The Bang on a Can Marathon 2013: Early Highlights

Since the World Financial Center atrium, home to the annual Bang on a Can avant garde music marathon for the past several years, is undergroing renovations, this year’s marathon was moved to the Schimmel auditorium at Pace University on the opposite side of town on Spruce Street. How long did it take for both the downstairs and balcony seats to fill up? About an hour. Three hours after the daylong concert began, there was a line at least a hundred deep outside. On one hand, it’s heartwarming to see how popular the event has become; on the other, it’s impossible not to feel bad for those who didn’t make it in.

Especially since the music was so consistently excellent. Chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound opened the festivities auspiciously with a lively, bubbling, south-of-the-border-tinged movement titled El Dude (a Gustavo Dudamel reference) from Derek Bermel’s Canzonas Americanas. Their next piece, Jeffrey Brooks’ After the Treewatcher, took its inspiration from an early Michael Gordon work. The composer, who was in the house, explained that when he asked Gordon for a score, Gordon said no: he wanted Brooks to work from memory instead. Guitarist Ryan Ferreira, stepping in on literally a few hours notice. provided hauntingly resonant twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar against permutations on a distantly creepy, circular motif. At the end, pianist John Orfe mimicked the conclusion of the Gordon work, insistently ringing a dinner bell, which surprisingly ramped up the surreal menace.

Charlie Piper’s Zoetrope cleverly interpolated simple, insistent, echoingly percussive motives from throughout the orchestra into an increasingly fascinating, dynamically shifting web of sound, while Caleb Burhans’ O Ye of Little Faith, Do You Know Where Your Children Are? returned both the ambient menace and sweeping, Reichian circularity of Brooks’ piece.

Mostly Other People Do the Killing trumpeter Peter Evans played solo, much in the same vein as Colin Stetson’s solo  bass saxophone work. It was a free clinic in extended technique via circular breathing: supersonic glissandos throwing off all kinds of microtonal quark and charm, whispery overtones, nebulous atmospherics contrasting with a little jaunty hard bop. He was rewarded with the most applause of any of the early acts.

Druimmers David Cossin and Ben Reimer teamed up for a steady yet trickily polyrhythmic, Ugandan-inspired Lukas Ligeti duet. French instrumentalists Cabaret Contemporain then made their American debut with a couple of hypnotic dancefloor jams, part dark dreampop, part disco, part romping serialism and great fun to watch, especially when some early technical glitches were fixed and the band’s two bassists, Ronan Coury and Simon Drappier, were playing subtle interchanges.

Jonathan Haas conducted the NYU Contemporary Music Ensemble with the NYU Steel in a nimbly intricate performance of Kendall Williams’ Conception, expanding the universe of what the steel pan is capable of, the group methodically rising from a comfortable ripple to ominously majestic torrents. Tibetan chanteuse Yungchen Lhamo and pianist Anton Batagov followed with a hypnotic triptych of works from their recently released album Tayatha, a trance-inducing, tersely graceful exercise in the many interesting things that can be done with resonant one-chord, south Asian-tinged jams gently lit by Lhamo’s shimmering melismatics.

Then it was time to go see Ghosts in the Ocean, chanteuse Carol Lipnik and pianist Matt Kanelos’ often chillingly atmospheric experimental noir pop project, who were playing several blocks north at Zirzamin. They made a good segue. It’s surprising that they haven’t made an appearance at Bang on a Can yet.

Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord Swing the Witches

Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord recorded a live album at Brooklyn Fireproof in Bushwick last night. It’s going to be a good one. It’s surprising that more artists, even in jazz, don’t record more concert albums, considering how much more energy there almost inevitably is performing in front of an audience. Much as the band seemed well-rehearsed, as it turns out, they weren’t: their confidence and lively, electric interplay stem from years of playing together. That, and a shared esthetic. Lundbom is an eclectic guitarist and composer who can play perfectly straightforward postbop but more often than not brings sardonic humor or downright viciousness to the music. This time out, Lundbom alternated between restless unease and a more relaxed, legato attack, setting the tone for a night of goodnatured jousting and moments of pure ecstatic bliss. Joining him were  Bryan Murray on the small and unexpectedly low-register “balto” and tenor sax, intertwining and conversing with Jon Irabagon‘s alto sax, Matt Kanelos’ electric piano, Moppa Elliott’s bass and Dan Monaghan’s drums.

