June 2010 Archives

If you're around downtown tonight, pedal steel guitar player Robert Randolph will be appearing at the Grammy Museum tonight - in their ongoing series called 'The Drop.' His appearance is on the day of the release of his album called We Walk This Road, produced by the white-hot producer T-Bone Burnett.

Look for a review of the CD - which has an unusually high number of songs (20) - later this week

His and the band's Facebook page is here. You get the album on iTunes and in stores today.

The Grammy event tonight is at 8:00 pm at the Grammy Museum downtown.

Dr. John is a lot of things and he was all of them within a two hour conversation at the Grammy Museum with Robert Santelli Monday night. But the most obvious and dominant thing that he is is the epitome of New Orleans music - from the way he dresses, to the way he talks to the way he plays. His music blends every genre and he has a very unorthodox way of speaking, with a heavy drawl and a vocabulary that mixes jazz lingo, jive, oddly-phrased sentences and made-up words.

Dressed in a purple suit and wearing heavily-beaded, voodoo-type necklaces and sunglasses, he not only played a handful of tunes with his band the Lower 911, but he and Santelli went through his career chronologically, where John talked fondly about the city, the music and the people.

"Just enjoy what's there," he said about the post-Katrina New Orleans, which is presently dealing with a massive oil spill. "New Orleans is still special and spiritual place."

The oil spill was a constant topic during the evening, whether in the question-and-answer form, or referenced in song. Dr. John was asked early how the city has been affected by both catastrophic events, including the current one.

"I got an attitude," he succinctly said. "With all the missteps that went down, it doesn't make me feel good."

He then followed that with the song 'Black Gold' - co-written by Bobby Charles - which directly links oil greed, global warming and the war in Afghanistan - a song that was recorded before the current oil problem, but serves as a perfect angry companion for it.

The journey with Dr. John was an interesting one with he and Santelli talking about how the musician got to this point - a key part of that was the moment Mac Rebennack became Dr. John, the Night Tripper - the mysterious, voodoo-infused, piano player - in the 70's. In the conversation, John named just about every New Orleans session musician he came across in his path and talked about how the music business has changed.

But he's angry about one thing. Yet loving about another.

"The whole world is one tribe. We're all one. All the rest is confusing. All the rest is jive."

He knows, he loves it and he knows everyone who does it.

The 32nd Annual Playboy Jazz Festival had its typical big name veterans play - George Benson, Marcus Miller, Chick Corea, Manhattan Transfer - but it was the lesser known performers who almost stole the show.

Trombone Shorty and Orleans Ave and Naturally 7 made their first appearances and The Pete Escovedo Orchestra its second at the Hollywood Bowl event on Saturday and Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Esperanza Spalding (in her second appearance) and African singer Salif Keita sparked the crowd Sunday. But it was Benson - who recently turned 67 - who brought the crowd to a froth at the end of the festival with four straight dance-along hits, including 'Turn Your Love Around," "The Masquerade," "Give Me the Night" and "On Broadway."

The rookies certainly made their presence felt all weekend though, starting early in the first day.

Troy 'Trombone Shorty' Andrews and his band performed third on Saturday after the El Dorado High School Band and innovative ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro. Andrews' band's performance was so electric that it left the audience in such amazement that the band was still talked about the day after.

"We come from New Orleans and its all about energy," said Andrews. "Coming from playing in the street parades with no microphones for four or five hours and you're trying to battle with the other bands. So that type of energy just comes off. It's just one of those things with the rock influence we've got."

Andrews played trombone, trumpet and sang in the seven-piece band that fuses jazz with rock, funk and ska. The highlight of the performance was Andrews on trumpet, holding a note for several minutes without stopping to breathe.

The hipster jazz singer Kurt Elling and hard bop tenor sax player Javon Jackson and guest Les McCann followed with solid sets and then came Naturally 7, an a cappella group with not only sing, but vocalize the sounds of instruments, without actually playing them. Each member of the seven man group uses their voice to imitate instruments such as trumpet, flute, scratching, bass, drums and others and sing beautiful harmonies. When they started their set with their version of the Phil Collins hit 'In the Air Tonight,' the audience turned in amazement of what they heard. They continued to turn heads throughout their set and warren Thomas (drums) and 'Hops' Hutton (bass) were so accurate with reproducing the low end, it shook the building.

Bassist Marcus Miller's group followed and, with featured guest trumpeter Christian Scott, they played through some material from Miller's time with Miles Davis in the 1980's and from his solo career. Two acts after Miller was Chick Corea - who celebrated his birthday on stage and was another frequent collaborator with Davis. His tight quartet excelled and featured drummer Roy Haynes, whose career dates back to 1947 and has included playing with Davis, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Sarah Vaughan, Stan Getz and John Coltrane, to name a few.

The energetic Pete Escovedo Orchestra was the second-to-last act Saturday and brought everyone to their feet with their horn-and-drum-heavy Latin jazz set. Longtime percussionist and bandleader Escovedo played alongside son Peter Michael and daughter Sheila E. - the latter two trading off singing and playing the drumset.

Robert Randolph and the Family Band played fourth on Sunday, after Cos of Good Music, Jazz Mafia's Brass Bows and Beats and the Los Angeles District High School Band. Randolph's main instrument is a pedal steel guitar, which he's brought from the country and gospel genres and incorporated into jazz and funk. The band's set included tracks from his over 10-year career and his new album 'We Walk This Road,' which comes out next week. His band ripped through their set while at the same time, he was giggling, smiling and chewing gum.

