Eric Krasno’s Chapter 2 at Bear Creek Music Festival 2011

B. Getz, in his recent Bear Creek Music Festival review on JamBase, described Lettuce as Voltron: “individual vehicles joined together to form a giant super funk robot”. I, however, would give that moniker to Chapter 2.

Early Saturday afternoon at Uncle Charlie’s Porch Stage (arguably the best sounding stage at the festival), Eric Krasno, Adam Deitch, Nigel Hall, and Louis Cato joined forces to provide a wake up call to any Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park campers that might have overslept. WAKE UP! Chapter 2 at 2:25 p.m., The Funky Meters at 3:30, The New Mastersounds at 5, Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood at 6:30, Lettuce at 8, The Trey Anastasio Band at 9:30, and Dumpstaphunk’s Dumpstajam at midnight. There was no time to waste. And that was only 2 of the 7 stages operating that day! Not to mention that the music started at 11:30 a.m. and wouldn’t be stopping until 5 a.m.

I can’t say much about this group that you can’t find out by watching the videos. (Here at Funk It we like to let the content do the talking.) But I will point out that Louis Cato was the definitive all star of the entire festival. As far as I know, he played bass with Chapter 2, drums and percussion with fSnarky Puppy, trombone and bass at the Dumsptajam, drums with Dumpstaphunk the next night, and percussion and bass at the Tree House After Party Jam Session.

Seeing as this was the first full fledged Chapter 2 show with this lineup in over 7 months, they came out energized and at full force.

Here are the videos in raw HD with audio from my external mic:

Chapter 2 – 76 (end of the song):

Chapter 2 – Be Alright, Roll Out:

Chapter 2 – Roll Out (cont.):

Chapter 2 – Stratus (Billy Cobham cover):

Thanks to Bob Adamek & Dino Perrucci for the use of their photos.

And if you haven’t seen my Bear Creek teaser video, you should check it.

Bear Creek 2011 Secret Tree House After Party Jam Session with “Walter Roberts & Deitch”

On the last day of the Bear Creek Music Festival, I was fortunate to get wind of the secret after party jam session that was supposedly for staff only. I was told it would be in the tree house behind the Purple Hat stage. Luckily I was able to borrow a 4 gig memory card from a friend (thanks Bob!) which enabled me to record about an hour of the jam session before I was flat-out out of memory.

When I arrived around 11:30pm, I saw WRD (Robert Walter, Eddie Roberts and Adam Deitch) set up and ready to play. I had previously thought it strange that this new group didn’t get a Bear Creek set, considering all three players were at the festival. So this was quite a treat to close out the weekend with. I didn’t record the first tune, but I did get the next six, approximately 54 minutes, which you can watch in excellent HD quality right here….

For me, the highlights are Topaz‘s saxophone blowing on the first video, Eric Krasno‘s jazz guitar chops on the second video, Louis Cato‘s bass solo at the end of the fifth video, and Ivan Neville jumping on drums to join Jamie McLean for a cover of Delbert McClinton‘s “Standing On Shaky Ground” on the sixth and last video. For those that weren’t able to attend or who didn’t find out about the jam session, sit back and enjoy it here in Funk It vision…

Bear Creek Secret Tree House After Party Jam Session (1 of 6) 11/12/11 Bear Creek Music Festival (Robert Walter on keys, Eddie Roberts on guitar, Adam Deitch on drums, Topaz on sax, Jonathan Lloyd on trombone, Louis Cato on percussion) – Almendra:

Bear Creek Secret Tree House After Party Jam Session (2 of 6) 11/12/11 Bear Creek Music Festival (Robert Walter on keys, Eddie Roberts on guitar, Adam Deitch on drums, Louis Cato on bass, Eric Krasno on guitar, Topaz on sax, Jonathan Lloyd on trombone) – Flood In Franklin Park (Grant Green cover):

Bear Creek Secret Tree House After Party Jam Session (3 of 6) 11/12/11 Bear Creek Music Festival (Robert Walter on keys, Eddie Roberts on guitar, Adam Deitch on drums) – Pack of Lies (The Counts cover):

Bear Creek Secret Tree House After Party Jam Session (4 of 6) 11/12/11 Bear Creek Music Festival (Robert Walter on keys, Eddie Roberts on guitar, Derrick Freeman on drums, Jamie McLean on guitar) – Louisiana Slim (Leon Spencer cover):

Bear Creek Secret Tree House After Party Jam Session (5 of 6) 11/12/11 Bear Creek Music Festival (Robert Walter on keys, Eddie Roberts on guitar, Adam Deitch on drums, Jamie McLean on guitar, Louis Cato on bass, Topaz on sax, Jonathan Lloyd on trombone) – unknown jam:

Bear Creek Secret Tree House After Party Jam Session (6 of 6) 11/12/11 Bear Creek Music Festival (Robert Walter on keys, Eddie Roberts on guitar, Jamie McLean on guitar, Louis Cato on bass, Sean Sullivan on drums and then Ivan Neville takes over on drums) – Standing On Shakey Ground (Delbert McClinton cover):

Russell Batiste Band & Snarky Puppy at Bear Creek Music Festival 2011

I’m gonna start my Bear Creek Music Festival flood with some of the videos that I can upload raw without audio upgrades (since I’m pretty sure no one was taping these shows and my audio already sounds fine). First up is the Russell Batiste Band‘s set from early Friday afternoon at the Campground Stage (this stage was nestled back in the woods near the lake where you can bring you own drinks from your camp, since you’re not officially in the festival grounds).

Russell Batiste Jr. is the drummer from The Funky Meters and PBS (Porter Batiste Stoltz) and Vida Blue. His band has been gigging for a few years and I’ve been interested to see how they sound (although I could already imagine that it was a heavy dose of NOLA funk with some warped Russell Batiste vocal shouts and maybe a request for the audience to do the hokey pokey or skip around [Russell’s weird like that]).

I left the Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio set early and jumped a ridge on a golf cart with Harry Zegers and the Fan Club HQ crew down to the Campground Stage to find George Porter Jr. and his wife standing by as the Russell Batiste Band was soundchecking. I was less than 2 hours into the festival and already primed to witness some sit-ins!

I watched the first few songs and still no George Porter sit-in, so I decided to make my way back to the music park to catch some of Anders Osborne and then the Chali 2na Band. As I was about to leave ear-shot of the Campground Stage, I heard Russell invite George up, so I headed back. George joined for a version of The Meters tune, Ease Back and then they did the classic Cissy Strut (actually Russell’s rearrangement “Cissy Got The Blues”), which you can watch below. This is one of the very few times you will see George actually plucking the bass. Yeah you’re right.

Russell Batiste Band with George Porter Jr – Cissy Got The Blues 11/11/11 Bear Creek Music Fest:

Russell Batiste Band – first song 11/11/11 Bear Creek Music Fest:

This next video is from Sunday afternoon. I was only able to catch Snarky Puppy‘s last song and I was sold immediately. These guys have a huge jazz fusion sound that is also very organic. I’m definitely going to be keeping my eyes on these guys….

Snarky Puppy – Phoebus 11/13/11 Bear Creek Music Festival (with Louis Cato on percussion):

Stay tuned, cause the flood of videos is about to continue…with the secret tree house after party jam session with WRD (Robert Walter, Eddie Roberts & Adam Deitch).

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