Category Archives: Previews

The Return of the Shaman

Clockwise from left: Ernesto Simpson, Childo Tomas, Leandro Saint-Hill, Omar Sosa

Clockwise from left: Ernesto Simpson, Childo Tomas, Leandro Saint-Hill, Omar Sosa.

The New Mexico Jazz Festival brings Cuban pianist/composer Omar Sosa to the Outpost on July 23 and 24 with his New AfroCuban Quartet, with Leandro Saint-Hill (saxophones, flute), Childo Tomas (bass), Ernesto Simpson (drums). For me, Sosa is one of the clearest and most profound voices on the planet—a shaman who is capable of connecting us with a deeper reality—and I was thrilled to be able to interview him.

At the end of May, I reached him by phone at his home in Barcelona at 10:00 p.m. his time and found him in the process of “dealing with my kids.” He issued rapid-fire instructions in Spanish off-line before turning his attention to our call.

The following conversation is very lightly edited. Sosa speaks excellent English—thankfully,
because my Spanish is rusty in the extreme—with a Cuban accent. I have tried to transcribe his words accurately, and I apologize for any errors that my untuned-to-Spanish ears might have introduced.

Sosa speaks with the same urgency, warmth, humor, generosity, and passion with which he plays the piano. Our easy-going half-hour chat touched on his musical approach and intentions, some personal history, his artistic philosophy, and a forthcoming album. Continue reading →

The Transformative Sound of Butler, Bernstein & the Hot 9

Butler-Bernstein-Hot9_color Roots grow, too, you know. So if you think that roots music is something charmingly antique, suspended in the amber of time and space, then Henry Butler, Steven Bernstein & the Hot 9 have one hell of a surprise for you.

Their new release, Viper’s Drag, the first from the resurrected impulse! label, revisits American musical roots in a joyous, ever-surprising romp, making connections that stretch from trad jazz and blues to swing and boogie, from Crescent City Indian chants to Sun Ra and everything in
between. This Friday evening, the multiple award-winners Butler and Bernstein, and friends, will be blowing the roof off the Hiland Theater as part of the New Mexico Jazz Festival.

“Our job is not to make music. Our job is to transform people,” says Bernstein.

They are very good at their job. Continue reading →

Pianist Tom McDermott Brings a Fresh Repertoire of Syncopated Euphoria

Photo by Rick Olivier.

Since passing through these parts last summer, Tom McDermott has traversed the northern half of the Americas, playing concerts in exotic locales from Alaska to Costa Rica, but it was an encounter with a hero from his youth in the relatively unexotic Twin Cities that left a lasting
impression on the New Orleans pianist and helped reshape his repertoire.

“I went and visited my childhood idol, maybe my first childhood idol after my mom, pianistically speaking,” says McDermott, who has enjoyed much-deserved wider exposure since his
appearances on the hit HBO series Treme. “That was Max Morath. He was Mister Ragtime. His career started in the fifties, and it went strong till the nineties. Now he’s retired.”

Little did Morath, born in Colorado Springs in 1926, know it, but he helped shape McDermott’s approach to playing ragtime and, for that matter, everything else he’s tackled along the way. This Saturday, at the Outpost, McDermott will offer a smorgasbord of syncopation via his
distinctively charming and astonishingly double-jointed pianism. Continue reading →

Le Chat Lunatique Plays It Straight and Hot

Swing Gitan FrontThat band of maniacs appropriately known as Le Chat Lunatique—Muni Kulasinghe (violin, vocals), John Sandlin (guitar), Jared Putnam (bass, vocals), and Fernando Garavito (drums)—have released several albums loaded with delightfully eccentric covers and originals in a style they call “filthy, mangy jazz,” but their
latest release, Swing Gitan, finds them taking aim at the vintage music that inspired them in the first place—le jazz hot of Django
Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, and their contemporaries and descendants.

The band’s seriocomic stage presence, literately nonsensical patter, and zany takes on
sphincters, millionairesses, and buses driven by God make their performances madly
entertaining, but ultimately, it’s the music and the musicianship that keeps you in the house and on the dance floor. On Swing Gitan, those two elements are front and center as the band celebrates the classic tunes, and you can celebrate along with them at the CD release party this weekend at Marble Brewery. Continue reading →

Littlefield and Asher on the Fire Escape

Patti Littlefield
Arlen Asher with the baritone

Vocalist Patti Littlefield can belt a tune hard enough to rattle the glassware behind the bar, and then she can drop down into her lubricious lower register to raise your interest in the possibility of illicit pleasures. Woodwind master Arlen Asher, jazz scholar and gentleman, long ago
discovered the avenues that lead from the mouthpiece to the human heart, and he travels them with what appears to be effortless ease, stripping away an audience’s defenses with a gentle and elegant lyricism.

These two fine musicians have held one another in high regard for years, but except for a
couple of tunes in jam sessions, they’ve never had the opportunity to play together. This
Thursday at the Outpost, they’ll finally remedy that, with help from Brian Bennett on piano, Michael Olivola on bass, and John Trentacosta on drums. The concert will be recorded, so come on out and whoop it up. Continue reading →