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Last night I attended night two of four nights of performances at the newly reopened Roulette performance space. Roulette has a long history dating back to a Soho loft in the 80′s and beyond and has recently relocated to Brooklyn. It’s a great space with a nice, big stage and a wrap-around balcony. I’ll definitely be going back there from time to time.

I leapt at the chance to see Anthony Braxton perform. I’d never seen him perform before and, from what I know, he performs fairly rarely within my reach. I’ve been listening to his music for many years now, and admittedly, it took me a while to get into it. It’s firmly in the avant-garde of jazz and can take a bit of getting used to. I still don’t even come close to understanding how it always works but I do like what I hear.

I chose to attend night two because of the format of the evening. He’s done some music for dance as well as some choral music, both of which are being presented on other nights of the run, but I am primarily interested in the instrumental type, which really makes up the bulk of his oeuvre. The program for the night was in two parts. The first set was a performance by the Diamond Curtain Wall Trio and the second set was a performance by the Tri-Centric Orchestra.

Diamond Curtain Wall Trio (by nadia_patrian)

The Diamond Curtain Wall Trio is comprised of Anthony Braxton playing reeds of all sorts (last night he played five saxes: alto, soprano, sopranino, baritone, and bass), Taylor Ho Bynum playing brass of all sorts (I couldn’t identify everything but included were cornet, flugelhorn, trombone, and other sizes of trumpet-type things, one of which was gigantic), and Mary Halvorson on guitar (she played only one guitar).

The performance was basically an extended improvisation over the course of 45-50 minutes, timed by an hourglass which was ritually overturned at the start of the performance. They were, in fact, most likely playing a composition entitled “Composition 323c.”  A similar composition is pictured here:

Composition 327 by Anthony Braxton

Composition 323c is described by Taylor as such:

In the DCW Music, Braxton combines intuitive improvisation with interactive electronics. The musicians in the ensemble respond both to the evocative graphic notation of his Falling River Music, and the unique and responsive electronic patches the composer designed using the SuperCollider programming software. Both the rich graphics of the Falling River Music and the complex algorithms of DCW Music’s SuperCollider patches are extraordinary examples of how Braxton has continued evolving into his fifth decade of music-making.

What this meant in practice, as I saw it last night, was a long and interesting improvisation. At times all three performers were playing and each subset of two played together at times, and each person had his or her own solo time. This wasn’t set up and planned, but flowed more or less organically as the performance unfolded. Anthony would, at times, decide to change the electronic music’s program and turn it up or off entirely. Some highlights for me were: Anthony on bass sax engaging in a one-sided argument, simultaneously screaming through and playing the beast of a saxophone; Taylor blowing water into his flugelhorn; Anthony on his soprano sax in a fit of circular breathing, emitting waves of rising notes over Mary’s support; Mary’s solo sections were also quite great. It’s hard to describe it past this. You can download a recent performance by the trio here. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

The second set saw the Tri-Centric Orchestra, which consisted of Jason Hwang, Sarah Bernstein (violins), Renee Baker (viola), Tomas Ulrich (cello); Nate Wooley, Chris DiMeglio (trumpets), Mark Taylor (French horn), Dan Blacksburg, Chris McIntyre (trombones), Anthony Braxton, Daniel Blake, Dan Voss, Matt Bauder, Salim Washington, Josh Sinton (reeds), Angelica Sanchez (piano), Mary Halvorson (guitar), Ken Filiano (bass), Tyshawn Sorey (percussion), Taylor Ho Bynum, Jessica Pavone, Aaron Siegel (conductors).

It was a large ensemble capable of creating some great noise.

You may notice that there are three conductors in the group. This is where it gets interesting. The orchestra was separated into sections: the strings and piano were the territory of Jessica Pavone; Aaron Siegel mostly manned half of the woodwinds and some brass as well as the drummer and guitar. Taylor was the “main” conductor who had control of the whole orchestra.

