gig 007- w/House Band #9

Saturday April 22, 2006
@ Café Pazzazz on rue de l’Eglise in Val-David, Quebec
9:30 pm-12:30am

HOUSE BAND #9
John Sobol – sax
Alain Juteau – guitare electrique
Gary Lindner – drums/batterie
François Myrand – basse
Richard St-Aubin – acoustic guitar

50 spectators
Set 1: 40 minutes
Set 2: 40 minutes
Set 3: 40 minutes
Improvised instrumental jams on simple and not-so-simple song forms
Serious grooves and blowing
no recording
no press
no cover charge
our regular gig
alcohol sold and consumed
general musical mayhem

Alain subbing for Laurent did a fine job
wailing guitar licks and solos
also a flute player sat in
not too much to say about it all other than it was business as usual
hardblowing and (at our best) badass grooves
though unusually a couple of train wrecks too

Risk Factor: 2.5
Riff Factor: 9.5
Success Factor: invincibility
Wild Card: the babysitter
Cash Factor: 7
Parking Lot: a hard spring rain falling
Fun: 8
Domination: 9.5

gig 006 - w/Lauren Belec and Gary Lindner

April 1, 2006
@ Café Pazzazz on rue de l’Eglise in Val-David, Quebec
9:30 pm-1:00am

HOUSE BAND #9
John Sobol – sax
Laurent Belec – guitare electrique
Gary Lindner – drums/batterie

30 spectators
Set 1: 40 minutes
Set 2: 40 minutes
Set 3: 40 minutes

A trio that had never played together as a trio
although we had been part of a quintet on a couple of occasions
a beautiful experience
laurent and gary are both terrific players
the three of us made for a heavy blend

gary is a slick and mellow middle-aged cat who plays his Gretsch kit with power and purpose
laurent has a sublime lyrical streak stashed in a Detroit penthouse suite

the gig was a blast
especially the last 2 sets

i put together a song list and in the first set we played 4 or 5 tunes
but it was weak and stilted
Gary said fuck it we should just play
jam the whole set nonstop for the second set
which we did
and it was stellar

same the thing in the third set
a long collective improvisation
i had foolishly forgotten that we didn't need tunes to play great music
and once we left them behind it was fine
a super trio experience for all i think
audience included
who were highly appreciative
as people always are at Pazzazz and in quebec in general
warm audiences
(this is mostly because quebecers like to have fun together in public and making loud noises and shouting is one of their favourite ways to do it – local hockey legends like Guy Lafleur regularly get 15-minute standing ovations when introduced at hockey games)

and as mentioned in gig 005, a redemption of sorts
on a personal level
as i played with full confidence
exploring my horn, my sound, my moods in a different way than I had heard Guy play the night before
less certain, more risky perhaps, more edge
just my own idiosyncratic vocabulary, dialogical powers and sense of living narrative form
it was good to reclaim me and to not worry about what I'm not and will never be as a musician
I'll never sound like a Breckerite and I have no desire to
(no disrespect to MB saxophone god)

lots of fun in the bar
interesting characters
a great night of playing with fine people

________________________________________

Risk Factor: 4
Riff Factor: 9
Success Factor: to the moon
Lesson: tunes get in the way
Cash Factor: 7
Parking Lot: mud and spring snowbanks
Interactivism: 4
Joy: 9
Obliteration: 7

gig 005 - w/House Band #9

Friday March 31, 2006
@ Café Pazzazz on rue de l’Eglise in Val-David, Quebec
9:30 pm-12:30am

HOUSE BAND #9
John Sobol – sax
Lauren Belec – guitare electrique
Jean-François Barbeau – drums/batterie
François Myrand – basse
Richard St-Aubin – acoustic guitar

50 spectators
Set 1: 35 minutes
Set 2: 35 minutes
Set 3: 35 minutes
Improvised instrumental jams on simple and not-so-simple song forms
Serious grooves and blowing
no recording
no press
no cover charge
our regular gig
alcohol sold and consumed
people freaking out
general musical mayhem

the night's surprise was another sax player who showed up
Guy Seguin
a guy I didn't know but who had brought his tenor and come hoping to play
so i told him he could come up in the 3rd set
the band had a blast in the first 2 sets as usual
i was exhausted well before the night was over
almost blown out
my only excuse being that
it had been a real loong week
that
and the fact that
i was blowing amidst a full drum kit and three well-amplified guitars (bass, electric and acoustic)
while i had no microphone
so i spent those two sets turned up to 11

and that's when i invited Guy to get out his horn
i'd learned he was a friendly but kinda quiet guy
who'd moved to Val-David a year ago same as me (!)
and had studied at the Conservatoire and UdeM and McGill
and he played like it
i mean he really blew beautifully
exquisite finger control, lip action and harmonic invention
tasty too

so that was kind of a surprise to me
me standing up there feeling kinda beat
and suddenly this guy blowing the hell out of his horn
in my band and in my bar!
damn!

i'd like to say i turned on the jets and left him reeling but it ain't so
i played ok
in the third set
but i was a bit thrown off
not just by his sudden appearance
but by his style of play
which was generally Breckerish

that kind of harmonically-focused technical mastery
is sort of inherently virtuostic and often over-achieving
(some people think it is also inherently soulless but I do not agree)
but it's virtuosity has always intimidated me
because it's not how i play at all
yet it's how many of today's top sax players and musicians approach things
(even though
when i think about it
most of my musical heroes did it very differently)

still, it left me asking some questions about myself musically
which, thankfully, were answered the following night (gig 006)


Risk Factor: 4.5
Riff Factor: 9
Success Factor: stimulation
Wild Card: The Competition
Cash Factor: 7
Parking Lot: spring mud and dirty snowbanks
Interactivism: 4 (subtle saxy articulation of a powerful literatized narrative challenge (Breckerism) by the classical grove groove Guy, me being of the bluesologist's aural boneyard where words blossom and reek)
Concern: 8.5
Obliteration: 8.5