Chuck Prophet and his Cumbia Shoes 3/29/26 The Kate, Old Saybrook

 Chuck Prophet has nine lives. It was news to me that this Bay Area rocker spent one in a health scare a few years back. I have been a fan since the early 2000s and count his No Other Love record from this period as a near perfect recording. He has always been a smartass, but community minded with his approach. At one Green Riverfest, Chuck enlisted a slew of local high school musicians to accompany his set. On this evening, he is joined by his “Cumbia Shoes”, a backing band fluent in the genre. Originally from Colombia, cumbia spread through Latin America and tickled the US southwest. The gist has a metronomic drumbeat, forward bass as a backdrop for guitar, pedal steel, or percussion workouts. The show leaned heavily on his 2024 release Wake The Dead. The setlist: C’Mon Everybody ( Eddie Cochran cover), Same Old Crime, Wake The Dead, Wish Me Luck, Cumbia de los Pajaritos (Los Mirlos cover), Jesus Was a Social Drinker, Betty’s Song, First Came The Thunder, Give The Boy a Kiss, Killing Machine, Sally Was a Cop ( co- written with Alejandro Escovedo),  In The Shadows ( for Elon) OneLie for Me, One For You, West Memphis Moon, Sugar Into Water, Ford Econoline ( “the best thing to come out of Detroit besides Iggy and The Stooges”),  You Did ( Bomp Shooby Dooby Bomp) and encored with the poignant heartfelt It’s A Good Day To Be Alive, and Wooly Bully ( Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs cover). The band had Chuck on electric and acoustic, Mario on percussion, drummer, bass, lead guitar ( sometimes pedal steel), and another multi instrumentalist who played guitar and keys. The sound was full for the largely gray haired, near capacity audience. Nine lives is a lot, glad that Chuck Prophet has a few more up his sleeve.

David Fiuczynski’s KiF 3/27/26 Firehouse 12

 David “FuZe” Fiuczynski is a downtown guitarist who cut his teeth on the maelstrom melting pot of the 90s Knitting Factory scene. Bending jazz, rock, improv, and prog to their polyglot notions of music was fascinating to watch as a young musical omnivore. FuZe starts the evening by explaining the KiF project. He was tapped to go to Morocco and play at a festival where he was part of a backing band for 40 local groups. Vocal groups, odd instruments, microtonal playing, proved to be mind blowing and challenging. Many musicians approached him to say “did you know that Hendrix stayed and performed here?” While he was not familiar with that part of Jimi’s life, he could not help but notice the impact the master made on these foreign musicians. What then if Hendrix was alive and moved forward with his love of this music, KiF and essentially rocking the casbah was formed. Dave plays the most unique guitar. Double-necked, double stringed, it’s essentially a small guitar fused to a normal sized one. With the addition of effects pedals, he could change the sound at will. He would play a passage on one, then seamlessly jump to the other, made me want to chat him up about Hendrix. He was joined this evening by a young asian woman on keys, six string (maybe fretless?) bass, and drums. The odd sounds and tunings from Dave were perfectly matched by the keyboards. One portion had the keys melodica sounding and Dave’s microtonal slurring transporting the listener to Marrakech. The rhythm section was tight, with the bass looking for a  jamband workout. The players were probably students of Dave, he heads up the MicroJam Institute for advanced microtonal studies at Berklee. The first set at the Firehouse had a nice near capacity crowd to see this master. The group rolls through some originals before jumping in to a King Gizzard and then a Mononeon cover.  Dave has passages that sound like Jean Luc Ponty followed by Zappa-esque runs. Closed with two jams Friday Night Prayer Meeting and Macro Magnificat. Glad to have the Firehouse back for the spring season.

Sam Wells 3/25/26 Wesleyan

 Trumpeter and electronics musician Wells is one third of the Philly based Splice Ensemble. They perform electro acoustic soundscapes that emphasize the integration of technology with musical performance.. Introduced by Uber nerd and Wesleyan prof Paula Mathussen, Sam takes the stage at the comfortable Ring Family Auditorium. He performs his piece “Pillors and Strata” written in 2024. Sam went to a place called the Tank Center in Rangley Colorado. Abandoned large metal tanks that were used in the steam engine industry were the perfect location for Sam to experiment with sound. The Pillors piece was birthed in a 90’ by 20’ metal cylinder, with literally no flat surfaces, the echo would last for almost a minute. He played trumpet and an odd looking flugel with a variety of straight and cup mutes. The sound was computer looped to approximate the tank echo. Sam said the high plains desert location of the tank center was experiencing high winds on his rental day. Instead of ditching the project, Sam embraced the background hum from the wind. Imagine walking on the moon with Miles Davis and you’ll get the picture. Tones looped and processed made for a heady stew of modern composition. I am always amazed at the level of creativity in music, playing one’s trumpet in a desolate large metal Tylenol capsule is a new one on me.

Cass McCombs 3/20/26 Spaceland

 A personally viral ear worm has taken over my playlist. You know the type, a random addition occasionally shuffles its way to the top and gives a mainline hit to your smile bone. The Cass McCombs 2023 single “Vacation From Thought” is one such worm. Upon inspection, it appears to be a one-off collaboration with an unknown band named Weak Signal. That song was enough to get me off the couch for this Friday night performance. Cass is a quirky singer songwriter from California who has been churning out under the radar nuggets since the early aughts. On this evening, Cass and band high light the recent recording Interior Live Oak. The setlist: Priestess, Miss Mabee, Asphodel, A Girl Named Dogie, Home At Last, Missionary Bell, Harmonia, Peace, I Never Dream About Trains, Your Mother and Father, Big Wheel, Music is Blue, I’m Not Ashamed, Bum Bum Bum, Sleeping Volcanoes and encored with County Line and Sacred Heart. The band was excellent, lead guitar, lefty bass, drummer, and occasional pedal steel. Cass started on electric and stretched out the slow burn of A Girl Named Dogie to excellent effect. He switched to acoustic and  performed the beautiful Missionary Bell. One further move had Cass doing a few tunes on keys. You don’t call yourself a touring musician for twenty years without attention to concert detail, and Cass controlled a beautiful arc. Soft ballads, slow building jammers, off beat lyrics made for an enjoyable show. One of the best tribute recordings in recent memory is the mammoth Day of The Dead (Grateful Dead) recording arranged by uber-hipsters The National. The sprawling release is a Who’s Who of indie rockers and hippie jammers. Cass has the coveted spot of performing Dark Star with none other than Joe Russo. The moral of the story is trust your ears, and the worms that may inhabit them.

Yale Percussion Popup 3/7/26 Peabody Museum

 Is it stalking if two consecutive posts in this blog describe the same group? No, if the vibe and venue are as disparate as these. The Yale Percussion Group rolled their marimbas up the street to the recently refurbished Peabody Museum. I am somewhat ashamed to say that it has taken me two years to visit this gem. As a child, I had many field trips here, and my interest in science was certainly incubated. The museum focuses on natural history, with dinosaur displays as its strong suit. The music took place in the majestic Burke Hall of Dinosaurs (no relation). I enter to the soothing ambient vibraphone of one student playing the half hour long composition Ouroboros. The mallet work was exquisite and the metallic tones had a wonderful sustain that was emphasized by the dimensions of the great hall. The hall has to be monstrous to house full skeletal renderings of T. rex, stegosaurus, and the centerpiece a complete brontosaurus. The Peabody attracts young families, the children ooh and aah at the dinosaurs, the sheer size of which gets the kids minds racing. I wander the hall to the strains of the solo vibraphone. Glad to have renewed my visits to this New Haven jewel while watching adventurous music. What goes around comes around, science, music, The Peabody…..and me.