The first set was swing shuffles. It was practically comedic to watch Elliott (ringleader of Mostly Other People Do the Killing, arguably New York’s most entertaining live band) walking the bass tirelessly: it was obvious that he couldn’t wait to leave the rails. When he did, it was usually to run permutations on clenched-teeth, percussively circular riffage. While there ws a sextet onstage, the moments when the whole unit was playing were mostly limited to intros and outros, much of the soloing supported simply by bass and drums, Kanelos holding back to a spare, spacious, sostenuto suspense. As Murray swayed and built from a sputter of sparks to a fullscale wail, Elliott’s fingers became a blur of roaring, tremoloing chords, enhanced by the room’s natural reverb. When the song came back to Lundbom – playing a Telecaster through a Fender amp – he took his time, letting the sonics echo for all they were worth.

Kanelos shadowed Lundbom’s murky, enigmatically insistent single-note runs over swirling snowstorm cymbals as the opening number went on, Irabagon taking over the center, nonchalantly holding it together as the rhythm loosened. Lundbom has a kinetic, spring-loaded stage presence, opening the second number with a long solo, working tensely against a central tone, Kanelos echoing that device a little later on with an aching intensity before leaping into unexpectedly purist blues, the band joining him in a split second. Good jokes abounded: Irabagon falling into a deadpan bup-bup-bup until Lundbom finally stepped all over it and wiped the slate clean; Murray and Irabagon playing good cop vs. bad cop on the second of three Lundbom arrangements of old wiccan songs until both horns decided to make a mockery of the blues. The last of the wiccan songs was the only one that the band allowed to go on long enough to reveal its origins as a sad folk tune in waltz time. Ultimately, they made their own sorcery out of it. If the second set was anything like the first, it’s a good thing they got this whole thing in the can.

Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord Do It Again

This album is hilarious. The thing to keep in mind about Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord is that they have an alter ego, Bryan and the Haggards, who play twisted covers of Merle Haggard songs. That “other” band’s lone release (so far), Pretend It’s the End of the World was one of the funniest and best albums of the past year. This new album, credited to Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord and titled Quavers! Quavers! Quavers! Quavers!, follows in the same vein. On one hand, it’s a surprisingly straight-up groove album, but all those grooves, and most of the surprisingly memorable tunes, are ultimately nothing more than fodder for satire and destruction. As you would expect from these guys, it’s cruel and funny and kind of punk although the band has pretty awesome chops for a punk jazz band: Lundbom on electric guitar, Jon Irabagon on alto sax, Bryan Murray on tenor and balto sax, Moppa Elliott on bass and Danny Fischer on drums along with guest Matt Kanelos (leader of plaintively tuneful Americana soul band the Smooth Maria) on electric piano.

The first track is the most straight-ahead, kicking off with an animated Irabagon/Lundbom conversation over Fischer’s deadpan leaden pulse. The guitar picks up a loop, saxes converge and diverge and then Lundbom plays an absolutely stunning chorus-box solo that finally goes off into skronk at the end. That’s for the adrenaline junkies. Kanelos’ astringent, hypnotic, Herbie Hancock-tinted riffage anchors the second track, The Bravest Little Pilot No. 2. As expected, Irabagon veers quickly from lyrical to satirical; Kanelos echoes that a bit later on, steady and increasingly unsteady as it winds down with unexpected grace. Ears Like a Fox is LOL funny, a R&B satire straight out of the Mostly Other People Do the Killing school of deconstruction. Everybody eventually picks up a cheesy riff and then shoots spitballs at it while Fischer finally hits a tongue-in-cheek groove with cluelessly blustery early Ringo style cymbal work.

Taking its name from a fish delivery service, Meat Without Feet has what sounds like a hip-hop beat chopped and backward masked, except that it’s live. It’s a great song – Elliott’s insistent bass chords join in lockstep with a trudging Fischer as Murray takes a long, completely over-the-top, kazoo-like solo on his “balto” sax, Lundbom coming in gingerly and then somewhat sternly working the edges of the melody, as if to say, c’mon guys, get it together. They segue into the fifth track, New Feats of Horsemanship, a brutal slow ballad satire – the savage joy of Murray’s completely unhinged mockery has to be heard to be appreciated. They close with Faith-Based Initiative – you know from the title that it has to be a joke, and it is, a silly go get ’em horn theme and cruel variations. As Elliott runs a deadpan, percussive staccato riff, Fischer lopes across the toms and eventually decides to start hitting on the “one,” one of the funniest moments here among many, matched by Lundbom’s alternate octaves and crazed tremolo-picking and then Irabagon’s constipated elephantine grunting as the rhythm section staggers away, aghast. On one level, it hurts a little to give away all these punchlines; on the other hand, no words could really do justice to them. The album is out now on Hot Cup Records – you’ll see this here at the end of the year on our best of 2011 list if we get that far. Lundbom and his merry band play the cd release show for this one tonight at nine at Zebulon.

