Brian Blade and Mama Rosa - Blue Horse - Sept. 11, 2012

Brian Blade and Mama Rosa - Blue Horse

Sept. 11, 2012


The evening begins with the clarion call of a coal train whistle in the distance. Brian Blade and the Mama Rosa Band are assembled on the revamped stage at the Blue Horse listening, smiling as the sound fades into a slow dirge on the keyboards. Blade is singing there is “no fear of darkness with you by my side.” Only moments into the performance and there is a sense of experiencing something extraordinary. There is a beautiful gospel intensity filling the room, a sudden spiritual quality. Then, the songs is over, a fragment from a lost rock opera, opening up the possibilities of the music, reconstructing the expectations of the night. The capacity crowd is transfixed.

A recommendation by Julian Macdonough, never to be taken lightly, brought me down here. Blade is a well-known jazz drummer and composer who performs with the Wayne Shorter Quartet, as well as leading his own band, The Brian Blade Fellowship. Mama Rosa evolved out of a series of intensely personal recordings he made at home. At the encouragement of Daniel Lanois, he shaped with into an evocative and lyrical song cycle. I was curious to see how Blade’s jazz sensibilities translated to a more singer-songwriter oriented format. The current iteration of the band features Kelly Jones on keyboards and vocals, Goffrey Moore on guitar, Chris Thomas on bass and Steve Nistor on drums.

Three songs in, there are soulful echoes of Bobby Womack, elements of Across 100th Street. Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man. Something there of Beck from Sea Change. The songs trail off, segueing into each other seamlessly, underlining the interconnectedness to each other. The qualities of gentle and accomplished experimentation with structure and form lead me to slightly muse what Jimi Hendrix would have sounded like if he were still alive and performing.

What follows is the deeply spiritual, Mercy Angel.  “Feel the sunshine on my skin / It must be you smiling within / From above, I feel your love fall downward / Troubled waters wash over me.” Beautifully accompanied on vocals by Kelly Jones. Blade’s guitar has a sharp, percussive quality. Moore’s lead creating unexpected whips and wails of sound almost of time, transcending time signatures, rising from deep spaces with the music and then moving out front and center. Thomas and Nistor constructing solid architectures of sound around them. There is a slow build from plaintive solitary exploration to a communal celebration. Then the return to the solitary singer addressing his angel. There is an intimacy here, like witnessing someone say their prayers. It is beautiful and transcendent.

These songs are vignettes into the spiritual world of the singer. They are studies in sonic textures and modes, as a means of self-exploration through musical expression. In an interview, Blade said, "Revealing more of ourselves is always daunting, but I feel like I need to keep challenging myself and peeling away layers to get to the core of who I am and what I have to offer."  

After a short break, the second set resumes the atmospheric gospel tones with rounded, soft sculpted chords. The phrase “come down to the old country” evokes a small country church choir. This builds up through ecstatic repetition into musical vocalizations that move beyond language and pure sound. Expressive sounds, chants, the speaking in tongues. The band is more relaxed. The music is more open. Song structures are broken apart and there is space for a sort of dynamic improvisation to occur. At one point, Brian says to the audience: “Being with people you love and trust allows you possibilities of chance taking, that you have shoulders to lean on, so let’s take a chance....”

The extraordinary song, At the Centerline, quotes the Serenity Prayer, following with the sublime line: “mercy hold us when we fall.” The crowd at the Blue Horse seem to be hanging on every note, intent on following the narrative of the music all the way through. There is rare and beautiful intensity of quiet participation in the unfolding of the performance.

Penultimate is a cover of Fire and Brimstone by Link Wray, which sets ablaze all of the introspective spiritual intensity and provides a cathartic release for the room. Images of the Sinners at the Hands of an Angry God dancing to the devil’s music in a small country church a hot summer night.

An encore comes without question. Steve Nistor rumbling the drums darkly. Chris Thomas’ deep bass voice balanced beautifully with Kelly Jones’ and Brain Blade in the middle singing: “they tell me of a home.” Goffrey Moore’s guitar is blistering the air up on the stage. A supreme moment held there, sustained, harmonious. And then, in one of those poetic and magical moments, the distant whistle of the train rises out of darkness to announce the end.

http://www.brianblade.com/

Brian Blade - Black Drop Coffeehouse - 2012

House Of Tarab with Ruby, Anyelle & Delilah – The Blue Horse – Sunday, April 22, 2012

House Of Tarab with Ruby, Anyelle & Delilah – The Blue Horse

Sunday, April 22, 2012


The House of Tarab from Seattle line the small stage at the Blue Horse filling the room with evocative Arabic music. There is a full house. The music continues to build as Delilah, the first dancer, begins with a beautiful traditional style, a golden sash wound round her, smiling the entire time. Dancing as seduction, ritualized prayer movements. Like watching a bird or a flower slowly blooming. Then the ache of David McGrath’s breathy Nai flute, Erik Brown’s slow tabla drum, Andy Zadrozny’s soft bass, followed by more revelations in the dance. By the time the band begins the third song with percussive whomps and snakelike riffs on the Nai, the crowd is clapping and hollering out encouraging ululations. The band is chanting hypnotically. The dancer is burning like a star at the still point.

