Funk It’s Bear Creek Music Festival 2011 teaser video

As you can image, Bear Creek Music Festival was magical! The Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park was amazing, the artists were amazing, and the people were amazing (and my close friends know that I don’t use that word often).

The music park is perfect, all of the stages are very close together yet there is very little audio bleed through. The vibe is loose and open and everyone is there to party and have a great time. I met a ton of people and I have never seen soo many audio and video tapers in one place. I was very surprised by the amount of people shooting video on either video cameras or SLR cams with external mics. From what I hear, this is one of the only festivals that is a complete free for all as far as shooting video is concerned.

Needless to say, I was a wild man and I ended up shooting 14 hours of video over the course of 3 days. I could have done much more, but I ran out of space and had to borrow a memory card on the last night (thanks Bob!).

Over the next few months I will be featuring many of these videos here. For now, check out this teaser video to whet your appetite.

Funk It’s Bear Creek Music Festival 2011 teaser video:

Funk It’s Bear Creek Music Festival 2011 teaser video:
01. The Funky Meters – Cissy Strut
02. Marco Benevento Trio with Johnny Vidacovich – Junco Partner
03. The Trio: George Porter Jr, Johnny Vidacovich & Jennifer Hartswick with Freekbass – Don’t Be Squeezin’ My Heart
04. Jon Cleary’s Piano, Bass & Drums – Tipitina
05. Eric Krasno’s Chapter 2 – Nautilus
06. John Scofield’s Piety Street Band – unknown
07. Freekbass & Skerik – Improv in the Silent Disco
08. Dr. Klaw with Jamie McLean & Sam Kinninger – Higher Ground
09. Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio – unknown
10. Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey with Jonathan Lloyd, Chris Noonan, Mark Southerland & Skerik – The Burning
11. Orgone – Break In The Road
12. Medeski, Martin & Wood with Pee Wee Ellis – Where’s The Music?
13. The Lee Boys with Matt Grondin, Khris Royal, ?Shamarr Allen? & unknown trombonist – Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough
14. The New Mastersounds – Carrot Juice
15. Russell Batiste Band with George Porter Jr – Cissy Strut
16. The Coup – 5 Million Ways To Kill A CEO
17. Chali 2na Band – Get Focused
18. Snarky Puppy with Louis Cato – unknown
19. Garage A Trois – Rescue Spreaders
20. Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood – A Go Go
21. Anders Osborne, Eric Bolivar, Jamie McLean & George Porter Jr – Ya-Ya
22. Breakestra – unknown
23. Dumpstajam with Nigel Hall, Louis Cato, Eric Krasno, Freekbass & The Shady Horns – What Is Hip?
24. Lettuce – Sam Huff’s Flying Ragin’ Machine
25. Dumpstaphunk – Put It In The Dumpsta
26. Robert Walter, Eddie Roberts, Jamie McLean, Louis Cato & Ivan Neville – Standin’ On Shaky Ground

Medeski Martin & Wood – 20th Anniversary Tour hits Chicago

Medeski Martin & Wood brought their 20th Anniversary Tour to Chicago’s Park West last Friday, November 4th. To celebrate 20 years, the band has been playing a first set of fan requests, and calling the second set a “shack party” full of spontaneous improvisations.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEOS

For the first set, the band opened with the super rare tune Shack from Friday Afternoon In The Universe (a tune that hasn’t been played live since 2003!), which segued into a super charged Pappy Check (my request) that included an illyB drum solo before a funky bridge section that only MMW could pull off.

Next was an oldie that tends to get played pretty often, Dracula, which I thought brought the energy down. But, hey, I don’t question these players. Next up, John brought the energy level way up by tearing into his Wurlitzer electric piano on I Wanna Ride You, somehow making it look effortless to play like he does.

I was surprised to find that another one of my requests made the cut, Toy Dancing. Not played live since 2006, this version was somewhat exploratory and expansive. At this point, something happened that I’ve noticed frequently in MMW sets: John looks up about 3/4ths of the way into the set and realizes that he hasn’t touched the acoustic piano yet, so he sits down and goes to town for over 6 minutes. By the time Billy & Chris reel John back in, the tune ends up over 12 minutes long.

Lastly, they closed the first set with the perennial crowd favorite, Bubblehouse. Bubblehouse was played at every show on the first leg of their 20th Anniversary Tour back in March and so far has been played at every show on this leg of the tour. After years of fans screaming for the song and years of the band neglecting to play it, perhaps out of spite, MMW decided to give the crowd exactly what they asked for: BUBBLEHOUSE!

SET TWO: Improv, Moanin’, Improv
ENCORE: Night Marchers

You can watch set two right here, although I cut off the first 15 minutes of improvisation, as it wasn’t very inspired. This video includes the second 15 minutes of improv, the Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers / Bobby Timmons cover, Moanin’, the next 23 minute improv (including a dubby section with John on melodica, as well as another short illyB drum solo), and the encore, Night Marchers.

Parts of the video are shot with a second camera (actually my iPhone 4) from up front and the audio was recorded by taperjoe with Sennheiser E914 condenser mics (audio download available here). Stream this baby to your HD TV, pop some popcorn (or gather whatever other party favors you choose to partake in), sit back, and enjoy 52 minutes of MMW in awesome HD quality.

====================================================================

If you’re looking for more tasty Chris Wood bass playing, check out these videos of The Wood Brothers I shot this summer at Headliners in Louisville, KY on June 2, 2011.

Postcards From Hell:

Sing It Again (Beck cover):

Atlas:

The Luckiest Man:

Shoofly Pie, Chevrolet:

Dr. Klaw on the Creole Queen Riverboat, NOLA Jazz Fest 2011

IS IT BEAR CREEK YET?

Before I hit the road to my first Bear Creek Music Festival, I have to unleash my videos of Dr. Klaw on the Creole Queen Riverboat during New Orleans Jazz Fest 2011. The full video is on youtube in six parts, listed below. I recommend watching in HD in 1080p or 720p. Also, if you are so inclined, the DVD is available to download at The Trader’s Den.

I’ve posted about Dr. Klaw before. For those that don’t know, Dr. Klaw is a supergroup featuring Nick Daniels III and Ian Neville (both of Dumpstaphunk), along with Adam Deitch, Eric Krasno & Nigel Hall (of Lettuce, Soulive, Chapter Two, etc.). Basically, Dr. Klaw is a special conglomeration that only plays shows at Jazz Fest and Bear Creek (and sometimes Jam Cruise). Word is that they’ve been in the studio and will be releasing their new album at Bear Creek next week.

This video documents their only performance this year (until Bear Creek next weekend), and features several original tunes, as well as two Parliament covers that feature The Shady Horns (Ryan Zoidis, Sam Kinninger, & Rashawn Ross). The video was shot from right up front (because there really was no other way to see the band considering that the stage was only a few inches tall) with a Canon Vixia HF21 video camera and a Sony ECM-MS908C stereo mic. The audio is raw, dominated by Deitch’s cymbals and rim shots, but is still very listenable compared to the quality of most of the stuff you find on youtube. Enjoy, spread the word, and I’ll see you after what is sure to be an incredible Bear Creek Music Festival weekend!

Dr. Klaw – Part 1 of 6 – Beef, I Believe It: