythm Section and organist Nathan Hershey, led the charge along with a full sound complete with horns. Hershey, recognized by a Gatsby cap and the funky, mind-altering solos he brings to bands such as Dogtown Allstars, was the first singer of the night and delivered “Living For the City” with an easy confidence.

After the Road Show’s three-song set, Lamar Harris entered the stage in a dapper button-down he called his “’70s jacket,” and held a melodica up to the microphone. After playing an instrumental, with some fancy finger work, he picked up his more familiar trombone and backed “Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day” with a crisp sound.

Roland Johnson then brought his rich, crooning voice to the table. “Let’s see if we can find Cherie,” he said before launching into “My Cherie Amour,” followed by two more love songs, “Isn’t She Lovely” and “You Are the Sunshine of My Life.” Johnson got into character for his third song by slipping on a pair of dark sunglasses.

Jesse Gannon Truth followed as Gannon sang while playing keys and covered the funky “Too High” with a jazzy flair complete with solos and scatting. Many of the audience members likely had a favorite song they wanted to hear, and this reviewer was waiting for “Maybe Your Baby,” which Truth played with a heavy, sauntering bass line.

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Posted by | October 1, 2011 | Concerts | Comment 

Interview: From Led Zeppelin to Stevie Wonder, Teddy Presberg’s Resistance Organ Trio covers classics with imagination and style

Teddy Presberg

Sara Finke

Teddy Presberg’s Resistance Organ Trio is the kind of band that can deliver a smooth, jazzy version of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” followed by a rocked-out Led Zeppelin set. And this Friday night they’ll be tackling Stevie Wonder for Higher Ground: A Tribute to Stevie Wonder and Benefit for 88.1 KDHX.

The St. Louis-based band regularly performs at the Schlafly Bottleworks as part of Funky Wednesdays. For the past year, local veteran guitarist Teddy Presberg has hosted the event, and was recently joined by the other members of the Resistance Organ Trio: drummer Kyle Honeycutt, who also plays with the Dave Stone Trio, and Chris “LeClare” Stevenson, organist for the Scandaleros.

Despite having a relatively bare-bones setup, the trio muscled through both originals and covers with a full, funky sound.

Presberg’s power stance, contorted face and head of flailing curls let the Bottleworks audience know that he meant business, as if the roller-coaster guitar licks didn’t send a clear enough message. For an unexpected encore, he delivered the complete vocal line (on guitar) for “You’re Time Is Gonna Come,” and Robert Plant was transformed into a set of well-trained fingertips.

In the following interview, Presberg talks covering Led Zeppelin versus Stevie Wonder and gets revved up for his Higher Ground set, during which he’ll share the stage for the first time with local blues diva, Kim Massie.

Francisco Fisher: You’ve mentioned it’s harder to cover Stevie songs than Zeppelin songs. Could you explain that?

Teddy Presberg: The songs that we’re digging into are really heavy jazz arrangements. [Wonder] is just a fantastic writer, and so we’re looking at some really deep jazz changes and just gorgeous stuff. That guy could sing all over the place, and there’s a lot of unexpected twists in his arrangements. We’re doing that song, “Make Sure You’re Sure,” which is just like a novel of chord changes, really beautiful.

Zeppelin is a little more about the mojo, just a little more blues. I feel like if you get the vibe of the blues, you can pretty much do any blues. … Robert Plant, though, he’s singing along the lines of blues scale, but he’s jumping in between notes, just screaming and crying and hooting and hollering and growling, like a blues musician, and that’s really tough. It’s easier for me to take his melody because I can bend the notes, whereas the organ, he doesn’t have that luxury. So it’s fun, and I thought it was going to be really interesting in just learning. Studying Jimmy Page is fantastic, but we’ve been learning everybody’s parts.

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Posted by | September 29, 2011 | Interviews, Music | Comment 

Concert review: Return to Forever IV and Zappa Plays Zappa amaze and amuse St. Louis and the Fabulous Fox, Thursday, August 25

shorefire.com / Martin Philbey

Jazz fusion pioneers Return to Forever dominated the Fox Theater Thursday night after Dweezil Zappa paid tribute to his father’s contributions to the genre.