The next piece begins with Tracy Helming’s violin opening up the soul slowly over a winding drone. The dancer a curving odalisque. The crowd frozen like statues, the dancer moving under the tent of the sky, under ancient evening light.  The dancer rolling up against the rhythm like waves licking the sides of a boat, hands stretched up to the heavens and fluttering down like birds, like rain, like falling stars.

Next up is Anyelle from Bellingham. Enters with hand cymbals and a huge smile. Moving sinuous and slower, arching up and back. The hand cymbals accenting the music, now full of eastern echoes and sighs, hands clicking though the air with mysterious percussive sound. Twirling now with a blue scarf, a turning blue sky wave contained in the soft choral intonations of the band. At times the dancer slows down within the music, moving slow motion and slower as the music burns around them, a flame of movement frozen within the center of the fire.

Next piece is a beautiful Oud solo by Stephen Elaimy. A haunting sound, the eastern tunings, amazing playing. It is as if the player is moving the dancer through the scales, plucking the strings to move her arms, legs, head through an intimate musical relationship. Beautiful and strangely poignant. Then, tabla drum rolls and trills and cries from the crowd as the dancer floats across the floor in a rhythmic series of shivers, curves and shimmies. The drums rolling out soft thunder as the dancer pops like lightning.

The last dancer is Ruby. Enters with spins and cymbals. Fiery red with swirling hair. Exuding exotic sensuality. The music with beautiful time signature breaks. Ruby’s hand cymbals working like chains. There is a sense of something dangerous on the floor. Dancing with blood, Kali Ma moving amidst the bones, dancing the skin off the skeleton, turning like a dervish, like a wheel of desire, waves of blood spilling off the dress and splattering the mesmerized crowd, snake like formulations entrancing, hypnotizing, voluptuous turns with a diaphanous red scarf like a mist of blood. Sublime musical intonations from the band, monk-like chanting, the scarves now like razors cutting through the air, the room bathed in red, forms catching the light and turning it down into deep sensual shadow movements amidst the soft carnal music.  There are hieroglyphs of desire and beauty in the air.

House of Tarab - Arabic Musical Ensemble

The Good Time Girls Present: An Old West Variety Show - Blue Horse Gallery - Friday, February 17th, 2012

The Good Time Girls Present: An Old West Variety Show - Blue Horse Gallery

Friday, February 17th, 2012

Count on the irrepressible Good Time Girls, Marissa McGrath and Sara Holodnick, to stage a variety show in the manner it might have been performed in an Old Western town. Regardless of whether or not they are talking about brothels, serial killers or Bellingham's Historical Identity, the Good Time Girls consistently manage to educate and entertain in best ways possible.

The tables at the Blue Horse are littered with cards and gold coins. An old piano sways drunkenly just off stage. After a short welcoming introduction by Sara and Marissa, the evening gets off to a nice start with a beautiful woman singing a jazzy song about all the clothes her man bought her before he abandoned her. As the song progresses, off goes the clothes down to a tasteful peignoir. Everybody seemed to stop talking around then.

Next up Liz Jennings performed a dramatic reading of a Robert Service poem. “O haggard, haunted, hidden One / What see you in the dying year?” Absolutely beautiful. Following her is a haunting fiddle piece by Eric Chabot that seems to transform all the lights to lambent flame and fill the outer dark with a lonely apprehension. It put a stillness in the room that lent considerable authenticity to the notion that you might actually be sitting in an Old West Saloon. Then the beautiful, bountiful Dirty Bird Cabaret appeared out the wings like a flamboyance of flamingos, taking over the Blue Horse, frolicking amidst the crowd and shaking it all over the stage. After that, what more could anyone do that take a quick break.

Liz Jennings returned to humorously explain melodrama with ample crowd participation. She had the crowd in the palm of her hand. Marvin kept up a beautiful sonic atmosphere on the piano working through several ragtime pieces with grace and ease. At one point, a drunk man, a Gen. S. Casey, from backwoods East Texas stumbled on to the stage and attempted to recite a tedious poem by Charles "Bonesy" Jones about moral luck and stricken jack rabbits. Thankfully, he was shot and kicked off stage by one of the Good Time Girls.

The Dirty Birds seemed to appear from nowhere at regular intervals, lighting the crowd on fire and being generally appropriately inappropriate. After Eric Chabot returned to the stage and played another sublime piece, Anneka Morgan took the stage to sing an opera piece that had Arthur, the owner of the Blue Horse, considering making one night of the week an opera night. Anneka’s singing was terribly beautiful and happily sad, executed with elegant talent. Marvin’s accompaniment was subtle and perfect. The evening seemed to gather around the moment, time fading, as a beautiful woman poured out her soul through a song on a stage some Old Western town.







