Recent Concerts You've Enjoyed

Thought this might be a fun thread and a way to find out about acts on tour.

My wife and I saw the Smoke Fairies at the Tractor Tavern last evening as the opening act for Rasputina. The Smoke Fairies are a 'folk blues' duo from Wales and have been described as "Bob Dylan's dream." I thought that their debut release "Through Low Light and Trees" was one of last year's best. It was just the two principles singing and playing guitar. Really terrific concert with excellent acoustics and thankfully not too loud.

If you are ever in Seattle, the Tractor Tavern is a great venue in the Ballard neighborhood. Very fun people watching...I think my wife and I were the only ones without tattoos! I got to chat with them after their set and had my LP signed. I love the lilting Welsh accents!

Here's a video of "Hotel Room" from their debut LP:

[video]

 

3 and a half hours!

 

3 and a half hours!

whew! Hope there were at least 2 intermissions if not 3!!!

 

No, just 1.

 

3 and a half hours!

You haven't been to the Ring Cycle. 4 in 6, days, with Gotterdammerung lasting 5+ hours (two intermissions). Of course, the last scene is the end of the world!

Larry

 

No, just 1.

well, its bach...so worth it.

 

Beethoven's 9th again, had watched them 3 months ago at the Royal Albert Hall and had been disappointed, saw them yesterday at the Barbican and was in heaven. Awesome.

 

Chris Botti at the Blue Note on 12/30/14. Great show a real showman. Picture isn't very good. I should have brought my wife's iphone instead of mine. The violinist was as easy on the eyes as on the ears. Straight from Bocelli at MSG.

 

Had great fun listening to The Westerlies last evening at The Royal Room

 

Andris Nelsons is the new Director of the BSO. I attended a concert he lead last fall and it was interesting. Last night, he lead the orchestra to Bruckner's 7th and it was just simply extraordinary. He started the symphony by actually addressing the audience, and he explained how Bruckner is so dear to his heart, and that this would be the first of a complete Bruckner cycle over the next few years. Nelsons is said to be a Bruckner expert.

In the picture, you may notice he removed the cymbals and triangle - as per the booklet, there is a long-standing debate whether Bruckner intended to include them in the Adagio, as he specifically did in his 8th, because though the original score includes them, there are question marks and a hand-written "not valid" over them, which some scholars think is not really his own hand-writing. The point really being that Nelsons aimed for ultra-pure tone, and he nailed it... the brass section was just extraordinary. Timpani? To die for... Strings? mamma mia... It's also fascinating to hear an orchestra come to end of a note after a crescendo at exactly the same instance, and the hall to go dead silent milliseconds thereafter. As you can image, I had a great time!

 

Trombone Shorty @ The Belly Up in Solana Beach, CA.

 

I think Boston made a great choice in Nelsons. Bruckner 7 was my introduction to Bruckner 50 years ago, with the Walter recording. Great piece. With luck you will have Nelsons around for many years. We heard him last spring conduct the Vienna Phil on their US tour. Two concerts - one with the Bruckner 6th. He was a joy to listen and watch. Reminds me a lot of Carlos Kleiber in the use of both hands and arms and body. Hope his weight doesn't affect his health long term.

Coincidentally we just heard another famous Latvian born musician, also from Riga, Gidon Kremer. He did a recital with the young Russian pianist Danill Trifonov (both were Tchaikovsky Competition winners - 5 decades apart) on Tuesday. Great music (Mozart, Vainberg, and Schubert) on a different scale from Bruckner and the BSO.

Larry

 

John Pizzarelli at Birdland 2/6/15.

 

We have been trying to expand our concert going horizons a bit and saw Peter Nero on Sunday in Berkeley, with Mike Barnett, his bass player of 25 years in an all Gershwin concert. They had a guest vocalist, Katie Strohmeier. Nero is quite amazing at 81. He still has his playing chops - jazz, with a strong classical influence. I bought his first album on RCA way back in the mid sixties. Haven't followed his career much, but learned he conducted the Philly Pops for a long time, in addition to his piano playing. At 17 he soloed with Paul Whiteman (who premiered the piece) playing the Rhapsody in Blue and on Sunday he played an eight minute version playing both piano and orchestral parts. He said one of his first big gigs was with Whiteman, where they played in Las Vegas for 3 weeks, 7 days a week, 3 shows a day. He played a shorter version of Rhapsody in Blue as part of the show, a total of 63 times in the 3 weeks.

Nero went to the NYC high school for Music and Arts and Julliard. There were some of his Music and Arts schoolmates in the audience on Sunday.

Larry

PS. One unfortunate bit was that Barnett's electric bass (a stand up bass, but with cut outs) was amplified and sounded bloated and somewhat overloaded, but not to the point of real annoyance.

 

Yes he conducted the Philly Pops for many a year.

Will be seeing Tierney Sutton in NYC on 2/19 and Dee Dee Bridgewater on 3/11 and Monty Alexander on 3/28.

 

Tierney Sutton at The Jazz Standard in NYC on 2/19/15

 

Christian McBride Trio at Chris' Jazz Cafe Philadelphia on 2/28/15.

 

Dee Dee Bridgewater at the Blue Note NYC 3/11/15

 

Dee Dee Bridgewater at the Blue Note NYC 3/11/15

View attachment 19347

She's fantastic.

Last night I saw D'Angelo and the Vanguard at Best Buy Theatre. Also fantastic.

 

Saw Al Stewart (of Year of the Cat fame) in a very small (150 capacity) venue (Eddie's Attic) this sunday. Fantastic show.

 

The smaller the venue, the better!