Concert Review: Jenifer Jackson at Rockwood Music Hall, NYC 11/19/09

It’s a fine line in the music blogosphere – nobody wants to come off as a cheerleader for a particular artist or band, yet there are some acts who inarguably deserve a lot of attention. Jenifer Jackson is no stranger to regular readers here. But even by her rigorous standards, her show at the Rockwood on the nineteenth was transcendent, the best one she’s done – in New York at least – in a long time. And there have been some good ones in between, just to go the music index above and you will see plenty. Is this overkill? Not if you consider how the much ink the Village Voice gave the Ramones in the summer of 1977, or how much press Coltrane got back in the 50s. That’s not an overstatement. Jackson and her bandmates pianist Matt Kanelos  (who leads a fine Americana-rock band of his own) and drummer Billy Doughty gave a clinic in tersely, wrenchingly beautiful songcraft, Jackson’s vocals gentle but with the steely resolve that underscores the intensity of the emotion in everything she writes.

Kanelos gave notice that he was in particularly bluesy, soulful mode right from the start, beginnining with the psychedelic ballad The War Is Done, from Jackson’s 2001 Birds cd. Good Times Roll (her original, not the B.B.King standard) was hypnotic, even mesmerizing, Kanelos playfully working a glockenspiel in tandem with his lefthand rhythm. The understated frustration anthem Words got a particularly propulsive treatment; by contrast, the hopeful ballad Spring (yet another unreleased gem) was lush and sultry, Doughty playing the lead line on melodica.

The angst-driven existentialist anthem Maybe, pondering the point at which it might make sense to let hope – of whatever kind – fall by the wayside was driven and insistent, part post-Carole King riffage, part sprightly post-Bacharach pop, part countrypolitan. Wherever the song led, the dark undercurrent beneath the catchy, glistening pop surface was always there.

Her most countrypolitan ballad, After the Fall (also from Birds) got the benefit of an absolutely psychedelic, hypnotic, percussive jam out. She wrapped up the set with two new ones – a chorus-driven, Mary Lee’s Corvette-style Americana pop hit, another that matched early 70s radio pop to a sweaty Philly soul groove, and a particularly wistful, gently lovely take on the unreleased 6/8 ballad The Beauty in the Emptying, whose title pretty much speaks for itself. Doughty again took the lead on melodica, enhancing its gentle resilience. Wow. What a show. You’ll see this on our Best NYC Concerts of 2009 list in about a month.

The Rockwood has been Jackson’s home for awhile but now that she’s back, who knows where she’ll be next – watch this space for upcoming dates.

Concert Review: Jenifer Jackson at Rockwood Music Hall, NYC 10/11/09

Jenifer Jackson is back. Not that she ever stopped playing or writing songs – the good news is that her self-imposed exile in Austin is over and she’s returned to Gotham. Sunday evening’s set mixed quiet triumph with some aptly chosen late-summer mood pieces along with some of the tremendously impactful new songs she’s been working up over the last few months. If you haven’t seen Jackson in awhile and you think you know her, the answer is that you really don’t – whether she’s working harmonies off the melodies of audience favorites like Summer’s Over or End of August, or emphasizing  the tropical feel (or the rock feel) of an older number, she’s grown to the point where it’s always a crapshoot where she’ll end up. The only given is that it’ll be a good place.

As much a triumphant homecoming as this may have been, pianist Matt Kanelos underscored everything with a gritty chordal tension, completely in sync with the restlessness, unease and occasional outright angst of Jackson’s songwriting. His gentle honkytonk work on the rather sweet country ballad The Beauty in the Emptying (on Jackson’s forthcoming album) contrasted with the clenched-teeth insistence of the somewhat ironically titled Let the Times Roll (another unreleased, hypnotic gem), the ominously minimalist Groundward and the menacing Blair Witch imagery of Maybe, which was definitely the most intense song of the set.

