Ginger Commodore; Paul Renz

On Saturday night, Sandy and I went to see the Ginger Commodore Quintet at the Dakota Jazz Club. This was a high energy show, with Ginger in great vocal form, with Mark Weisberg on six-string bass, Clay Blaske on piano, Kathy Jensen on sax, and Bobby Commodore on drums. What I love about this band is the way they know how to build a song, taking familiar standards to a whole new level. Ginger has this fabulous ability to connect with the audience, and generate real excitement, even among Minnesotans! Kathy Jensen's playing is just awesome, very aggressive, but always well-balanced. Emma Weisberg and Debbie Duncan also wowed the audience with guest appearances.

On Sunday night, we went to Brit's Pub to see the Paul Renz Quintet, with Paul on guitar and special guest Anders Bostrom on soprano, alto and baritone flutes, Nathan Fryett on drums, Brian Ziemniak on keys, and Eric Graham on fretless bass guitar. This was a good gig in a great upstairs space, the Clubhouse Room by the rooftop bowling green. Paul's playing is always inventive and risk-taking, and the flute sounds are always intriguing. Very competent backing and soloing from the rest of the band on a strong collection of original compositions. I studied guitar and bass with Paul for several years, playing alongside him in student ensembles out of the West Bank School of Music, so I have great respect for him as a player and a teacher.

Dave Liebman at Birdland Jazz Club

Last night, a colleague and I went to the Birdland Jazz Club on West 44th Street, not far from Broadway. This is a really nice space with a good bar, good if not great food, and an OK wine list. The band was Dave Liebman (saxophones), Randy Brecker (trumpet), Marc Copland (piano), Drew Gress (bass), and Billy Hart (drums). They opened with the howard Dietz song "You and the Night and the Music", then a Brecker original, "Moontide", then a Leibman original, "All About Bird". Dave Liebman is a very accomplished player, though I found his solos a bit "notey", as my old music teacher used to say. But he has enormous fluidity and a fiery attack that wins you over in the end. There were moments of magical interplay between him and Brecker, especially on "All About Bird", which seemed to quote every Charlie Parker tune you have ever heard.

But the greatest fascination for me was watching and listening to Marc Copland, a very accomplished pianist with a distinctive style that I found quite captivating. His solos seemed to combine knottiness with lyricism in a quite effortless way, playing lushly extended chords with a sparsity and precision that was more like Ravel or Messiaen than Evans or Jarrett. The contrapunctual playing on "All About Bird" sounded like a bebop Bach invention, and his altered chord voicings on the fabulous version of "Sidewinder" that closed the set gave the song a new lease of life for me. The rest of the rhythm section certainly carried their water, with Drew Gress on bass never flagging and providing some very nice chromatic work on "Moontide", while Billy Hart's percussion was always innovative, and he played some nicely judged solos.

Piano lessons

My left hand still feels bad, but I am now studying jazz piano with Bryan Nichols at the MacPhail Center for Music. This is less stressful on my operated-on finger than guitar or bass, though more stressful otherwise, because my piano playing needs much more work. Luckily, Bryan is an awesome teacher, and we are digging into some great standards from the Real Book.