On Friday June 4th we ventured to the Portsmouth Music Hall to see the Dave Rawlings Machine, the 4 piece acoustic band lead my husband & wife team Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch. The group was positively effervescent in its joyous delivery and the audience responded in kind for an uproarious concert. The music was mostly taken from the (sadly) less enchanting new CD “The Dave Rawlings Machine.” The set was peppered with some choice covers, notably Robbie Robertson’s “The Weight,” and Dylan’s classic “Queen Jane Approximately.” While fully serviceable (the audience loved them!) these covers suffered a bit as no one in the band is quite up the task of singing these great songs. Gillian performed two of her tunes (including the wonderful “Look at Miss Ohio”) and provided incredibly intuitive backup to Dave both on the guitar and vocals. All in all a great night of roots/country music, Rawlings remains (in this writer’s opinion) one of the best guitarist in the world on his old 1935 Epiphone archtop. To the delight of the audience, after a 3 song encore the group came out for a second encore and walked to the very lip of the stage and Gillian led them in a wonderful acapella version of “Go to Sleep (Little Baby).” www.myspace.com/daverawlingsmachine
The next day, Saturday the 5th we traveled up to Burlington, Vermont to the Discover Jazz Festival to see New Orleans legend Allan Toussaint. I was lured there as the show was titled “The Bright Mississippi” after Toussaint’s recent recording of the same name (from a Thelonius Monk tune). The show was also to feature Don Byron who plays clarinet on that same CD. Toussaint started the show with his regular band and proceeded to perform a set that can only be described as really good lounge music. I have seen Toussaint twice recently and have come away with the same opinion; he is a really charming and superb supper club performer. He sings some of his famous songs, but of course he is no Lee Dorsey (“Workin’ in a Coalmine”) or Ernie K-Doe (“Mother in Law”) so while pleasant, they tend to be shadows of the original versions. Mid-set the bass player switched to an upright bass and Don Byron appeared and the group did indeed do 4 tunes from “The Bright Mississippi” and they were sublime. “The Bright Mississippi” is one of the most nuanced and greatest essays on traditional New Orleans music I have ever encountered, and these live versions did not disappoint. Immediately after this set we were back to the lounge, that included a revolting sing-a-long of “The City of New Orleans,” with its refrain, “good morning American, how are you.” The audience loved all this, and apparently did not miss the fact that Toussaint played virtually no traditional New Orleans piano (in the style of Longhair, Booker, or Washington). This omission is stark as he can do can play in those traditional modes as well as any man alive, he did not even venture into his own early material (the Tousan Sessions) – very disappointing. www.allentoussaint.com
On Friday and Saturday the 11th and the 12th, we were back in Burlington to see the guitarist Jim Hall on Friday and tenor saxophone master Sonny Rollins on Saturday. Both of these giants turn 80 this year and they clearly showed the physical ravages of time, both somewhat crippled and stooped with age; that is until they began playing. What a profound testament to the power of music to see these 2 men perform!
Hall, who is the dean of American jazz guitarist, was clearly the most effected by his age, there were more missed notes and difficulty at faster tempos but there were also (as there always is with him) moments of almost transcendental, lyrical beauty and his tone is still singular in the guitar world. The first half of Hall’s set was with some of his orchestrated pieces and featured Vermont area brass players. This set was a mixed bag as some of the players seemed to not be up to the task at hand, perhaps due to experience or lack of rehearsal. The second half was with Hall’s amazing quartet of Scott Colley on bass, Joey Baron on drums and Greg Osby on alto sax. The highlight of the second set had to be a sublime reading of Billy Strayhorn’s “Chelsea Bridge” with great solos from Hall and Osby. Other highlights were a lush reading of standard “All the Things You Are” and 2 Sonny Rollin’s compositions; “Sonnymoon for Two” and “St Thomas.” www.jimhallmusic.com
Sonny Rollin’s was simply staggering, when he walked out on stage I hardly recognized him, with his “Larry Fine” style grey afro, stooped and smaller then I remembered but when he counted off the first tune, a blistering blues he might as well have been 20 years old. On the opening number he soloed for well over 10 minutes calling to mind his friend John Coltrane’s famous live version of “Chasin’ the Trane.” It was an unrelenting barrage of invention, melody and energy that defied both his appearance and age. Rollins played for almost 2 hours without a break, his 5 piece band was fabulous including the recent addition of guitarist Russell Malone and fiery drummer Kobie Watkins. Rollins rarely broke between tunes, counting off directly into the next number like a man possessed, swinging his horn and stomping on the floor for emphasis. Certainly a highlight for jazz fans was the appearance by Jim Hall on 2 tunes near the end of the night: “In a Sentimental Mood” & “If Ever I Would Leave You.” Jazz stalwarts will know that one of Rollins most famous recordings, “The Bridge,” included both Jim Hall and Rollins current bass player Bob Cranshaw as part of that historic quartet. Rollin’s introduced Hall as a “young man” sitting in on guitar as Hall made his way to the stage with his cane. It was truly a “surreal” moment (to quote Guitarist Russell Malone) to see these 3 men together again. www.sonnyrollins.com
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