An interesting twist on the typical tribute band, Zappa Plays Zappa took to the stage amid a large round of applause and leapt into the “Don’t You Ever Wash That Thing?” from the 1974 Mothers of Invention album “Roxy and Elsewhere” after a short greeting from frontman Dweezil Zappa. Running through a varied selection of tunes from his father’s massive catalog of compositions, Dweezil and company put on a show worthy of Frank’s name and reputation for superior performances.

The band itself was amazing to behold: an eight-piece ensemble that sounded much larger than its stage footprint. They played some complex pieces of music with expert precision and hit that sweet spot that comes when a band is well-rehearsed without being over-rehearsed. Dweezil is a damn fine guitar player, shredding madly when called upon to show his skills. Joe Travers was a powerhouse behind the drums and Pete Griffin and Jamie Kime performed their bass and guitar roles masterfully. Chris Norton was a wizard behind the keys and his soulful vocals filled the entire hall when he cut loose. Ben Thomas was superb when playing the trumpet but he really stood out when singing. He captured all of the humor and sarcasm Frank’s lyrics and the Mothers’ vocals were known for.

The two that really caught my eye during the entire set were multi-instrumentalists Scheila Gonzalez on keys, saxophone, clarinet, and vocals and Billy Hulting on marimba, mallets and percussion. She put her all into every note she played or sang. Billy was just flat out jaw-dropping with the amount of work he put into his station. The marimba isn’t an easy instrument to play by itself, much less handling other percussion fills and sound effects. It was also great to see Billy and Scheila performing an interpretive dance during the intro to “Dancing Fool.”

There wasn’t really one singular highlight to the set, as the entire show was amazing from beginning to end. I think Frank would have been proud to hear his music being honored by such talented musicians, especially with Dweezil at the lead.

After a brief stage reset, jazz fusion pioneers Return to Forever came out from backstage to a standing ovation, the first of many more to come over the course of the night. Opening with “Medieval Overture” from the 1976 album “Romantic Warrior,” the long-standing core of the group Chick Corea on keyboards, Stanley Clarke on bass, and Lenny White on drums kept the audience enthralled with the assistance of Jean-Luc Ponty on violin and Frank Gambale on guitar.

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Posted by | August 26, 2011 | Concerts | 1 Comment 

‘By unexpected encounters’ An interview with Jean-Luc Ponty

Jean-Luc Ponty

commons.wikimedia.org

Return to Forever IV will be coming to St. Louis on Thursday, August 25, bringing its legendary jazz fusion sound to the Fox Theatre. Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jean-Luc Ponty, violinist of the first rank, who is currently touring with the group.

We discussed Ponty’s discovery of jazz, his interest in world music, collaborations with Frank Zappa and much more. Zappa Plays Zappa opens for Return to Forever IV at the Fabulous Fox.

Download the interview.

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Posted by | August 24, 2011 | Interviews, Music | Comment 

Concert review: Eric Johnson, a genuine guitar hero, at the Old Rock House, Tuesday, August 2

Eric Johnson by Greg Testerman

facebook.com/guitaristericjohnson / Greg Testerman

Last night, Eric Johnson proved the rock-guitar solo is not dead. It’s just been underground, lurking in the hearts of guitar players who frequent music stores.

With a tone that he’s cultivated over the past 40 years, Johnson plays flashy yet tasteful leads without pretension or over-indulgence. A master of the fingerboard, Johnson prefers to use tone and styles like jazz and country to color his music, rather than playing gunslinger draw with endlessly shredding solos. Fellow guitar virtuosos of Johnson’s generation, like Joe Satriani or Steve Vai, tend to play closer to the rock aesthetic.

Though Johnson has not continued to top the charts or major award shows after his Grammy-winning hit “Cliffs of Dover,” his creativity and ability have not diminished over the years. As bands like Nirvana ushered in a new musical landscape in the 1990s, Johnson’s stature in the tight-knit guitar community ascended, and remains high to this day.

The audience, about 80% male and in the range of 35 to 50 years old, showed up early to the Old Rock House to brave the evening heat. Waiting in a neat line that extended down Hickory Street to get in, a majority of the crowd wore comfortable, guitar-related T-shirts or sported other accoutrements (tattoos or even Eddie Van Halen Frankenstein-themed Converse All Stars) signaling their allegiance to other famous guitarists.

Essentially opening up for himself, Johnson took the stage at about 8:30 p.m. with an acoustic guitar in hand for a short solo set. A native of Austin (not just a musician or band who moved there to make it) the guitarist dressed casually for the club atmosphere, wearing a black, long-sleeved Oxford and dark jeans. Seated and playing with no pick, Johnson demonstrated why he deserves so many of the accolades showered over him by the guitar press.

