Category Archives: Previews

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 →

René Marie: Sweetened by Risk

Photo by JaniceYim.

Photo by JaniceYim.

I saw and heard Rene Marie for the first time at the Outpost last spring. Going in, I knew only that she was a jazz singer with two first names and an imaginative haircut. That night, I learned that onstage, she opens herself to the music, lights, and audience the way a morning glory opens itself to the sun—brilliantly exposed and vulnerable.

But in command, too—with a lovely instrument, an actress’s ability to assume character, a strong backbone, and a very clear idea of what she wants to do with a song.

This Thursday, vocalist, playwright, teacher, and activist Marie brings her group—with Kevin Bales (piano), Elias Bailey (bass), and Quentin Baxter (drums)—back to the Outpost, riding the wave generated by her latest album, I Wanna Be Evil (Motéma). It’s a delicious tribute to the late Eartha Kitt, featuring a number of songs associated with the strong-willed singer, actress, and dancer, as well as star turns from Charles Etienne on trumpet, the gloriously audacious Wycliffe Gordon on trombone, and Adrian Cunningham on flute, clarinet, and sax. The two ladies have a lot of characteristics in common—suavity, sensuality, grit, honesty, and straight talking—and it’s unlikely anyone else on this planet could honor Kitt as effectively as Marie does. Continue reading →

Roaming the Collective Unconscious in Songs Centuries Old

The Wandering Ballad CD Release PartyCD Cover The Wandering Ballad

The repertoire of Johanna Hongell-Darsee and Scott Darsee includes the most popular songs of all time, though few of them have ever appeared on a Billboard chart. Their longevity and their near universal presence around the globe, however, attest to their
appeal. On The Wandering Ballad, available via iTunes, CD Baby, and Amazon, the duo presents ballads that have formed the heart of their last three live productions. Some of the tunes were first written down in the 12th
century, by which time some of them had already traveled halfway around the world, accreting scores of verses from different cultures and attaching local melodies along the way.

The album presents songs in English, French, Finnish, and Swedish, in spare and beautiful arrangements that conjure a medieval atmosphere. Modern and ancient instruments weave the spell, with Hongell-Darsee on vocals, flute, clarinet, härjedalspipa (Scandinavian wooden
whistle) and Darsee on acoustic and electric guitars and bass, with assistance from Christopher A. Carlson on violin and octave violin, Sharon Berman on recorders, and Juan Wijngaard on
hurdy-gurdy. At the CD release party, presented by AMP Concerts at the Outpost this Friday, these artists will be joined by Larry Otis on guitar and saxophone and Tej Bhavsar on sitar.

Continue reading →