The program consisted of a few compositions (including 100, 134, and 92) along with “GTM” and “language music improvisations” (GTM stands for Ghost Trance Music). This is how it worked: Taylor started the set by the ritual overturning of the hourglass and started with what I think was language music improvisations. He made an “O” shape with his two hands together, showed it to the ensemble, then in a series of instructions, showed a number of fingers to the ensemble to indicate what I’m guessing was a type of language improvisation, like 1, 4, 7, etc. After showing the number, say 1, he’d then count off and conduct the group to play. 1, for example, was a staccato note that was to be played on his cue. 4 was a legato note, also to be played on cue. It seemed as if the note could be any note the player chose. He also would section off the ensemble and instruct just a section in a certain way. He could, say, section off the strings, have them do something, then have the woodwinds do something else. He could also set sections off on their own, for example, he had the trumpets playing staccato notes the motioned to continue that as he moved to instruct another section. So, after a few language improvisation instructions, he then would take up a small dry-erase board, write a composition and section, say “100 G1,” show it to the group (or subset of the group) and count of for that section of that composition to be played. Again, he could conduct subsections in different ways, having the brass play one section and the strings another.

After some of this, the other conductors took charge of their own destinies. Jessica Pavone, put down her violin, rose, and turned to face her string section and proceeded to conduct them in an entirely different composition. Aaron Siegel would also do the same. In this way, there were multiple compositions and improvisations occurring at the same time. The conductors would work in such a way to not make it too messy, and it somehow would make sense. There were some parts that also seemed a bit like John Zorn’s “Cobra” game piece, where players could be instructed to follow the cues of another player, basically imitating them. To further the confusion, some sections could sometime autonomously break off and play some composition or improvisation, as often did happen. Taylor had the power to call an end to any of this activity, as his instructions seemed to take precedence over anything that was happening at the time. If this sounds like a giant mess, you could be right. I know a lot of people would not really tolerate the sounds that were emanating from the stage, but I was enthralled. It was beautiful, challenging, grating, inspiring, soothing, exciting, and happy all at different times or at the same time.

Hourglass

Anthony Braxton is an amazing musician and composer. I’m glad I was there last night.

Two nights ago I went to MoMA with Hillary, Dan, and Nicole to see Kanye West perform at the annual Garden Party after party. It was pretty epic.

The beginning didn’t start of so great though. The line to get in stretched down 53rd street, up 5th avenue and back around and up 54th street. We arrived at 9:00, when the event was supposed to begin, and, fortunately, Dan and Nicole were already there in line somewhere on 53rd street. The line took forever because it seemed that MoMA had never planned an event before. But, as you can tell by the adjective, “annual,” above, they have done this before. More on this, below.*

We finally got into the garden and made a bee-line for the bar. I got two bourbons and two glasses of wine as Dan simultaneously got four bourbons. We consolidated our drinks into three bourbons and a wine and made our way to the stage.

At exactly 11:01, Kanye took the stage.

I have to make a disclaimer. I don’t own any Kanye records or even that many hip hop records beyond Beastie Boys, The Roots, Run D.M.C., or . I’ve also never been to a hip hop show, so this was all new to me, besides the fact that have heard some of Kanye’s songs. How could I not have. Hillary and Nicole are way into it and Nicole, in particular, loves My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I’d heard “Monster,” “All Of The Lights,” “Lost In The World,” “H.A.M.,” and more that I can’t name. So I knew some of what I was hearing, bit definitely not all of it.

Kanye had a “band” of one DJ and two nerdy white guys who played keyboards and a guitar. (They spent most of the last song videoing the action on their iPhones.)

Kanye played a bunch of songs from Fantasy and probably some others too. It was great and I really loved it. For an introduction to hip hop shows, this probably was a good one.He had a lot of energy at times and was more melancholy at other times. Between songs he shouted out to some in the crowd who must have been in the museum upper levels and then shouted out to the homes across 54th street and their “free show.” He definitely put a lot into the show. Towards the end he did an ad-libbed sing/talk coda in “Lost In The World” about how hard his life is and how he’s persecuted for being an asshole. He mentioned accusations of racism talked about his mom. It prompted me to send a twitter photo entitled “He’s sorry if he was an asshole ever to you.” Poor guy.

After the rant/cry a very special guest joined Kanye on stage: Jay-Z!

They did “H.A.M.” and then “Empire State Of Mind.”

Jay-Z was young-looking, had longer hair, and smiled the whole time. The crowd was really amped up and it was great. Jay-Z is a much better rapper than Kanye (imho) and really took the show to a whole new level. What a way to end!

I give the whole thing an 8 of 10. I’d do it again.