Yale Percussion Group 2/27/26 Sprague Hall

 Billed as a send off for storied Yale professor Martin Bresnick, the winter YPG concert is must-see viewing for any music fan in the New Haven area. Free, open to the public, the concert must take place at Sprague Hall due to the size of the instrumentation. Huge grand piano, no less than six xylophones, marimbas,  drum kits, the evening is a delightful mash of music and performance art. Bresnick is in the same club as Glass, Reich, and Adams,  where the music is modern classical as shot through the YPG lens. The first piece was Bresnick’s 2007 composition Caprichos Enfaticos. A concerto in 8 movements, it was commissioned for Australian pianist Lisa Moore and the world famous So Percussion group. The work was inspired by Francisco Goya’s book of etchings Los Desastres de la Guerra, fitting for our time. The movements are titled “farandula” or “farandole” which was a chain dance popular in Provence. The show starts with Moore coming out and playing a xylophone sequence, the four students appear one by one and seamlessly push the chain forward. Moving from one side of the xylophone, pushed to the opposite side, pushed to a drum kit, Moore finally landed at the piano bench, her perch for the piece. The movements were fascinating with piano as counterpoint to the student banging. Drums, shakers, even a long tubular bell were expertly struck. Goya’s images were projected on the large screen to lend context to the farandula. The (translated) names of the movements also invoked context. The “ravages of war” movement had Moore playing a peaceful melody that was interrupted by the militaristic squall from the drummers. The  “ politician-against the common good” movement starred whistles and shakers that emphasized politicians as jesters. At the junction of each movement, the players froze for about 10 seconds, mid strike or plink as the case may be. The audience, fearful for clapping out of turn,  also froze. A wonderful composition that had Bresnick coming to the stage for applause was expertly delivered by the group and it’s commisionee. After the intermission, YPG director and Bresnick cohort Robert van Sice takes the mic. The next segment was called “A Bouquet of Surprises for Martin”. Apparently van Sice reached out to contemporaries to compose farewell minis for the event. Five short pieces were introduced by van Sice with stories of their Bresrelevance. One piece, by David Lang, had two marimbists interlocking an arm so that their one mallet was striking in front of the other player. It was mesmerizing from my stage right seat, I caught the students chuckling about their reach and proximity. van Sice, too, beamed from his stool, as if the shrooms were about to kick in. Another piece was composed by one of the students, Kyle Rappe, who seems to be heir apparent at Yale. The final flower was by colleague and New Music New Haven director Aaron Jay Kernis. A Grammy and Pulitzer Prize winner, Kernis came out with a choir of students to add to the YPG. He conducted his piece that was a riot of percussion and voice about the family cat. The final piece of the evening was Hallelujah Junction by celebrated American composer John Adams. Adams’ work has the expansive feel of Copland, and this piece was originally written for two pianos. Transposed for the group by Bresnick protege Doug Perry, the YPG reveled in its execution. My annual glowing review of this event is a bright light in a dark month.

Instantiations 2/15/26 Real Art Ways, Hartford

 We’ve established that local guitar hero and educator Joe Morris is a higher order thinker. He teaches at the distinguished New England Conservatory and wrangles a monthly jazz series formerly known as Improv Now. Joe changed the name to Instantiations which requires some Websterin. Turns out that instantiations refers to “the act of representing an abstract concept with a concrete example.” The music is certainly concrete, but covered in the abstract. Today’s offering had Morris on guitar, Adam Matlock on accordion, Diane Buetner on clarinet and bass clarinet, and Yoona Kim on ajaeng (a bowed zither from Korea). Regional improv masters, this crew fashioned a heady stew of sounds. The mix of instrumentation was fascinating. Morris quietly squiggled, Matlock could sustain a note indefinitely, Buetner’s bass clarinet gave a cartoonish vibe, and the ajaeng emitted a wide array of sounds. At the start of the set, Joe mentions that next month he will receive a lifetime achievement award at New York’s Vision Festival. Adventurous music for a wintry a Sunday afternoon.