Bassoonarama 12/19/22 Sudler Hall

 Bassoonarama is back baby. Professor Frank Morelli’s band of merry Christmas low-enders basswooned the crowd with their annual holiday recital. Check that, the pandemic upended the low end for the past few years, but the intrepid Professor powered through. Six bassoon students and Frank showed their stuff to a raucous packed house. The theme was “ and now for something completely different”, starting with Sousa’s The Liberty Bell March, more commonly associated as the Monty Python theme song. Next up was a passage from Rigoletto and then The Nutcracker. For those of you not familiar with the bassoon, the loping sound graces the movements of many a cartoon turtle. The next section had some early American pieces, Go Tell It On The Mountain, Amen, and Mary’s Boy Child. Back to some passages from Rigoletto and The Nutcracker, I was struck by the difference in embouchure of the players. The truly diverse (race and gender) cast of musicians mouth  positions ranged from a suck on a lemon pucker to a Gillespian peep frog affair. Closed the evening with the Latin tinged Mi Burrito Sabanero and Jose Feliciano’s Feliz Navidad. This recital has become an oddball holiday tradition for me, and I am truly grateful for the access. Judging from the crowd, next year’s concert would be wise to move next door to Sprague Hall. This is feel good music and I could feel the smiles behind the masks.

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio 12/13/22 Spaceland

 Praise the almighty algorithm! Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio (DLO3), you know em? Me neither. About a month prior to this show, my feed was barraged with “hey crew, we’re just back from our Europe leg of the tour and are jonesing to see our friends in the states”, “ get ready for some booty-shake blend of 1960s soul-jazz, slinky Nawlins funk, with a splash of acid-rock guitar” top that with some cool graphics and the algorithm worked. I was pointed to this show, and rightly so. Packed house to see Lamarr on organ (Hammond B-3 to be exact), Jimmy James on guitar, and Thunderfoot McDonagh on drums. The set was already underway when I arrived, searing instrumentals with great interplay between guitar and organ. DLO3 were all technical wizards and could have easily played the phone book, thankfully they stuck to funk and soul classics for a thoroughly enjoyable listen. Move on Up by Curtis Mayfield, Can’t Hide Love by Earth Wind and Fire, Marvin Gaye’s Inner City Blues, Ain’t It Funky Now by James Brown, and a Jackson Five tune that I couldn’t place were all expertly rendered in an instrumental soul vibe. James was a sight, a big fella whose afro scraped the house lights, that delighted an equally large Lamarr who had the benefit of sitting at his instrument. In addition to the setlist, song snippets tastefully layered in, made this music nerds head spin. I heard Bad Moon Rising, Seven Nation Army, Africa, Purple Haze, even a little tease of A Love Supreme! While James didn’t play left handed, upside down, like his fellow Seattle axe-wielding namesake, his picking was uncanny. He had a penchant for jumping time signatures and forcing the others to do likewise. The originals were less interesting, but with titles like Close But No Cigar and Al Greenish, they kept the groove flowing. We (I?) often deride the algorithm as some evil Zuckerbergian form of mind control, but I’m glad on this evening I was drawn like a moth to a funky flame.

Twisted Pine w/ Moonrise Cartel 11/29/22Cafe 9

Moonrise Cartel is a local folk outfit featuring lead man on acoustic and vocals, a Nicolette Larson look and sound-alike woman on backing vocals, keyboards, and fiddle. The singer had a booming voice, he sounded like Neil Diamond with a hoodie. Fiddle player had some nice jammy fills and the guy-girl vocal duets shined in spots. Their set closer Seeing Ghosts was a good warmup for Twisted Pine. TP is a Boston based new grass quartet that brought the goods. Kathleen Parks was the lead singer and played fiddle. Big guy Chris Sartori on standup bass did most of the talking between songs, Dan Bui on mandolin, and a young woman named Anh Phung on flute. I’m checking them by name because their gender and ethnicity highlighted the exoticism of their sound. Parks and Sartori were Caucasian while Phung and Bui were Asian or Amerasian. Bui was tiny and he looked like Tattoo from Fantasy Island, because of his stature, the mandolin looked like a Gibson hollow body in his hands (think Bill Halley or Wes Montgomery). The flute is not standard in a bluegrass band, and Phung’s addition enabled attempts on multiple genres. The set didn’t disappoint. The first tune was an instrumental that almost barfily veered into Celtic Woman territory. After that the set took off, Elizabeth Cotten’s Freight Train, Cold Rain and Snow, and a country tune sung by Chris were all excellent bluegrass renditions. Bui took control of a Beatles mash where Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds birthed an excellent Dear Prudence tease. Some nice originals, including top Spotify hit Papaya, showed that this band is itching to cross boundaries away from traditional bluegrass. Having said that, I was still awestruck when Chris announced “ now we’re gonna play a Frank Zappa tune”. They launched into a perfect Peaches En Regalia, with that group of instrumentation, had me smiling from ear to ear, as I was probably the only Zappa fan in attendance. A colleague said that Parks cut her teeth on the NY City Irish session scene but was ostracized for not sticking to the script. Closed with a funky cover of Bill Withers Use Me.