Concert Review: The Paul Carlon Octet at Cachaca, NYC 8/28/08
Live, the band’s Latin influences really came to the forefront: as thoughtful and remarkably multistylistic as saxist Paul Carlon’s compositions are, this was a fullblown party with a lot of good songs. “We’re going to take a short break,” he joked after his studio engineer had taken forever to introduce the band, going on and on about how good they were. The guy did a great job with the album but should be kept at least five hundred feet from any live mic. The octet then launched into an adventurous but redoubtably tuneful excursion through most of what’s on their new album Roots Propaganda along with some well-chosen covers. The title track came across as far more accommodating than its name: Friendly Rootsy Persuasion would be more like it, Carlon taking a tastefully bluesy, exploratory solo followed by some sweet, overtly Latin playing from pianist John Stenger (who, just as on the album, took every opportunity to turn up the heat with some incisively staccato salsa lines whenever he could squeeze them in). Like the rest of Carlon’s work, it tips its hat to those who came before without being fawning or reverential (Carlon gave a shout-out to Barack Obama with a similar understatement, very warmly received by the crowd).
They’d opened with guest Max Pollak tapdancing along with the band, a brave move but one which ultimately backfired. Todd Londagin used to do the same thing with the Flying Neutrinos, but as a soloist: leaving the rhythm to somebody not in the band is asking for trouble. Vocalist Christelle Durandy provided warm washes of vocalese while the sub trumpet player (working on only one rehearsal) rose to the occasion, especially on the cd’s opening cut, Backstory, with brightness and high spirits that echoed throughout the set.
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