* Apparently, last year they mailed the wristbands to the people who bought tickets and they were able to just show up and walk in. No, not this time, that seemed to have worked too well. This time they decided to create 5-6 lines in the lobby ordered by a section of the alphabet. You had to find your line (which really wasn’t easy since they were formed at a slant to the counter) then a volunteer would flip through a box of envelopes until they found the one with your name on it. There was no indication whether all the wristbands bought together would be in the same envelope or in different envelopes. There also was no indication whether the wristbands would be in an envelope with your name on it or with the name of the person who bought the tickets. Nobody told us because those who knew, didn’t know we didn’t know. This is why the process–once you got into the building–took so long. And that was why the line moved so slowly. I just wonder whether the people at the end of the line got in before Kanye started. It sounds like I am a complainer now, but it was really infuriating at the time–not least because it could have been organized so much better.

Last night I went to see Tame Impala at Webster Hall. It was the first time in a long while that I’d been to Webster Hall for a show. Hillary and I were discussing before the show what we’d seen there and I remembered Modest Mouse and The Shins and I’m not even sure about those. In any case, last night’s show was great! A friend working the dorr got our crew VIP badges so we had access to the section on the balcony (Thanks!).

A band called Yawn opened the show and we caught the last two or three notes, so I can’t comment on them. Yuck was the second opener. I had heard good things about them so I wanted to get there to check it out.

I had listened to some of their songs on Hype Machine earlier in the day so I recognized some of their music at the show. The lead singer had a curly mop on his head and sang out of the corner of his mouth. The rest of the band consisted of a male lead guitarist/backup singer (who sang lead on one song), a female bass player (playing an Ampeg microstack, which was super cute and sounded great), and a male drummer with a magnificent fro. The songs were song-y and catchy at times. They had a good vibration, sometimes getting a but 90′s alt-rock. I commented that one of the songs could have been played in the credits of a Dawson’s Creek episode, had they existed then. I give them a solid 6 out of 10.

Tame Impala was altogether a different story. They are also a four-piece with one lead singer/lead guitar, bass, drums, and a rhythm guitar/keyboard player. The singer, Kevin Parker, is squarely in charge of the whole affair; it’s clear he’s running the show.

They play music that is self-described as “psychedelic hypno-groove melodic rock music,” which is pretty apt, except for the “hypno” part. They are in my group of bands I keep in an iTunes playlist called “psych-today,” contemporary bands that are playing psychedelic-type music. Their style is more polished, tighter, and less gritty than some of the other bands doing that sort of thing (like Dead Meadow, Black Mountain, White Hills) and have a more happy-tinged mood as well. They have a tendency to jam and stretch things out but they never really get lost or messy. Some of their best songs, “It’s Not Meant To Be” and “Desire Be Desire Go” got live-show embellishments that were welcome in my book. They took the form of a new, semi-related coda riff or an extended section to provide for slight improvisation. They didn’t really jam in the way that a jam band like Phish would, but they did extend parts of songs longer than their recorded versions. I was into it. Many of the songs featured segue-ways between them, some of which seemed like they could have even been mini-compositions in themselves. I’m a big fan of that kind of thing. Song, song, song, without stopping is a good way to keep the energy up.

The elliptical pattern on the backdrop was actually a camera facing the screen of an oscilloscope which was being fed by various instruments at different times. Sometimes it was the guitar, other times the bass or snare drum. I thought that was a good effect. There was a time when Kevin just sat on the stage playing random guitar notes in en effort to evoke different patterns on the screen. That was interesting for about 30 seconds and could have lasted longer had he played something more interesting than a scale. So, they were a but self-indulgent at times, but, on the whole, it didn’t detract from their performance.

A final aspect that served to keep them good in my book (and especially Martin’s) is the no-encore policy. Before the last “suite” of songs Kevin announced the policy and said that after the next group of songs they would stop and leave the stage and not come back. Here is a good article about how silly encores are. Tame Impala gets an 8 out of 10 for me.

Harvey Milk, originally uploaded by Dan Hewins.

On the urging of a friend, Brad, I went to Union Pool last night with a soon-to-be-married friend, Hank, for the third night of a three night stand of Harvey Milk. I wasn’t disappointed.

Harvey Milk, and heavy, metal-ish music is not something I am all that familiar with. Lately, the closest thing to metal that I can claim honest appreciation and love for is the band called Earth. Brad had given me some of Harvey Milk’s music a couple years back and it sat, unlistened-to, in my iTunes until the announcement of these three shows. They’ve been around since the early 90s and I really didn’t know much about them other than some kind of cult-like following and Brad’s recommendation. I decided it was a thrice in a lifetime opportunity that I should take.

