Ivan Neville 1/8/14 Jam Cruise Atrium (Part 1 of 6)
01. Falling Out of Love [Ivan Neville]
02. Padlock [Gerald Tillman] (with Nick Daniels)
Ivan Neville 1/8/14 Jam Cruise Atrium (Part 2 of 6)
02. Padlock [Gerald Tillman] (with Nick Daniels)
03. Hell To Tell [Ivan Neville] (with Nick Daniels)
04. Not Just Another Girl [Ivan Neville] (with Nick Daniels)
Ivan Neville 1/8/14 Jam Cruise Atrium (Part 3 of 6)
04. Not Just Another Girl [Ivan Neville] (with Nick Daniels)
05. Be My Lady [The Meters] (with Cyril Neville)
Ivan Neville 1/8/14 Jam Cruise Atrium (Part 4 of 6)
06. Crash [Dave Matthews]
07. Landslide [Fleetwood Mac] (with Nick Daniels)
Ivan Neville 1/8/14 Jam Cruise Atrium (Part 5 of 6)
08. Stay What You Are [Ivan Neville] (with Nick Daniels)
09. It’s A Family Affair [Sly Stone] (with Nick Daniels)
Ivan Neville 1/8/14 Jam Cruise Atrium (Part 6 of 6)
Encore:
10. Big Chief (with Nick Daniels & Cyril Neville)
When Robert Glasper arrived at St. Louis’ premier jazz venue, Jazz At The Bistro, he promptly apologized for twice canceling prior engagements at the club (one due to the birth of his child and another due to a call from Maxwell to go on tour). He more than made up for it with 2 sets of his pensive yet blissful piano playing. With him were fellow Houstonian Alan Hampton on upright bass and St. Louis native Mark Colenburg on the drum kit.
Glasper recounted how he met Colenburg back in 1999 at this very club and how he recommended Colenburg to Common for the Like Water For Chocolate tour. Quite expectedly, Colenburg showed and proved in his hometown with two snare drums, plenty of chops, and a heavy nod to J Dilla‘s fluid yet angular sense of rhythm.
With the news of Whitney Houston‘s unexpected passing, Glasper dedicated the first tune to her, beginning the 20+ minute piece with a meditative and lengthy solo piano improvisation. After a short “J Dillalude”, Glasper jokingly name dropped 11 of the 12 guests appearing on his new album, Black Radio, and reminded everyone that the new album drops in 2 weeks. In his words, “cop that”. He closed the early show by taking requests, to which at least two audience members immediately shouted “F.T.B.” without hesitation. When someone asked “what does it stand for?”, Glasper declined to answer, preferring to “keep it off record”. Your guess is as good as mine. Notably, the trio teased The Roots‘ Grammy award winning song, “You Got Me”, as the final notes of the set.
Playing to a totally different, and noticeably younger and whiter, crowd for the late show, the trio stretched out much further. The set began with 30 minutes of non-stop music that shifted from on point jazz changes to open solos to an improvisation in which Glasper took a candle holder from the front table and held it to the piano strings as he played. (In fact, this is the section you hear on the streaming audio, above). After an hour of mesmerizing sounds, as icing on top, the show closed with a vamped out instrumental version of Q-Tip‘s track “You” from The Renaissance album. Completely satisfied, the crowd didn’t push for an encore, content to disperse back out into the cold night.
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Robert Glasper Trio
February 11, 2012
St. Louis, MO @ Jazz At The Bistro
Source: internal mics > Tascam DR-2d > WAV > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC
Location: In my jacket pocket. Early show: 2nd table dead center. Late show: 2nd table slightly to the right.
Recorded by RLBayers for Funk It Blog (http://funkit.virose.net/).
Early Show: 7:30pm
01. Glasper speaks
02. Canvas (Dedicated to Whitney Houston) >
03. No Worries *
04. J Dillalude
05. Drum solo > F.T.B. > You Got Me outro
Late Show: 9:30pm
01. Glasper speaks
02. Rise And Shine > drum solo > bass solo > Improv # >
03. ???
04. Glasper speaks
05. Smells Like Teen Spirit [Nirvana]
06. G & B (inc. bass solo) >
07. I Have A Dream [Herbie Hancock] >
08. You [Q-Tip]
Robert Glasper: piano, fender rhodes (on F.T.B. only) Alan Hampton: bass Mark Colenburg: drums
* My batteries died so about 6 or 7 minutes is missing in the middle. The track fades in and out at 4min43sec.
# Robert asked the audience member at the front table for the glass candle holder (with the small lit candle in it), then Robert held the candle holder to the piano strings while playing.
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.
