John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme”, covered and funkifized

John Medeski, Skerik & Adam Deitch – A Love Supreme (John Coltrane cover)
August 13, 2011 Stratton, VT @ Royal Family Affair

To celebrate John Coltrane’s 85th birthday, I bring you two funkifized covers of Coltrane’s seminal recording with his “Classic Quartet”: “A Love Supreme.”

The first cover is a recent performance of a once-only band: John Medeski (of Medeski, Martin & Wood), Skerik (of Garage A Trois & The Dead Kenny Gs) and Adam Deitch (of Lettuce, Break Science & Eric Krasno’s Chapter 2). This one starts out very spacey until Deitch drops his hip-hop inflected beats, creating a wicked groove. The full recording of the show can downloaded at etree.

The second cover is from a 2002 performance by “Mike Clark & Friends.” Mike Clark is, of course, the legendary jazz-funk drummer that started out with Herbie Hancock & The Headhunters. Mike Clark’s “friends” on this occassion were Jessica Lurie (of Living Daylights) on sax and flute, as well as the core of Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey: Brian Haas on fender rhodes and Reed Matthis on bass.

This one is quite a journey. Of special note is the middle section (about 7.5 minutes in) in which Haas takes over the bass lines on the rhodes and Matthis begins to play the lead with his bass running through an octave pedal. They definitely take this piece to a place it’s never been before (or since).

Mike Clark & Friends – A Love Supreme (John Coltrane cover)
July 20, 2002 Oxford, OH @ Camp Buzz 9

Special thanks to Mike Wren for the use of his photos and Rob Clarke for the audio!

More Late Night at the Maple Leaf – New Orleans Jazz Fest 2011

UPDATE: I just started a facebook page so people can get updates when new blog posts are made, please “like it”: Funk It on Facebook

Second night in New Orleans, back to the Maple Leaf again:
George Porter Jr, Johnny Vidacovich, Marco Benevento & Skerik.

Unfortunately there was no one recording audio this night, so these videos are the only recordings that exist. It was also unfortunate that I didn’t record the sublime gospel piece that Marco & George came up with. After they finished playing it George remarked that he hadn’t brought his recorder so it was all just going “into the air.” George even asked me after the set if I had gotten it, but alas.

Improvisation:

I Don’t Know:

Improvisation?:

Encore: They All Ask’d For You (a classic Meters tune):

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Third night in New Orleans, I couldn’t get into George Porter’s 2am Superjam with Brian Stoltz, Marco Benevento & Adam Deitch at the House of Blues because it sold out, so I ended up, you guessed it, back at the Maple Leaf.

Jacob Fred Fred Jazz Odyssey “Gets Horny” at 3am with Steven Bernstein on slide trumpet, Jeff Coffin on sax, Mark Southerland on all kinds of weird instruments, and Matthew Leland on trombone. It was a near mystical experience, maybe due to the lack of sleep, or maybe it was the haunting sounds coming from the stage, or both.

Excerpt from the Race Riot Suite:

Improvisation No. 1: Tatontious Was Not A Cat

Improvisation No. 2: Kitty Boy Floyd Is A Cat

We left at 5:15 a.m. as JFJO were beginning their second set. I only had three hours of sleep the night before (after being at Tipitina’s till 6 a.m. for Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe’s Cinco De Mayo throwdown) and I had hit the wall. I didn’t feel too bad though, as Steven Bernstein was calling it a night, I mean morning, also…

BTW, what the hell is this instrument Mark Southerland is playing? You should have heard it when he started swinging the tube around in the air. Whoa nellie!

The Dead Kenny G’s with Freekbass 3/11/11 @ Cosmic Charlies

Skerik, Mike Dillon, Brad Houser: The Dead Kenny G’s. Then add Freekbass as a special guest for this recent show at Lexington’s up and coming concert club, Cosmic Charlies.

Scroll down for a few HD videos. First is an evil cover of Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf” followed by a tune from the Dead Kenny G’s new album. The second video is a funky improvisation including several Mike Dillon raps, teases of Drop The Bomb, as well as some P-Funk sax riffs. This segues into the third video, which is a punk rock cover of Ween’s Motorhead spoof, “It’s Gonna Be A Long Night.” The Dead Kenny G’s then close out the night with their seminal punk-jazz workout, “Punk Rock Guilt.”

I have to say that these are some of the best videos I’ve shot so far with my new video camera. I also have to say thanks to Rex-A-Vision for the use of his great photos.
I’ve also added some nifty buttons to the blog so you can easily share it via facebook, twitter, email, etc… whatever strikes your fancy!

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