Perhaps it was a combination of all of the above, but whatever it was, my own enthusiasm for “jazz” had been well and truly diluted by the time I left the venue last Wednesday night. My gig-going companion was far more upbeat about it all, and I’m quite certain the vast majority of the sold out crowd enjoyed the gig a lot more than I did.
The band - Herbie Hancock (piano, keys), James Genus (bass, orgasmic facial expressions), Lionel Loueke (guitar/various vocal FX), and Vinnie Colaiuta (drums) - was fantastic, polished, and thoroughly professional throughout the near two-hour set. That wasn’t the issue. No question, these guys are all world class musicians, and it was a privilege to be in their company.
But I’ve got to be honest; there just wasn’t enough “funk” for me, and the entire set was an excursion into the trippy excesses of what might otherwise be called prog-fusion. I knew enough about Hancock - a spritely 79 years of age - to know that work from 1983’s Future Shock album was always unlikely to feature, but most of his best material has always featured horns/brass and there wasn’t much of that on the night.
We got variations on ‘Actual Proof’, ‘Chameleon’, and ‘Cantaloupe Island’ (during the encore), and some great Afro-fusion-vocal stuff from Loueke at various points, plus a raft of other work this jazz-pleb struggled to identify, but it was clearly more about an appreciation of the “vibe” for most in attendance, and I was having some difficulty with that. A little bit of variety, and a little more wiggle room might have helped.
In his review for the Dominion Post, learned scribe Colin Morris, a man who knows a thing or two about this stuff, called it “a contender for concert of the year” ... so what do I know?
Maybe it was just me.
No comments:
Post a Comment