WWU Faculty Jazz Collective – The Blue Horse Gallery - Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

WWU Faculty Jazz Collective - source

WWU Faculty Jazz Collective – The Blue Horse Gallery

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011




I walk in to the Blue Horse Gallery to the slow padded mallet rumble and rhythm of Julian MacDonough’s drums and an unfurling series of smoky notes from Mike Allens’ sax. Just like that, the world seems to become deeper and richer, filled with the sound of talented musicians working out subtle equations of melody. There is a good crowd here. Attentive. Focused. Listening. Water and wine drinkers. The Professors, as they are called, are relaxed and smiling onstage. The music is excellent.

Adam Thomas, playing the stand-up bass, eases into Ray Charles’ “Black Jack.” Echoes of the ironic phrasing of Mose Allison in his voice. ‘How unlucky can one man be?” I am immediately struck by the level of discipline, control, tightness. At first impression, there is a formality even in the looseness of the performance. But after some time, what is apparent is a simply a higher level of musicianship than is usually present here in town. The next song is by Miles Black, who switches with ease from guitar to the old upright piano behind him. The song kicks off with a beautiful percussive intro, stand-up bass rumbling, the tension building between the two, setting the stage for the piano to step in. By the time Mike Allen’s sax appears, like a snake in the water, your head is sunk into the very heart of jazz. It’s so subtle, like a Zen joke about enlightenment. Makes you want to laugh out loud.

They segue into the Juan Tizol / Duke Ellington standard “Caravan.” Julian knocks out sharp rhythms on the edge of the drums, the sound of stick upon stretched skin. The classic exotic melody seems to catch fire, acquire a life of its own. The musicians play beautifully off of each other. Mike Allen’s sax stretches and twists the melody through time. Miles’ piano remarks in sharp staccato counterpoint response. Julian now playing with his hands, ancient intimate rhythms, ticking punctuation for questions of being that only music can ask, that the performance of live jazz, here and now, seem to particularly ask.

The second set starts off with soft brushes on the drums. Miles Black playing a piano sweet melody - reminding me of the introspective aspects of Bill Evans “I Loves You Porgy.” Bass slow and perfect. Something about the rolling time of the brushes. The languid spaces between the phrases. Mike Allen’s sax stepping in almost with a sense of humor, layering his phrasing with laughter. (Why is it that only jazz musicians seems to have a sense of humor about melody?) They follow this with an original, “Give Me The Moon.’ Siren whine of cymbals fading into leisurely time signatures. Breathtaking sax. Husky whisky sodden notes emerging from the developing structure of the song. Then a sort the melodic clarity. The song settling into its meaning. A sense of a slightly broken promise. The performance goes on into the night, another set, more songs. But it was right there, where the melody unfolded into something unsayable, where you wanted to stop thinking about it all and just let it be.

It’s a dead and beaten horse to say that the experience of jazz is a living thing. But you can wear out the grooves of records (or burn through your sound card) and never match the living performance of jazz. It is what the medium is about. You could go so far as to say you don't know it until you experience it live. You become part of it. Next Wednesday, head down to the Blue Horse for some great jazz by the Professors.

Havilah Rand with Phil Sottile and Dave Vaughns at the Blue Horse Gallery - July 7, 2011

Havilah Rand with Phil Sottile and Dave Vaughns at the Blue Horse Gallery

Thursday, July 7, 2011

The Blue Horse Gallery under a beautiful Bellingham evening. Havilah Rand returned to town, standing on stage in red boots, singing Superstar. Phil Sottile providing perfect vocal counterpoint on guitar and Dave Vaughns tapping out subtle percussion on a cajon drum. What was most immediately striking was how seamlessly Phil and Dave wove sonic textures around Havilah’s vocals and guitar. Having recently been out on a mini-tour of the Pacific Northwest, their sense of the interior of the songs, of where and how the spaces opened inside the melody, was subtle and engaging to witness.

Havilah’s voice was full of ache and longing with hidden reserves of strength swelling into the high notes. Phil’s mournful and elemental guitar swells serving almost a form of musical annotation. And Dave’s tapping out a soft time sounded like the ebb and flow of a surf. There were several moments, during the performance of Petrified and Riding on a Train, where it seemed that the audience was collectively holding it’s breath in appreciation of the silence surrounding the song. 

Havilah’s music moves across genres with ease, glancing against various facets of jazz, country, folk, blues, to stand alone as a thing in itself. Her phrasing is remarkable, syllables stretched slowly with elegance and laid down against and over each other like braids. This was especially notable on her cover of Leonard Cohen’s Dance Me to the End of Love. Something familiar, yet strange, infusing such harrowing lines as "Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin" with new resonance. The song All Night, which is featured in the movie Leading Ladies, was another standout, one of those songs that immediately seems destined to become a standard.  

It was one of those nights were you feel privileged to experience such music in such an intimate setting. Exposed wood rafters and a big window opening to the darkening skies, an ancient drum slowing sounding, strumming guitars in strange tunings, and a beautiful voice full of the sweet and rich echoes of an unidentifiable nostalgia. 

Appreciation should be given to the Blue Horse Gallery for providing such a warm and welcoming space for performance. The low lighting and rustic ambiance bode well for many more nights of great music.

http://www.havilahmusic.com/