To end the show, Jackson put down her guitar and over Kanelos’ crisp and incisive chords, put her own spin on I Say a Little Prayer for You. She may have learned it from the very first album she ever owned, Aretha Now – “For the longest time I thought that was her name,” Jackson revealed – but her interpretation was a whole lot more bossa than brass and played up its nuances for all they were worth. She’s back at the Rockwood in November and you ought to see her there.

A Typical Beastly Monday

So good to be back at Small Beast after a few weeks’ absence. Nothing has changed – New York’s most unpredictably fun weekly musical event was as edgy as always. This time around, Pete Galub opened the night while Botanica keyboardist and Small Beast impresario Paul Wallfisch furiously wrote out charts for his show later in the evening with Sally Norvell. Most solo shows are boring to the extreme, but Galub had brought along a gorgeous hollowbody electric guitar and gave a clinic in powerpop songwriting – and when the time came, guitar solos, playing along methodically as if he had his usual band behind him. Galub gets props for his playing, and deservedly so, but his songs are every bit as clever as his work as a lead guitarist for a cavalcade of A-list writers: Amy Allison, Serena Jost and others. He opened with a sardonic, Big Star inflected number possibly titled Exclusive Guest, following that with a gorgeously poignant, minor-key, somewhat Neil Finn-esque tune, Crying Time. A cover of the late former LA Trash frontman Alan Andrews‘ big 6/8 ballad Undiscovered Life maintained the poignant tone while adding a tongue-in-cheek vibe, segueing into a nasty, noisy riff-rocker that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Kevin Salem catalog – complete with an offhandedly savage solo. And then a real surprise, a pensive and heartfelt version of Any Major Dude by Steely Dan. When Galub opened his set, he’d hinted that he might take a detour into the Dan catalog, and this was a typically counterintuitive choice. Most solo shows are a clinic in how to bore an audience: Galub reaffirmed that if you have the chops, the material and a sense of humor, you don’t necessarily need a band.

Guitarist Thomas Simon and his drummer cohort were next on the bill, with a long set of swirling, atmospheric, effects-laden numbers that took the shape of a suite as they segued into one another. “A Spacemen 3 kind of thing,” one of the cognoscenti in the crowd murmured – this set had remarkably more aggression than Simon’s previous appearance at the Beast in July (very favorably reviewed here).

For one reason or another the women who play Small Beast turn out to be the night’s biggest stars, and an Austin punk legend, former Gator Family and Norvells frontwoman Sally Norvell maintained the tradition, backed by Wallfisch and erstwhile Big Lazy bassist Paul Dugan on a few numbers. Norvell is best known as a menacing noir cabaret femme fatale, but this set was a showcase in stylistic diversity, masterful subtlety matched by wrenching, raw intensity. Norvell can belt with anyone, but it’s how she holds back, how she works whatever emotion the lyrics call for that makes her such a captivating presence – and one sorely missed, at least around these parts. A few years back, right around the time that her duo with Kid Congo Powers, Congo Norvell was pretty much finished, she put out an amazing, sparsely beautiful album, Choking Victim, backed just by Wallfisch and occasional minimalist percussion or guitar. They opened with one of the songs from that one, One Gentle Thing, replete with longing and regret, Wallfisch obviously in his element and relishing the moment from its first few stately chords. A creepy, swaying Congo Norvell song pulsed along with a steady, ominous eight-note pulse from the bass. And then noir cabaret personality Little Annie joined them for an understatedly anguished version of her big audience hit Because You’re Gone – the contrast of Annie’s bitter contralto and Norvell’s breathy soprano, and the counterpoint between the two, was absolutely transcendent and the two women made it seem effortless. And unaffectly intense – it brought Norvell to tears. The rest of the set could have been anticlimactic but it wasn’t – a brief, menacing Paul Bowles song (Wallfisch worked with him for a time), a sad minor ballad in 6/8, a gorgeously dark lament, and then Norvell finally cut loose with a soaring version of the old spiritual Trouble in the World, imbuing it with a nihilistic fury. “You can’t have an apocalypse without Jesus,” she grinned gleefully.

Keyboardist and Americana soul stylist Matt Kanelos and then another keyb guy, frequent Thalia Zedek collaborator M.G. Lederman were scheduled to follow, but there were places to go and things to do. Next week’s Beast is a beauty, with Julia Kent, Carol Lipnik and Rebecca Cherry in addition to Wallfisch doing his usual set solo at the piano – if you’re in New York this coming Monday you’d be crazy to miss it.

