All That Jazz

Awesome! Another night! Those guys made me love jazz! Same drummer as yesterday, by the way. Two makes a trend, right? Therefore I'll make a deductively valid induction (hah!) that all shows at the Spotted Cat are awesome. Seriously, sometimes I find concerts a bit exhausting, and I'm not even a jazz guy, but with these bands I have an involuntary grin of joy in my face! And I love hearing licks that are a bit weird, then seeing musicians laughing at each other, trading musical jokes.

Just think about the keyboarder. He was constantly adjusting some settings, then using his foot pedals to adjust, then he has to understand the music around him, he has to be able to play in all the keys, moreover has to be able to immediately recognize the keys the others are playing in, he has to understand the interactions between all instruments, the harmonies, melodies, the rhythm, and then finally he has to muster the creativity to improvise good stuff on top of that. That, of course, holds for all instruments. I think most non-musicians fail to understand the enormity of this task. Then, at some point, they just switched instruments, with the solo saxophonist suddenly playing accompanying keyboard, and the keyboarder playing bass.

But again I was drawn to watching the drummer play. He was moving all four limbs independently, giving them different rhythms, with perfect technique. I was outside, dancing to jazz. Another guy out there was equality fascinated. He said he played for thirty years and sound engineered for twenty, and still he can't even tell whether the drummer was left handed or right handed. At some point I didn't even perceive the other instruments anymore.