Singer/standup bassist Esperanza Spalding followed Randolph. She played her blend of Afro-Cuban and Brazilian jazz with a touch of Caribbean rhythms and scat singing at the festival last year and was invited back for an encore performance.

"It's great to be back," said Spalding. "I felt like we learned a lot in the last year. It was nice to share the updated version of what we do and have a little bit longer to stretch out and really develop the arc of the show. I had a great time. Totally."

The Irvin Mayfield New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and The Bobby Hutcherson and Cedar Walton Quartet played the next two sets and then out came Salif Keita and his group. Keita had to overcome a strict caste system and discrimination of albinos in his country to become one of the leaders in the world music. His band played mostly traditional African instruments and while he sang in Malinka, French and Bambara, he won over the crowd with his haunting voice and the band's pounding rhythms. Longtime festival emcee Bill Cosby even came onto the stage after their set and convinced them to do another song and they happily obliged, to the crowd's delight.

The Manhattan Transfer made their first appearance at the festival since 1992 and had a solid set, complete with their trademark harmonies and energy and after them came Benson - and surprise guest Earl Klugh. Cuban jazz group Tiempo Libre brought the annual festival to a close.

The Playboy Jazz Festival was started by magazine publisher and jazz fan Hugh Hefner and marked its 32nd year at the Hollywood Bowl after first occurring in Chicago in 1959. Although Cosby was the host and the most visible, Hefner was still a presence at the event.

"I have to say, with great honesty, this has turned into a great deal more than I had anticipated," said Hefner about the evolution of the festival since it started at the Hollywood Bowl in the late 1970's. "The notion of doing a jazz festival on the 25th anniversary of the magazine at the Hollywood Bowl seemed too perfect. But it was intended at the time simply as a celebration of the 25th anniversary. It was so well received and embraced by the community that we got a taste of it and we couldn't stop. It turned into a community affair and here we are 32 years later, still dancing as fast as we can."

The 32nd Playboy Jazz Festival is this weekend and there are several big names playing, including George Benson, Chick Corea and The Manhattan Transfer.

Among the groups performing, is Naturally 7, which is something you've never seen or heard before. It's two parts Boyz II Men, two parts Take 6, two parts Bobby McFerrin and one part The Art of Noise.

The group is seven guys from New York led by a former English teacher, who all sing and harmonize, while some of them rap and beat box and others vocalize the sounds of actual instruments such as harmonica, bass, drums, percussion, guitar, clarinet, trumpet and scratching. They don't play those instruments - they sing them. It's McFerrin to the 7th power.

In their songs and on their upcoming album called "VocalPlay - also the adopted name of their music - you hear a amalgam of sounds that are all done by someone's voice. Sometimes effects are added to the voices in the studio for the album, but people who play instruments do that too.

"We treat our voices like an acoustic guitar," says Roger N'Glish' Thomas, the main spokesman for the group. "We treat them all naturally."

Each of the performers who imitate instruments actually listen carefully and study the sounds, so they can duplicate them either on record or live. They also take the instrument sounds that are closest to their own registers - i.e. the guy with the lowest voice chooses bass, not piccolo. In addition, for added visual effect, they sometimes also pantomime their respective instruments as they do them live, particularly Warren Thomas (drums) and Hops Hutton (bass).

"We study the sounds of the instrument," said Roger Thomas "One thing we do is learn how it (the actual instrument) moves from one note to another. Or get the idea of why it happens.'

The group started in 1999 and has been evolving ever since. Roger had developed an affinity for a cappella groups and sounds while living in New York City and with his brother and five other singers, the group won consecutive singing contests, including on a national level.

After they won, Roger was torn between being an a cappella group or a traditional band. Then he had the idea to be both. Warren - who had always want to play the drums - turned his attention to 'playing' drums vocally and the group started to gel.

The group has recorded four albums so far, and the newest is 'VocalPlay.' They have gained a wave a popularity after touring in Europe and with Michael Buble. Along the way, they have made several videos, including one for their remake of the Phil Collins 'In the Air Tonight,' - which has gotten considerably play on MTV Europe - and there are dozens of videos on youtube of them performing. One particular video shows the group sitting in a subway train in Paris and singing at full volume with each of the other travelers reluctantly around to watch them - one at a time.

Their album is a marvel to listen to, with all of the variety of sounds. The singing is stellar and. as you listen, its hard to imagine that all of the sounds on the album are done by a human voice - but they are.

Check out some of the videos on youtube here, here (that's the Paris one), here and here and if you're heading the Hollywood Bowl tomorrow, pay close attention to what they do. It's pretty amazing.

If you're in the Hollywood area tonight and want to see/hear an excellent singer/songwriter, head on over to The Piano Bar at around 11pm. George Stanford will be playing there and he's fantastic.

He's been playing around not only the city but also the country in support of his new-ish album 'Big Drop' and this is another stop.

Some of the highlights of his show include the songs 'Big Drop' and the haunting 'Downriver.' Sometimes he'll even break out some covers, including 'Rich Girl' and 'Under the Boardwalk'

Check out his tunes ahead of time, here and here.

The Piano Bar is located at 6429 Selma Avenue, Hollywood) 90028-7310

(323) 466-2750