Re: Meadowlark Lemon Trio/Quartet

[Cummings <r_t_cummings@compuserve.com>]

interesting how this miles 70's thing has attracted SO many musicians in
the last couple years.

e.g. wadada smith and henry kaiser, bobby previte's bitches brew thang
and ponga, tim hagan's last blue note album, bob belden's live stuff,
... etc.

was miles just THAT far ahead of the rest of us? and i remember how
everyone (me too) used to trash his 70's stuff ... in the 80's of
course. ;-)

anyway man, that's the man-machine interface that lsd helped us to
recognize as the evolution of life on earth, right? (do i sound like ray
manzarek or what?) only problem was, some of the explorers went a little
too far beyond the rest of the boat - and we thought they were tellin'
tall tales.

boy, and to think that i still have a hard time convincing "jazz"
musicians that "machines" can be creative ... ;-)

l8ter,
rob

pvallad1@tampabay.rr.com schrieb:
> 
> 
> Some of you have seen my Tampa Bay area friends Dave and Misha post here.
> I like to catch them when I can with their ongoing band "experiment" 
>Hazard
> Factor not only because they're nice, cool cats but also because it's 
>been
> a different show every time by the nature of their "band as laboratory" 
>idea.
> 
> Well, after their St. Paddy's Day gig, we got a special treat.  I ran 
>into
> the two Johns that I met in tabla class a little while back.  Taller John
> told me that hooked up Kid John with "these jazz guys".  "These jazz 
>guys"
> turned out to be an outfit called the Meadowlark Lemon Trio, with John as
> the newest member (technically they were a quartet that night).  Then I 
>saw
> Kid John and greeted him.  "Remember I was talking about getting into
> sampling and electronic stuff?"  He showed off his new Yamaha SU700
> sampler.  Hmm... this is a trumpet-playing kid who's getting into
> "electronic stuff", counts the likes of Dave Douglas and Tim Berne among
> his jazz heroes, and on top of all that is taking tabla class to expand 
>his
> mind and musical soul even more.  Should be an interesting gig, I thought
> to myself.
> 
> I patiently waited while the band and sound guy struggled to solve the
> upright bass feedback problem, then sat back as the keyboard player
> launched into an opening solo.  Then... the kid began to play...
> 
> When my jaw wasn't lying on the floor, I was laughing in delight and
> disbelief at what was going on before my very eyes and ears.  Don't get 
>me
> wrong, it was really cool that John had two mics, one plugged into a wah
> pedal, the other plugged into the SU700 (he later explained it comes 
>with a
> built-in effects processor that works for external audio) plus a little
> Radio Shack mixer; not to mention the sampler itself, from which he'd 
>drop
> in samples and loops.  But more than all the gear, what just blew me away
> was that this 18-year-old kid had the musical chops and maturity of a 
>much,
> much older musician.  It is truly inspiring, exciting, and terrifying all
> at once to see this much talent and creativity in someone so young.  The
> gear was just the spicing that helped take their renditions of Freedom 
>Jazz
> Dance and Gingerbread Boy to some otherworldly place.  Afterwards, Taller
> John compared Kid John, as he is _today_ to Miles in his prime.  I had to
> agree, because he used silence in his phrasing as effectively as he used
> his wah pedal and sampler.  I can't even imagine where he'll be in his
> musical development just 5 years from now.
> 
> This is why I like to go to see live music, just for the chance that an
> experience like this will come along. :)
> 
> Paolo