Red and Black

The Trio played a great show on the 2nd at Red and Black Cafe, the host of a really great creative music series put on by Mary Sue Tolbin and Paxselin. They have really created a great atmosphere for the musicians and listeners alike. It's a pleasure to feed a roomful of hungry ears and look up to see a roomful of faces looking back at you instead of huddling closer together to continue the conversation. Thank you Mary Sue!

On another note, I just went to the Reel Music Fest showing of a film called the Legacy of Coltrane. It was really just the full reproduction of the Jazz Casual performance and a couple other filmed performances from the Quartet(and one Quintet with Dolphy) interspersed with interviews with 'fellow musicians and friends of John Coltrane' which turned out to be a few(forgive me) rather inane comments from Elvin Jones. It didn't get into his real 'late' period or even interesting discussion the entire time. It was good, though, just to spend some time watching the Quartet at work. I was very much struck by Elvin's playing in particular. What I had in the past experienced more as 'Elvin sure plays alot' turned into a realization of the deep groove going on, especially in his left hand. His snare chruns out some extremely propulsive beats. As for Dolphy, I can't say I have ever liked his playing with the Trane band. To my ears, his playing developed more out of Bebop that is just really different harmonically, whereas Trane was on another level of harmony beyond the stressed out squirelly lines of out-bop. And let's be honest, Dolphy's flute playing is pretty bad. That said, I do enjoy discs like Out To Lunch and the Illinois Concert.