The opener was Luke Roberts. He played West Virginia Front Porch style music with an acoustic guitar and voice. His songs consisted of one progression repeated on the guitar and his singing. There was only ever one guitar part to the songs but the vocals and lyrics created verse and chorus. He was pretty good and at the end of his set had H.M. as his backing band for about three songs.

Harvey Milk was loud and quiet, angry and sweet, up and down. There were metal riffs, classic rock riffs, guitar solos, guttural vocals, and as-sweet-as-he-can-manage vocals. There even was a quiet period with an orchestral backing track. The ride was unpredictable and great. I was surprised at all turns. I was exhausted with jet-lag and was planning to leave early but after each episode of the show I was intrigued enough to stay for the next. The “Lord of the Strings” tee shirt was a clincher for me, too. All in all I like Harvey Milk.

So there you go, the second metal-ish band that I like. (That doesn’t count listening to Metallica while mowing the lawn at age 13.)

Last night Martin joined me at Le Poisson Rouge to see a performance by Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin. It was awesome.

I took a photo of the stage before they began. This is over the drum set towards the percussion setup. the band consists of Nik Bärtsch on piano, Kaspar Rast on drums, Björn Meyer on electric bass, Andi Pupato on percussion, and Sha on bass clarinet and alto sax (yes, “Sha”). Four of the guys are from Switzerland and Björn is Swedish.

The music is self-described “Ritual Groove Music” and is sometimes called “zen-funk.” All the compositions are “modules” titled Modul 48, Modul 52, Modul 27, etc.I choose to ignore these names and descriptions and focus on the sound of the music.  To me, it’s a bit of jazz instrumentation and style combined with the repetitive rhythms of Steve Reich with a lot of mathyness in the way of polyrhythms and odd time signatures. It’s right up my alley. I discovered this music though a route I can’t remember anymore in September 2009 (thanks, last.fm, for keeping track for me) and was amazed as what I’d found. It seemed to be the perfect mesh for my sensibilities and I was instantly hooked. I’ve been waiting for the band to come to New York ever since.

The band was extremely tight and played perfectly. They weren’t reading music and had the music internalized. Live, the music is much like it is on record, but it was fascinating to watch it being created live. The percussionist and the drummer were so connected that they seemed to be two people playing one part. There were so many times that their parts complemented each other perfectly. They showed restraint when it was called for and went all-out when that was called for. Andi, the percussionist played a lot of different instruments and it was a lot of fun to watch him.

Here is a good photo (aside from the annoying watermark) of Andi at his setup. The thing hanging on the left is, I think, a waterharp or a waterphone. It must have water inside as well as a microphone. He would hit the ball part with a stick or his hand, and sometimes he’d rake a stick over the vertical things sticking up from it. It had an echoey, etherial sound that would add a cool tention to the music at times. The UFO-looking thing in front is a drum of sorts. He’d play it with a stick or his hands. Once, he rigged up a mallet on a fulcrum so that he could set it bouncing while playing other instruments. It would bounce progressively faster like a super ball dropped on the floor. that was a cool effect too. He played shakers of many kinds and chimes and the large frame-drum behind him, which was very bassy.

Björn played some extremely fast and busy basslines at times and at other times hung back and supported the groove. Sha would alternate between melodic passages and repetitive lines, sometimes laying out altogether. Nik, the composer and bandleader, played piano. Often, one or both of his hands would be inside the piano flicking or muting strings to good effect. His parts were arpeggiated and fast and sometimes just harmonic support. Each instrument had its role at any particular point in the music but those roles would change quickly and often. It was easy to zone out and just let the music wash over me.

Nik is inspired by the idea of a ronin, the name of this band. On his site, it says “There are two paths a samurai can walk: that of a clan member, and that of a ronin, a lonely warrior.” I guess Nik sees himself as that lonely warrior going into territory where nobody else has gone. He wore Japanese-style clothing at the concert.

They are also a perfect fit for the label that has put out their last three records, ECM. The production values of Manfred Eicher work well for this music.

I would highly recommend this music to anyone who has an inclination towards anything I’ve mentioned above (mathyness, jazziness, Steve Reichyness). I will most definitely see them next time they come to New York.

To all the people in the world who were disappointed by Arcade Fire winning the Grammy for Album Of The Year purely because they had never heard of Arcade Fire before:

At least the award for Best New Artist has some loose criteria. Apparently the nominees have to have been heard of by a fair amount of people. For example, the winner of that Grammy, Esperanza Spalding, is hardly a new artist. She has released three albums under her own name, the first of which came out in 2006. That’s 5 years ago! A nominee, Drake, has released music as early as 2006. Florence & The Machine released singles in 2008. (Granted, it was in the UK, so how can we be expected to know about that?) Mumford & Sons toured the UK in early 2008.

