1feb18::Threesday
Tags: Wayne Krantz, Music, Keith Carlock, Mary Halvorson, Donny Mccaslin

Krantz, Carlock, Genus getting ready to play the best set of music I’ve seen this year

Going to see music is a blissful affair, sure. But if you squeeze multiple shows in a night, the chances of increasing that joy seems to increase exponentially with each stop. And then there are nights like the one I had on Thursday, where the different portions of the evening snapped together with a self-satisfaction, the final pieces of a cosmic jigsaw puzzle.

I headed in with a plan. Parked a block away from the Stone, I walked up to a short line which started moving a minute after my arrival, as if they were waiting for me to get started. Once inside, there was one seat left in the front row, or more specifically in the center of the front row, certainly being held my my solo self by the livemusicgods. Fifteen minutes later the musicians — Mary Halvorson and Ben Monder — took their places in front of me. Couldn’t have planned it any better.

The Stone closes at the end of the month and so it was a little bittersweet to be there knowing it would be one of the last times. Still, the music will live on somewhere in some form, it always does, and if it’s anything like the set I saw Thursday, thank goodness! I have seen Halvorson many times over the years and she’s a killer guitar player… but I feel like a lot of those times she’s been competing in some way, in a larger ensemble, or with a second guitar player or, more recently, to make space for herself sitting in with Yo La Tengo. Thursday was one of the first times I’ve really just had an hour of unadulterated Mary Halvorson. Of course, she was in duet with Monder, but she was really the centerpiece of the night. Whether by design or coincidence, it was, easily, the best I’ve ever seen her. I’ve seen my share of guitar duos in the past couple years and I’ve often described them as “conversations” — two people speaking back in forth in the language of guitar music, sometimes deep thinking stuff, sometimes more of an argument. The Halvorson/Monder set was more of a choreographed dance: at times a ballet, at others something more interpretative, others a complex Astaire/Rogers affair. Mary played long, lovely, elegant melodies while expertly employing effects along the way. Her use of effects was really something else, actually, like she had these friendly gremlins inside her amp, sometimes creating a ghostlike echo, others adding brief blips of backwards weirdness within otherwise beautiful playing. Between these effects and sharp wrinkles of dissonance, she created fabulous tapestries of guitar. I feel like I’m shortselling Ben Monder’s playing, which was excellent… but even his solos felt like they were complementing Halvorson. She’s got two more nights at the Stone, hoping to make it to one more.

From there, I hopped in the car and drove across Houston and up to the West Village, parked my car directly across from the 55 Bar and hopped on a very long line. Sometimes there’s a line there at 55 Christopher on a Thursday night and sometimes there’s not, but it’s rare you see one quite this long. I wasn’t worried about getting in, my plan was to buy a ticket to secure a space for the late set and come back later… I was worried that the line would move fast enough for me to get to my second stop without any stress. Things progressed slowly, the door guy trying to cram as many people into the club as possible for the early set, me checking the time periodically, until he called it quits on that endeavor and finally started on with selling for the second set. While he negotiated with some still hoping to make it in, I handed him my money, grabbed my ticket and skipped/walked up a few blocks to the Village Vanguard; walked downstairs, sat down in a mostly-empty-and-thus-very-comfortable back of the club and, with a few minutes to spare, awaited set number two. Another perfect landing.

This week at the Vanguard is the Donny McCaslin Quartet. In the past couple years they’ve gained a little extra notoriety as being the backing band on David Bowie’s last album, but they also are, what I like to call, a band of NYC late night all-stars, the kind of guys who have toiled for years in a variety of regular after-hours gigs throughout the city. I actually got a little extra sense of satisfaction realizing that they are all veterans of 55 Bar from where I had just come and would be going afterward. McCaslin on saxophone, Mark Guiliana on drums, Nate Wood on bass and Jason Lindner on keyboards. For a lot of their late set Thursday, they also featured Eric Taylor on vocals for a large portion of the songs. This quartet is a very electric jazz band, with McCaslin occasionally employing some light effects and Lindner really spinning all sorts of noises with his various keyboards. They were really locked into something special Thursday. I had heard a lot of that-guy-was-annoying feedback on Taylor’s singing with the band (in reviews of recent Winter Jazz Fest set), but I didn’t find it distracting in the least. If anything, he seemed to spur the band to really dig deep in their playing over, under and all around the vocals and then in some thrilling improvisation in between. I’ve always loved McCaslin, but must admit, the band was even more enjoyable when he laid back and let the backing trio go. I call this phenomenon a real “back-to-front band” and this was a perfect example. In fact, the real powerhouse was Guiliana and drums and, even more so, Nate Wood. There’s a little something special when the bass player is the dominant voice in a band like this, especially an electric bass in a room like the Vanguard… I guess the technical term for what Wood did on Thursday was blow me away. Oof! Just non-stop, lead-from-behind bass playing, often taking sweet lead runs and then laying these room-filling bombs of slightly affected low end, the kind of stuff you absorb during a Krantz set down the street. Superb stuff.

I took off right when they finished and made my way back down the few blocks of 7th Avenue to 55 Bar. Thursday nights = Wayne Krantz nights. Even more special because Keith Carlock was on drums. Or should I say Keith fucking Carlock on drums. James Genus would be filling in the bass playing spot. I got there right about as they had finished clearing out the folk from the early set. In the end, I probably hadn’t needed to buy a ticket in advance; in fact, there were empty seats for the late set, which, considering that Carlock was making an all-too-rare appearance and the stellar track record of these shows in the last couple years, feels like an indictment on everyone at home in bed or out elsewhere. Still, I was glad to be inside early, secure what I now consider my spot standing at the end of the bar… I like this spot because it’s more or less akin to standing on the “stage,” gives me the freedom to move my body should the need arise (rhetorical, of course, it arises… it arises) and an unobstructed view of both drummer and bassist. Makes for good photos as well.

Well, I don’t need to gush over Wayne Krantz. If you’ve read anything by me in the past XX years, you know how this music moves me. That being said, this was one of the better ones… one of the best ones, I think. And, in a strange twist, it wasn’t because of Keith Carlock, although he was, as the kids say, fucking sick. Wasn’t because of James Genus, either, although he was as good as you could ask for. No, the thing that made Thursday extra special was Wayne Krantz finding another level that you kind of forget he has. Actually, his playing was in a place that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen. I mean, he’s always one-of-the-best-period good, but he was in another zone this week, his solos sticking out from the trio, finding some serious Anastasio-esque peaks that he doesn’t always go for. And funky as all heck. My mind reeled back the hours to Halvorson’s use of effects watching Wayne takes his completely different approach. For all his skill and expert thoughtfulness in his playing, his use of a variety of effects is as unique and artful as you’ll find. So, yeah, it was mindflippingly amazing, the kind of off-the-charts electric that makes you think he should just kneel down and light his guitar on fire at the end. Fittingly, they finished the set with Hendrix’s “Manic Depression.” Usually when these sets finish I’ve had my fill, mentally, emotionally and it’s-1:30-in-the-morning physically. This week I was so juiced and buzzed from watching these guys play I was ready for another hour. Easily the best set of music I’ve seen in 2018 so far. Still, I walked out knowing I had gotten my money’s worth and hell, what a perfect night! The everything’s-coming-up-Milhouse capper was the GPS routing me around a certain 30-minutes-worth construction delay on the way home.

TL;DR: go to the Stone. go see Wayne Krantz. Nate Wood is sick (especially when he’s playing with Wayne Krantz.