Concert Review: Jenifer Jackson at Rockwood Music Hall, NYC 5/26/09

Yet another reminder of how the true test of a performer is how they hold up under less than ideal circumstances. In this case Jenifer Jackson was battling some nasty but hopefully short-acting bug, sweating and rallying and ultimately coming out victorious – if she hadn’t told the crowd, hardly anyone would have noticed. Jackson has gotten a lot of ink here and will continue to, because she’s criminally underrated: plainly and simply, most of the songwriters on her level are either dead (Lennon, Jobim, Arthur Lee) or in the accepted canon (Lou Reed, Loretta Lynn, Gamble & Huff). Those references are deliberate because Jackson either draws on or has a song or three resembling all those greats. This show was mostly a mix of newer material from her next cd, which is inching tantalizingly toward completion. Like her most recent song titles – Time, Words, Maybe – she’s mining a strikingly terse, richly lyrical, melodically simple yet minutely jewelled vein. And though visibly struggling, she still toyed with her vocal melodies with an otherwise effortless expertise, harmonizing off her usual vocal line or, at the end of the show, finally breaking into a soaring wail.

Backing her this time out were longtime bandmates Oren Bloedow (of the magnificent Elysian Fields) on guitar and the equally haunting, tasteful Matt Kanelos (who has a brilliantly subtle new album of his own out) on piano as well as her longtime drummer Greg Wieczorek AKA G Wiz who joined her on the last few songs of the set. The newest material continued to be the most impressive: the sadly resolute 6/8 country ballad The Beauty in the Emptying; a jazzier take on early 70’s Carole King, with a cautionary note to seize the day; a hypnotic, Velvets-ish version of the completely un-bluesy Let the Good Times Roll (another carpe diem theme); an absolutely riveting, minimalistically ominous version of the forthcoming Groundward and the best song of the set, Maybe, Bloedow adding a soulful energy to the lyric’s stoic resignation via a masterful series of slides and bends. If the new album is anything like what she played at this show, it’s a serious contender for best of the year in whatever year it comes out. Watch this space for upcoming New York dates.

Concert Review: Serena Jost and Matt Kanelos at le Poisson Rouge, NYC 4/29/09

A particularly well-conceived art-rock doublebill. Both performers are people whose music lives between the lines, thriving on subtlety, understatement and ellipses rather than grand gestures. Serena Jost, when she’s not dabbling in modeling or getting work as a sidewoman (she’s a classically trained cellist who did time in Rasputina), leads a semi-rotating cast of characters through a vast landscape that spans the world of classical balladry, artsy pop, surf music, no-wave funk and straight-up rock. Wednesday night at le Poisson Rouge she had the benefit of keeping things fairly austere and low-key since she had a great sound system at her disposal. This time out she had the melodic Rob Jost on electric bass, multi-instrumentalist Rob DiPietro playfully and artfully handling the drums and in place of her regular axeman Julian Maile she had Pete Galub (just reviewed here leading his own band) handling lead guitar duties while she alternated between cello, piano and acoustic guitar.

Galub transformed the group, bringing the melodies front and center while adding an artsy, early 70s tinged bluesy feel that ran the gamut from plaintive to towering and majestic. The most dramatic moment came on the bridge during the long partita I Wait where Galub took Maile’s Dick Dale-ish lines deep into the Middle East, tossing the baton to Jost with a flourish where she grabbed it, held on for dear life and kept the revelry going. Then he took the usually stark Almost Nothing and added a vivid solo, part fiery blues and part big ornate ballad, that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Ian Bairnson playbook. Jost had been singing with her usual full, round and inscrutable clarity – she’s so direct that it would be impossible for there to be no subtext – but picked an insistent new ballad to cut loose and wail, as she did on another new one which she played on cello. Cellists don’t usually let their hair down to this extent, but Jost did.

By the time frequent Jenifer Jackson collaborator Matt Kanelos and his band the Smooth Maria hit the stage, the tables had all filled up, depression or no depression, a heartwarming sight. Nice to hear him cut loose on vocals, too, unadorned, casual and unaffected, much like the opening act. Backed by an excellent lead guitarist with a noisy edge as well as a subtle, swinging rhythm section, he alternated between acoustic guitar and piano, playing mostly new songs from the band’s brand-new cd Silent Show. While Americana is his fallback space, many of his songs have an undercurrent alternating between tastefully jazzy complexity and an almost minimalist, purist classical sensibility. The influences combine to create a dreamy yet focused, frequently poignant late summer atmosphere, replete with longing for something that doesn’t always overtly make itself known. Like Jost, Kanelos can be hard to read, all the more reason to listen closely. 

