There has been lots of live music happening recently, sometimes for no reason, sometimes for reasons not too fun, but music nonetheless. Last week a benefit show was held for producer Scotty Hard, who was in a car accident recently. He had no insurance, a boat many musicians are in, its a nationwide mess. I once heard a jazz drummer talking about how to survive in New York as a musician, his response was “Find Yourself A Girl With Benefits”. Hard produced some amazing work, from De La Soul to MMW, many things in between, so there was a great show of support. It really felt like every musician there truly wanted to be there, it was not just another gig. Those not playing at the time stood on the sidelines, ready to tear it up. Vernon Reid opened the show, I think he was playing with a penny as a pick, strange sounds. His band was impressive though, DJ logic, John Medeski, John Scofield, and Nicky Glaspie on drums- who is pretty much the next Dennis Chambers. She used to be a guest on our old college radio show while she was a Berklee Student, then showed up on the cover of Modern Drummer one day as Beyonce’s drummer…yeah, she was kind of good.
I like to think of the red behind him as some sort of magical aura. As the Scofield took the stage, it was evident that there was great respect for him amongst everyone in attendance. He’ll break out a combination of notes you could never imagine, but somehow it works, and the rest of the band chases after that for a few measures. A long time ago, the TB and I saw him at a large collective performance, many musicians on stage at once, he took a ridiculous solo, the alto sax player stepped up to a vocal mic, looked around and said “how am I gonna follow that?” it was kind of true, you don’t really follow that.
Reid left the stage, replaced by my part time hero/drum instructor Billy Martin, for a MMS-W set, where the Chris Wood was, no one knew. Again, Scofield led the band through some intense melodic freakouts, using looping pedals, shrill fuzz distortions, the whole thing. Guitar players usually get boring after about 3 minutes, the only previous exception I’ve found is Nels Cline. But now, I’ll add scofield to the list.
Good music all round. We left early and sadly missed The Duo and Soulive, damn these responsibilities of having to wake up at a specified time.
Later in the weekend, a Half Surprise Fake Bat Mitzvah was thrown for our friend, one Sara Q Robinson. The meal consisted of the most high cholesterol food you could imagine- steak, latkes, stuffed cabbage, kreplach, fried onions, pickled tomatoes, deliciousness. We went to a very old restaurant on the Lower East Side, one of the few holdouts from the jewish era of yesteryear. Havanageliah might have been sung, the hora may have been danced, a chair may have been hoisted, but then again, it might not have.
Notice the old school seltzer bottles, as seen in many classic comedy films. The waiter smacked one member of our party for shaking one too much, it was deserved. Also, whats with people responding with a “no” to the evite, then showing up at the dinner anyway, when it was clearly stated that reservations were being made? Seriously, get it together man.