Vibist Stefon Harris and his band Blackout were in town over the weekend and I caught their show (boffo) and picked up their most recent CD "Evolution," Blue Note. A good move on both counts. "Nothing Personal" is a funky opener with nice interplay among Harris, Marc Cary, a really good piano and keyboards player I knew nothing about before the concert, and alto saxophonist Casey Benjamin, another find. They make a haunting ballad of the Sting tune "Until" and give "Summertime" a modernist rendering that doesn't sound much like any version I've heard before, pretty hard to do on a song that's been recorded like 10 million times. "Blackout" (the song) reminds me of Weather Report, but not in an imitative way. If these guys keep making recordings together, I'll keep buying them.
I also downloaded the Cary-led session "Listen" from emusic. With Terell Stafford on trumpet and Ron Blake on tenor sax, it's impressive updated hard bop. Cary's playing here reminds me of McCoy Tyner. I think enough of it that I'm likely to buy the CD from Arabesque.
The cool jazz and hip-hop fusion group Iswhat?! played for free after the Harris concert and had baritone saxophonist Claire Daly along as a guest, making for a wonderful evening of music. Follow these links for my takes on the Iswhat?! CD "You Figure It Out..." and Daly's disk "Heaven Help Us All," both of which I like a lot.
I received a note from Napoleon Maddox of Iswhat?! yesterday letting me know that Daly is currently touring with the group. On the off chance that somebody in the following towns might read this, their schedule this week is Louisville, Ky., tonight at the Jazz Factory; Columbus, Ohio, Wednesday at Acme Art Co.; Lexington, Ky., Friday at Firebird; Pittsburgh, Pa., Saturday at Carnegie Mellon University; Brooklyn, N.Y., Sunday at Barbes. Go see 'em if you can, it's good stuff.
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