Some are relatively new. But ask their fans and you might get a different answer.

Last night, Liz and Toby and I went to Santos Party House and took in a few bands. Here are mini-reviews:

Tamaryn: Boring but the guitar player had a good sound (put a space echo on it and that’s what you get). They were sorta 80′s goth-ish. Drenched in reverb. More style than substance. Nothing to write home about unless you wrote, “Dear mom, Tamaryn was boring.”

Minks: The first song was rocking and promising. They might be from LA, judging by their looks. The second song was suckier and the singer lost his balls. He basically started mumbling. We left after that song. Again, more style than substance.

Dom: Interesting band that looked promising. Three guitars and a drummer playing with a track. The singer had a cool high squeaky sort of voice but could have sung better. Sometimes one guitar player played bass. They played a part of the Super Mario Brothers music between songs. They looked like they were going to get rocking and kinda guitar-wanky-in-a-good-way but didn’t really. I felt they were sorta 80s rock-ish. Ultimately a let-down.

Diamond Rings: Standing around the corner we heard electronic beats and a synth and a guy singing. I thought it sounded kinda crappy and lame but we were just hanging out. I stepped into the room to see a guy with a blond swoop coming out of a blue jays cap and some sweet eye makeup. He was playing the keyboard next to a laptop which was producing the beats. He was actually really good and I think it took me seeing him to figure that out. I thought he was sort-of a cross between Rufus Wainwright, Eddie Izzard, and [someone else I can't remember]. The guy can actually write songs and is a good performer. He also played some songs on guitar with the laptop backing him up. Usually I see duo or solo bands and wish they just had a band but I didn’t with this guy. He held his own.

Diamond Rings

Marnie Stern: I am not too fond of her record(s) but, live, she is great! I really enjoyed her set a lot. I didn’t know much about her or the way she looked; I just knew she was a female guitar goddess who loves finger-tapping. First off, she doesn’t finger-tap all the time, which is good. Second, her appearance made it better, for me. She’s unassuming, short, has long blond hair in a decidedly non-hipster style, and wore a cute dress/skirt thing. Basically, she looked like a regular girl. And she looked like she was having a lot of fun up there too. Cracking vagine jokes with the bass player and stuff. I may not run out to buy her record but I’d see her perform again for sure.

Marnie Stern

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.: Dressed in NASCAR outfits. Great vocal harmonies and pretty good poppy stuff. It just wore thin after a couple songs for me. Sorta too saccharin for me. They did a cover of “God Only Knows,” introducing it by saying they wish they wrote that song. Me too. Or, I wish they could write songs that good too.

Wild Nothing: Boring songs, bad lead singer. Lame, lame, lame. I booed them. I may have had too many by that point. That’s when we went home.

Deerhoof: Satomi and John, originally uploaded by Dan Hewins.

Deerhoof was awesome yet again. They never fail to rock and impress. This time Ed and John both played electric 12-string guitars. I saw them at the beginning and thought that they’d play them the whole time, because that’s what they do. And they did. I gotta say that the 12-string sounded really awesome and lush on some songs but on others (Dummy Discards A Heart, for example) they lacked the riffage precision. Still, it wasn’t so bad and that’s just nitpicking.

They unveiled a new song which is presumably on Deerhoof Vs. Evil and that was a good song. There were two covers in there but I didn’t recognize them (Martin did). Some of the hits were played as well. “Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back” was pretty much the only silly song they played. (And don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Flower, Panda, Dog on the Sidewalk and all those.) This lineup of the band is great. I love the addition of Ed.

I can’t wait for the new record and I can’t wait to see them again.

Here are the other iphone photos I took that evening.

As I was riding the elevator last week in my office building, the door opened at the 14th floor while someone got on or off there. In the hall I saw a door with a sign for EMF, Electronic Music Foundation. When I got back to my office, I looked it up on the internet and found this. It looked interesting and I also saw an announcement of a performance for the following Monday (yesterday), so I decided to stop in and see.