The big 6/8 piano ballad Rain evoked early 70s Pink Floyd (circa Obscured by Clouds), hypnotic and eerily edgy, Kanelos going completely rubato as it built to a big crescendo and then subsided to the point where he could step back in without any altercations. The night’s opening number, Abandoned Town reminded of middle-period Wilco with its “we won’t go back, we won’t go” insistence and noisily ringing crescendo of guitar chords. Another number felt like Chet Baker doing southwestern gothic, Kanelos and his lead player taking turns playing off and then on the beat as it wound down at the end. The crowd, quietly attentive to the end, went crazy for an encore and after a wait that didn’t bode well, were rewarded with a nostalgic ballad that Kanelos played solo on piano.

Images from Jenifer Jackson at Rockwood Music Hall, NYC 3/24/09

A photoblogger’s dream. In lieu of actual photos, some indelible moments:

 

– Elysian Fields guitarist Oren Bloedow, a longtime Jackson bandmate, grinning ear to ear as he launches into a warm succession of chords straight out of Nashville, 1966. Not what you’d expect from the leader of a brooding, noir downtown art-rock band…

 

– Jackson‘s songs tend to be soft, but she punishes her guitar strings. There’s a moment during a newer one, Let the Good Times Roll (nothing like B.B. King – or the Cars) where she holds down the rhythm during an instrumental break, bending over, wailing on the strings, hair all up in her face like Courtney Love. Who is sort of the opposite of Jenifer Jackson.

 

– Pianist Mattt Kanelos, completely unrehearsed, all deadpan as he does the smart thing – playing one beat behind the band – as they launch into the old doo-wop hit La La Means I Love You.

 

– Jackson singing those la-las with real feeling. After all she’s been through – if her lyrics are any indication – she’s still a believer. Back for another ride through hell.

 

– “Plain, fancy, plain,” Bloedow reminding the troops about how to make the music match the vocals on the song’s outro as they launch into an audience request, the Beatlesque When You Looked at Me, from Jackson’s first full-length album, from ten years ago. Has it really been that long?

 

– Jackson looks down as she launches into the chorus of the restless yet ambient Groundward, telegraphing where the song is going. Most of the crowd don’t know the song yet – lots of folks who weren’t there at her March 10 show. They will sooner than later. They’re rapt. They miss the singer who used to play just about every week around here. Watch this space for upcoming NYC dates. 

Concert Review: Matt Kanelos at Rockwood Music Hall, NYC 11/7/08

Running does wonders for songwriting. Highly respected as a pianist and sideman, Matt Kanelos is also a runner, and his melodies have the kind of repetitive insistence that runs through your mind after a few miles (or a few hundred feet, depending on your endurance level). Last night at the Rockwood he and his superbly tasteful band kept the room hushed throughout a roughly 40-minute set of terse, subtle, low-key songs. Beginning and ending the show on piano, he played acoustic guitar on the rest of the material, frequently fingerpicking and demonstrating the same craftsmanship that’s become his drawing card. Many of the songs in the set used traditional Americana melodies as their starting point, imaginatively embellished much in the same vein as Matt Keating or Tandy in a more reflective moment. A couple of times the band hit the overdrive pedal and took them doublespeed – there weren’t a lot of crescendos, but they made the most of them. The lead guitarist was especially captivating, flavoring the first song with beautifully pointillistic passages with a late-period Jerry Garcia feel, later adding gorgeously nuanced slide work to a couple of others. The rhythm section was subtle and imaginative, the bassist adding fleet, nimble climbs and jumps as the songs built, the drummer thoughtful and incisive with the occasional rimshot or big whoosh on a cymbal. They even built one to a brief, noisy and effectively jarring bop-jazz interlude before returning to its quiet ambience.

 

While Kanelos’ melodies draw the listener in, his vocals for one reason or another didn’t cut through. To his credit, he didn’t bleat or Pearl Jam the vocals. He really didn’t do much of anything –  whenever the songs hit a swell, the lyrics were inaudible. And that didn’t seem to be the Rockwood’s fault: owner Ken Rockwood, a sonic magician, was working the board himself. What this band screams out for, quietly, insistently and hypnotically, is a Chet Baker type horn or string player who can croon a little (Roland Satterwhite, you around?) or a chanteuse who can take Kanelos’ captivating songs to the next level.