He opened the set with an instrumental, then worked in a couple of songs including a cover of “April Come She Will,” which he described as a nursery rhyme with some words written by Paul Simon. The 56-year-old guitarist doesn’t have the raspy, whiskey-soaked blues voice of many of his guitar heroes. After years of living a healthy lifestyle, Johnson’s singing is still as clear as his guitar tone.

After “Once Upon a Time in Texas,” another acoustic instrumental, the rest of his band — drummer Wayne Salzmann and bass guitarist Chris Maresh — joined him on stage. Johnson switched to a Stratocaster and advised the audience to “grab your ear plugs.” That’s when Johnson really began to shine.

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Posted by | August 3, 2011 | Concerts | Comment 

Concert review: Sade (with John Legend) makes a compelling soul statement at the Scottrade Center, Thursday, July 28

Sade at Scottrade Center, July 28, 2011

Travis Crosby

Scottrade Center‘s first floor was a jammed and buzzing scene before John Legend took the stage last night. It was also just weird.

There: a beerman studded with Blues hockey emblems calling out his fare; next to him: a man in a white robe and sunglasses looking exactly like Isaac Hayes in his prime. Parents with their kids next to unbelievably gussied-up people on hot dates. An old man waving the concert programs as if they were a hockey roster. Pretzels and Bud Light and garlic cheese fries and lots of dreadlocks. But then, Sade.

It was clear, even as John Legend played, that everyone was there for Sade. People cheered Mr. Legend, even catcalled at some of his commercialized vocal riffing, but once he introduced his band and himself, exiting the stage, and an image of Sade appeared on the screens hanging on either side of the stage, there was an audible inhale that sucked through the crowd.

I don’t mean to write Mr. Legend off. He warmed up the crowd, made me forget about how really unsexy and devoid-of-mood the place was. Everything was obvious, he spoon-fed his music. Even as he rallied the crowd to clap or to “get up and dance with me,” his act sagged with the soak of a crisp, highly-commercial agenda. His voice is undeniably strong and even sometimes surprising, but, like most singers of his caliber today, it’s too clean. The whole performance had no edge to it, which was made keenly obvious when he performed a Vegas’d up version of James Brown’s “I’ll Go Crazy.” Eh.

Sade’s set was different. She emerged from a ramp under the stage to the sound of guns and explosions, her band ascending behind her on platforms, mid-groove in “Soldier of Love.” The crowd howled as she saluted each section of the stadium, and then her voice came through. Maybe it was just some great coincidence of where I was sitting and angle and luck, but the sound was great — and not just by Scottrade standards. The jag and clip of the guitars, the electronic snap of the drums, the synth-roar swarming, and Sade right up front.

Her voice is still great; maybe better with age. It sounds even reedier, more textured than ever, but can still blow through any of her songs’ most pyrotechnic/acrobatic moments.

She was all bravura and class and even when the set dragged a bit during a string of low-tempo, mood songs, Sade’s voice kept me in it. There is nothing plain or less-than-compelling about her singing, even when stage effects, weirdly British stage theatrics, and song after song drilling out the power of love or sadness in the lack of it threaten the music.

These conceptual theatrics often missed their mark or just sort of baffled me. A see-through curtain would drop on all sides of the stage, on which projections would create a live double-exposure –the band played through “Kiss of Life” and “Cherish the Day” while speeding down a country road or floating through a cityscape — and undermine the music. Between pseudo-Super 8 footage of the band, a hokey Raymond Chandleresque intro to “Smooth Operator,” and Sade singing alone onstage over pre-recorded strings while a huge burning sun rises and sets behind her, the night had its clichés.

But, for all the gloss and production, the band was genuinely into it. They were right with her, smiling at the crowd who’d been waiting for them for so long. “Is It A Crime” was the high point of the night: a nearly 10-minute-long showcase for the band’s stop-and-start exactness and Sade’s lush, soulful singing. She and her saxophonist/guitarist, Stuart Matthewman (her Bobby Keys, her Clarence Clemons) wrung the song out for all it’s worth. I’ve never seen so many people dancing and yelling before. It was like a homecoming for Sade.

Posted by | July 29, 2011 | Concerts | Comment 

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