Tomoko Sauvage is a maker of electronic music. She uses bowls filled with water as the foundation of her instrument. It’s similar to the Indian instrument jal tarang but she uses them in a different way. While the Indian instrument is played as a percussion instrument, Tomoko does not hit them with sticks. In each bowl she has a hydrophone (an under-water microphone) and has those running to a mixer.

She can move the water with her hands to get sounds, which is what she started the performance with. She incorporated feedback coming from the speakers through which the music came. The pitch of the sound varies with the volume of water in the bowl. Adding more water lowers the pitch and removing water raises the pitch. She had a delay and loop pedal through which she ran the sounds to create loops of the music. At one point she removed all the water from one bowl and added sparkling water, which created a bubbly sound. Finally, she had water dripping from small cups above to create a random, dripping sound. Removing and adding water, she changed the pitch of the drips.

The performance was interesting and the sounds were watery, drippy, and at times, soothing. I enjoyed it a great deal.

I look forward to hearing what else the EMF has to offer.

My friend Tony and I went to the Blue Note last night to see Chick Corea’s trio for a program called “Further Explorations of Bill Evans.” Chick got together Eddie Gomez and Paul Motian, two guys who had played with Bill Evans, but never together. Paul was in Bill’s first great trio with Scott LaFaro and Eddie joined Bill Evans later on after Paul was no longer in the trio. Chick Corea says he has a great affinity and respect for Bill Evans (what jazz pianist doesn’t?) so got this trio together for some shows at the Blue Note (and beyond, perhaps?). Chick also said he got his hands on some never-before-played-out-or-recorded Bill Evans compositions from Bill’s son Evan (yes, Evan Evans) and wanted to play some of those for the first time.

As a bonus, and really, the impetus of going to the show, I won tickets via Twitter. I just re-tweeted the contest entry and was randomly chosen to win the tickets by Chick’s production company. Tony, who had tried four times previous, was jealous that I won with one try. So I took him to the show.

Chick Corea is awesome. I’ve been a fan for a long time. I particularly like his work with Miles Davis in the late-60s and early-70s as well as the avant stuff he did with Anthony Braxton, Dave Holland, and Barry Altschul in Circle. The cleverly named, Arc, is a trio of the aforementioned without Braxton and is also supergreat. His early records on Blue Note are also great. Tony recently introduced me to Return To Forever, which is his foray into “fusion” and has some really great stuff going, particularly the original ECM record. Chick loses me in the late-70s and 80s (and 90s and 2000s, I guess, too) and I find that stuff less interesting and a bit more cheesy. But, needless to say, I was really excited to see Chick and this band play not only because I’d never seen Chick or Eddie Gomez perform live.

The show was amazing! They started off with a free improvisation that lead neatly into Waltz For Debby. I wouldn’t be able to report the rest of setlist except for “Reflections” if it wasn’t posted on Chick’s website. So, after Waltz For Debby, they played Rhapsody, Diane, Reflections, Laurie, and My Ship.

my one crappy iPhone photo of the show

All the songs were played wonderfully and there were segue-ways between most, creating a continuous stream of trio music. They paused before Reflections and maybe after it as well when Chick joked about the magical moment we were all about to experience. I had no idea he was a funny guy, but he is.

What I love about Chick’s playing is that you can always tell it’s him. Even in different styles, slow or fast, you could close your eyes and know that it’s him playing. And that playing is good, too! At times, he even reached into the piano to pluck the strings to great effect.

Eddie Gomez was amazing! He can play as fast as I’ve ever seen someone play the bass. He and Chick really had something going on. They complimented each other very well and seemed to finish one another’s thoughts. It turns out they have played together before, which I learned thanks to this awesome jazz discography site. Paul and Chick haven’t played together before, apparently. Now, I love Paul Motian. I love love love the Paul Motian trio with Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano and have seen them many times at the Village Vanguard. Paul is a great drummer with a unique style. But, I have to say, I don’t think he was the best drummer for this trio. His “painting with the drumsticks” style and loose rhythm wasn’t a great fit for the other two players, in my opinion. Who might be better today in 2010? Tough question. I thought of Joey Baron but I’m not sure he’s perfect either. Maybe Jack DeJohnette (who has also played with Bill Evans). Don’t get me wrong, Paul was great. Just not a perfect fit.

After the show, we got to chat with Chick and get our picture taken. Tony said it looks like we got to meet the president…of Bolivia!

Tony and Dan meet Chick

Thanks, Chick, for a great show.

Tony, Chick, Dan

np: Chick Corea: Return To Forever: “Sometime Ago/La Fiesta”