Saturday, May 20, 2006

art of the jam 52

a good night, and the closest to the 'riginal spirit o' the jam that we've experienced in a few months -- lotsa different cats playin', lotsa spontaneous improv shite happenin' and a minimum of covers (altho the wreck room's very own wednesday night jam-meister lee allen was doing lotsa on-the-fly structuring and direction o' the musical goings on, as is his wont, calling chords 'n' changes to the jamcats in the moment).

at first, it appeared that the cosmic tumblers might be in alignment for a woodeye reunion, when carey wolff, scott davis, and kenny smith stopped in during graham richardson's shift behind the bar to celebrate carey's berfday (scott, kenny, and graham gifted him the jesse sierra hernandez painting that jesse created for the last woodeye show poster). 'twas not to be, tho -- the boyzzz headed out bar-hoppin' before the drums were set up and the jam-meister arrived (which mighta made it possible for him to spell graham behind the bar for a coupla songs). feh.

a few new ingredients in the musical stew, starting with brandon wallace, drummer for scott copeland's sidetracks. departing sidetracks gtrist / sessions music impresario john zaskoda recommended brandon when joe "drumzilla" cruz proved to be unavailable for the evening, and brandon proved to be both a groover and a listener. art of the jam hopes to hear him jammin' more in the future. with brandon behind the traps, lucky listeners got to experience a merchants reunion of sorts, as zaskoda was joined on gtr by his former bandmate "confusajohn" stevens (after i made the fascinating discovery that my tuner has a half-step and whole-step flat option, which accounts for the fact that on the first song, which the jam-meister announced was in A, i was in B-flat; gotta remember to read the damn manual next time i buy a piece of gear), the z-man's finger-picked lines contrasting nicely with confusajohn's liquid-silver sound.

in another wednesday-night first, pablo and the hemphill 7 gtrist steffin ratliff made a rare jam appearance, joining the jam-meister, stevens and his confusatron drummer lucas white. steffin added a li'l reggae chuck to the proceedings, and soloed melodically in contrast with confusajohn's effect-laden explorations on zaskoda's jazzmaster 'n' new vox pedalboard. my contribution to "maggot brain" (which has evolved into a vehicle for claudia acosta to flow verse over) was dedicated to jacoby chambers, a student at my sweetie's school whose name evoked an nba all-star and who left the planet this week; i tried to represent his ascending spirit through feedback washes.

the evening ended with metallic modal wonderment featuring the jam-meister on gtr, backed by confusatron / electric mountain rotten apple gang / caffeine chemistry bassist matt skates and great tyrant drummer jon teague. lee explored _all_ the possibilites of his chosen modal field while teague created a constantly shifting riddimic landscape, then quickly unassed the joint when it was done. it were awesome.

a heads-up: the june 7th edition of the jam will start _way_ early -- like 8pm early -- as it'll be a birthday celebration for velvet jive bassist rob marruffo, and will feature performances by velvet jive, rob 'n' lee's 311-ish college band the kind buds, and maybe bluesman texas slim in addition to whoever's in impulse of will that week. see ya next wednesday...

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