July 13, 2008: Rotterdam North Sea Jazz Festival Day 3
On the third and final day, Me and Danny were exhausted. We eventually woke up at 14:00, ate “breakfast” at Subway, and headed right over to the Ahoy Concert Venue.
At 16:00, we saw a condensed Preservation Hall Jazz Band, featuring: Clint Maedgen (vocals, tenor sax); Mark Braud (vocals, trumpet); Walter Payton (vocals, bass); Elliott “Stackman” Callier (sax); Freddie Lonzo (trombone); Ben Jaffe (tuba); Rickie Monie (piano); Shannon Powell (drums).
Preservation Hall Jazz Band
These guys embody the origins of jazz history. They play traditional early “N’awlins” jazz with authentic stop time, street beats, and collective improvisation to boot. This band is like an ancient relic recently awoken from cryogenic freezing… or “Preservation,” (I realize I’m not funny but it entertains me). Most of the other concert-goers were as ancient as band. The Preservation Hall Band was interesting to view as a historical artifact, but our desires for modern jazz overtook our willingness to tolerate a history lesson and we bolted early.
At 17:30, we left the Preservation concert to see Phil Woods and Friends: Phil Woods, Jesse Davis (alto sax); Donald Vega (piano); Daryll Hall (double bass); Leon Parker (drums). Very crisp and flawlessly executed Bruce Diehl jazz (in reference to our college jazz coach who idolizes Phil Woods’ playing).
At 19:00, we switched venues to see the Brad Mehldau Trio: Brad Mehldau (piano); Larry Grenadier (double bass); Jeff Ballard (drums) boo…Bring back Jorge Rossi on traps. Not the band at their best, to say the least. Mehldau has been Danny’s favorite pianist for quite some time, but we both left the concert feeling quite underwhelmed. Jeff Ballard is atrocious. I don’t know how he plays with all of the phenomenal musicians who hire him. At one point during the concert, Ballard got up from the drums and hit his head on the boom microphone above him, making a loud thump. What an idiot. Plus, when he was in Amherst playing with Miguel Zenon and Matt Penman (great musicians), some of the UMASS jazz guys told Danny that after the show Ballard asked them if they could get him high, which they graciously did…Just a funny anecdote… But seriously, this band did not concern itself with dynamics or interesting arrangements. They only relied on Mehldau’s amazing touch and great (but sparse) lines to breath a bit of life into the music. They also only played songs off their new album which isn’t that great, and didn’t play the two cool ones, both 90s alt rock covers, “Wonderwall” by Oasis and “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden. Here’s a video of the Brad Mehldau trio (with Jorge Rossi) when they sounded good, performing a cover of “Exit Music (For a Film),” written by Radiohead.
Thereafter, at 20:30, we saw the Antonio Sanchez Group, featuring Miguel Zenon (alto sax); David Sanchez (tenor sax); Scott Colley (double bass); and Antonio Sanchez (drums). All the music they played was written by A. Sanchez, and despite the perception about drummers not having the harmonic background to compose tunes well, dude has keyboard and songwriting chops and came up with some really interesting and drummer-friendly arrangements, proving the naysayers wrong.
To end the festival, at 23:00, we saw a group that Danny and Zlatan were surprised I had never heard of, a suprisingly good 80s jazz/world fusion band called Oregon. The band featured Paul McCandless (winds, every different kind of horn imaginable); Ralph Towner (piano, keyboards, synths and guitar); Glen Moore (bass, including upright electric…that’s one instrument); and Mark Walker (drums and a million different percussion chotchkies). Solid performance to cap off a good day and phenomenal festival.
Oregon
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