Cripsy Duck - 9.19.00

On Sept. 12 and 13 I found myself in the somewhat awkward position of having to evaluate two artists in a medium I know relatively little about: the jazz guitar. I say "relatively" because I do have a copy of Wes Montgomery's A Day in the Life, and I've grooved to a fair portion of George Benson's "On Broadway" variations, and I'm pretty familiar with Pat Metheny's midwestern future-jazz and the astral intensity of John McLaughlin's fusionoid freakouts. But the only full-time professional "jazz" guitar player I've seen in recent years was D.C.'s mighty Chuck Brown, the godfather of Go-Go-- a jazz adept, but by no means a "real" jazz musician, so I can claim no special knowledge. In fact, having never been a student of the specificities of jazz as a music form, I tend to enter these arenas with a certain amount of trepidation. It's as though discussing music that requires an education to play without having shared that education myself is a form of sacrilege. (You won't find me expounding on Talmudic mysticism for that matter, either.)

But I am a musician, albeit an underachieving, slack, rough-around-the-edges-and- -maybe-some-in-the-middle-too kind of original acoustic "rock and stuff" performer. And I do know the meaning of "suck"-- often stooping to define it myself-- so I suppose I can evaluate my experiences from at least a semi-informed layman's standpoint.

Turner and Bowen
The two nights in question were uniquely suited to comparison since they both featured players who usually work with other soloists (usually saxophones) being forced to hold down their bands without this luxury. The lack of reinforcements meant that each guitarist had to take a disproportionate part of the shows' solos, giving ample opportunity for critical appraisal.

Tuesday night it was George Turner at Michael's Bistro with Johnny Gilmore (drums) and Bob Bowen (bass). The following night it was Mike Rosensky at Miller's with Aaron Binder (drums) and Randall Pharr (bass).

First let's discuss the venues. Miller's, for all its quirks, is really the city's one true jazz bar. Jazz just seems somehow suited to its old room interior. It's in the dust. It's the crust in the Guiness tap and the sludge at the bottom of the ice bin.

With Michael's Bistro it's more of a love thing. The management appreciates jazz and wants to support it and so dedicates one or two nights a week to it, but the Wahoo crowds are kinda luke-warm toward it. Then again, for most of its patrons, the Bistro is really a place to go drinking, not listening. And jazz-- being a folk idiom evolved into true "high art"-- is a listener's art form. The Bistro does throw (in my opinion) some of the town's most intense weekly shindigs, but it's really just for fun. Whereas with Miller's, music-- and especially jazz-- is a secondary but critical raison d'etre. (That's "reason to exist" for you non-continental types.) So there's that.

Rosensky In Flight
How does that affect a performance? Hard saying. Turner's Bistro show was well recieved but sparse, and I could tell the band was wanting for a second soloist. With only one "lead" instrument, the rhythm section ended up having to vamp out many of the second and third solo spots. Of course, the Bob Bowen/Johnny Gilmore rhythm section was fully capable of this, and Bowen ended up playing a fair number of decent although exhausting bass solos. Turner's always inventive guitar spots tended to end long before the songs had played themselves out, and Bowen-- and eventually Gilmore-- were frequently racing in to pick up the slack. I believe Turner is just somewhat conditioned to leave space open for other soloists.

Rosensky seemed a little better prepared for this scenario. He likes to trance out, and his soaring solos tend to naturally stretch well over five minutes, so the band could just do its job-- make up cool accents and hold down the bottom, occasionally stepping up to play some nice "down-time" solos. Rosensky gets a fair amount of respect from the downtown jazz community as evidenced by the arrival of jazzfather John D'earth, trumpet in hand, called in from homebound relaxation to save the day with some bonus blowing. But had he not shown up, I'm sure Mike would have had the affair well in hand.

Anyway, these, our two accessible local jazz guitarists, both lay out some really fine high-brow jazz string stretchery. Rosensky might be a slightly more commanding soloist in a warmer old-school jazz hang out, but Turner has the added bonus of being a gifted composer who has penned some nice intricate and catchy tunes. Go see them both.

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Gilmore and Robbins

Sept. 14 -- Secret frontman Andy Rowland is back in action, sitting in with (formerly Mississippi) Tom Robbins and a crew of heavies for a regular Blues-Funk night every Thursday at Durty Nelly's. The band, made up of dangerously jammin' Johnny Gilmore and fat and nasty Vick Brown, blows through all kinds of old-school blues goodies in the homey little Wayside club. I watched in awe as Robbins, a quintissential hound dog if ever there was one, wielded his beat-up old Gibson acoustic like an electric chainsaw. (How does he get that tone?) Even more bizarre was witnessing Johnny Gilmore, the most dangerous and versatile trap-set player ever to roll out of this dusty village, dutifully playing stock electric blues parts with a big silly grin on his face.

--Cripsy Duck