Oz Noy – Yoshi’s San Francisco, April 19, 2012

What a great night to be kickin’ it in San Francisco. You know the nights when there’s zero traffic on 101, getting across the bridge there’s just enough fog to notice, Geary is flowin’ easy to Fillmore and there’s always plenty of $5 parking. Entering Yoshi’s and finding my favorite seats available, we find the room filled with incredibly like-minded loud jazz fans and the very few girlfriends who came along.

And then it began.

Oz Noy, Dave Weckl, and Darrel Jones began working through material from Oz’s latest release “Twisted Blues”. Darrell was reading most of the tunes and seemed cautious at times, Dave didn’t use charts but you could see him thinking deeply about where the trio was going next, and rightly so. Check the album, it’s twisted!

So this guy, Oz. Now I’d seen his name listed for the clubs in New York and saw that he was playing with some of the best rhythm section players out there, but not until last night did I begin understanding what Oz is. Oz is bad ass!

Firstly, his outfit; worn jeans and t-shirt. Classic “fusion head” attire.

Second, his axe. Cosmetically, the guitar was worn from extreme use in all the right places, and the player brought it to life, again. Now I don’t claim to know anything about the inner workings of guitars, so I’ll tell you that the sound(s) he pulled from this thing, granted with the use of an array of stomp boxes, and the means used to extract the sounds took me away from gawking at Weckl and wishing I “could do that”. A player who players come to see ‘cause we respect the time that’s been put in to earn our respect. Then there’s the player’s respect for the art. In this case, the blues. Now I don’t claim to know anything… well you see where I’m going here, but Oz knows blues! I’m sure of it! I can hear his heroes when he plays and though he’s not breaking a lot of ground yet, his reverence for these heroes and commitment to continued gigging as a way to move towards the goal of being able to tell his blues to the audience really has made me stand up and take notice.

Oz plays the blues and he’s put a twist on it that the jazz musicians can further feed on. Still steeped in groove, the twists come in the form of deceptive chord cadences and rhythm modulations inside the swing. Not knowing how this guy composes or what he presents to his players, I give a lot of credit to his side men for pulling off these twists, but I feel much of it is pre-thought in Oz’s head. Again, check the album.

Lastly, the groove. I always walk away from the blues thinking I’ve got no idea how to play in that pocket. This trio’s ease with the time, the places they settled with the grooves, the unhurried presentation of the sometimes crazy and at others times quiet and calm tunes was so cool to hear and really insightful to watch. You just can’t hurry the blues and expect to be convincing.

The take away? Take your time so the story gets told.

More on the latest release; http://youtu.be/gmWgieU6V8g

I've got to gripe just a bit here about the patrons trying to get their personal videos of the show. This was my first show where I was disturbed to have so many screens popping up for a few minutes only to have the floor manager walk by and ask again that they don’t video the performance. It just seemed like these guys were missing the show in order to capture the show for later. This article articulates the point as well; http://www.fastcompany.com/1718250/keith-jarrett-save-your-soul-turn-off-your-gadget

The Ninety Miles Project - Humans Understanding Needs

Sunday afternoon, I’m sitting in a Starbucks. I have never sat in a Starbucks with a laptop, and I don’t much care for their coffee but this Starbucks is different you see. This particular installation is built into the walls of a once special place; HUN Sound. HUN Sound was a rehearsal studio where I spent much of the 90s, learning, teaching, and rehearsing with the lads. With a key to the front door, it became the first place work began, and the last key turned at the end of many of those days. I return to its now polished bellows for inspiration.

Last week I had a chance to see The Ninety Miles Project at Yoshi’s, Oakland. A group led by three players who feeling the need to immerse themselves fully into the culture of the music they were planning to record, traveled to Cuba and did it. Stefon Harris, David Sanchez, and Christian Scott put together a set of music honoring Cuba, New Orleans, and their collective soul; The Ninety Miles Project. For the project’s album they surrounded themselves with killer players from the island. For the tour, they managed to find amazing talent as well, many of them from Puerto Rico and clearly in touch with their instruments.

The place was packed for a Tuesday and hunting down a lone seat can sometimes end with 90 mins next to folks over compensating for something with excessive cologne. Not this time; front row far stage left, one seat available. I’m just left of percussionists Maurico Herrera’s set up and 20 feet from drummer Henry Cole with a clear view of both his feet.

Their set began, and well, quite frankly, I forgot that the waitress had not yet been around. Tune after tune, they communicated with slight gestures and smiles, developing solos and soloing as an ensemble all over these amazing claves that I had to ‘count’ to understand. Finally the Guinness came and I put the pencil down, sat back and got schooled in Afro Cuban heart and soul.

A moment that will stick with me took place during the ballad. While watching the percussionists wait and listen, the time came for a slight shaker part. The care he took to not make a sound while picking up the instrument off the stage floor, his respect for what was happening on stage was a clear demonstration of an absolute professional knowing their role in the moment. Truly inspiring to watch.

Since the show I’ve downloaded the album (cool videos come with it) and pulled out my afro Cuban books. Time for me to do the “before the Guinness” work again.

In closing, I must say this particular Starbucks experience has been very nice; great sounds (listening to Monk now!), coffee was bitter but got the fingers moving for sure, and the company has been civil. Thank you HUN Sound. Nice hang.

Links:
The Ninety Miles Project
Google+
Free download
Henry Cole
Maurico Herrera

Hello World! We are blogging!

Greetings all,

I'm kicking off my Drums All Day blog today with a plan to add posts covering mine and other's views about drums and drumming. I anticipate I'll be learning as much or more than I contribute. That's what I need to do.

Here we go, I hope you can join us.

Marc