The Milwaukee music scene continues to heat up (just like our warm October Indian Summer) with an amazing line-up of performers which I was extremely fortunate to hear:
At the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts
Wynton Marsalis, jazz trumpeter extraordinaire, brought the Jazz from Lincoln Center Orchestra to the Marcus Performing Center’s Uihlein Hall Wednesday night and it was a rare treat indeed in many ways. The dedication to musicianship is unparalleled. The synergy of playing is as precise as it is improvisatory. And the humble, low-key approach by all the musicians in this 14-member ensemble—led by Marsalis—is as refreshing as a conversation without mentioning You Know Who.
Miwaukee’s own Dan Nimmer serves as the group’s pianist and played an original composition as the orchestra itself provided many of the eveing’s arrangements of jazz standards. Each musician could be a separate evening’s performance, tha’s how impressive the playing was throughout. Trombonist Vincent Gardner even provided vocals, reminiscent of the smoky smooth jazz inflections of past torch singers.
Highlights included the Fourth Movement from Sonny Rollins’ “Freedom Suite” as well as the uptempo ”Crescent City Express” originally written for Wynton’s sax playing brother, Branford. The audience got a tuneful suprise with opening act The Beloit Memorial High School Jazz Orchestra. Marsalis praised the young musicians through the two hour (plus 20 minute intermission) performance and rightly so. Based on what I heard, the future of jazz remains intact!
At The Pabst Theater
It was a trio of great shows at the Pabst starting with Chicago Blues legend, Buddy Guy. Having only caught snippets of his playing on the Hendrix Experience tours, Guy proved that playing the blues really comes from stewing within and then letting it all ooze out as he did with the slow burn of the Muddy Waters classic, ”Hoochie Cochise Man.” The Man certainly knows how to stand his ground as he did with the show’s opener, “Damn Right I Got the Blues.” And he continued to amaze the audience at age 81, when he set his guitar on a speaker, picked up a drumstick, and played it like his wizened fingers were flying over the thin guitar wire. Amazing!
Saturday night at the Pabst took us Boomers (speaking for myself) back to The Year of the Cat with English folk rocker Al Stewart making a rare appearance to play the album front to back. At 72, Stewar sounded as good as ever vocally as well as on guitar, accompanied by his supporting act, The Empty Pockets.
It was this seventh studio album that finally broke Steward to mainstream popularity in the States and TYOTC was the album filled with them: “Lord Grenville,” “On the Border” and of course the title track sounded as timeless as they did back in the 1970s. Stewart explained the origins of many of the songs he played, (actually a common through line for all through nights of shows) and it was as much of a learning experience as entertaining as well.
Ever the gentleman, Steward did play a shout out song he teasingly started earlier in the show. “Almost Lucy” became the second and final solo encore of the night. And to further solidify his good nature, the lines to sign authographs for anything anyone brought were the longest I’ve ever seen in the Pabst. There were a lot of happy, contented concert goers heading home that night with autographed copies of their Year of the Cat vinyl.
And the same gentlemanly approach can be said for Sunday night as well with the solo appearance of the legendary Graham Nash. Best known fo this work with The Hollies and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Nash was as charming and also as militant as ever, be it Trumpian Politics of today to the shooting of four students at Kent State 47 years ago. Working with the electric guitarist, Shane Fontayne (Sting, Lone Justice) the English-bred Nash took us forward and backward and forward again, covering many classics as well as new material.
At 75, he’s still got it; the voice was a strong and harmonic as ever, the acoustic guitar playing now an intimate delight minutes of the CSNY stadium largesse. Nash reminded us the lighter side to his music with the Hollies Hit, “Bus Stop,” but as he moved into more political terrain, his energy and ferocity increased, especially on the CSNY anthem to the Kent State victims “Ohio,” to the his early solo work, “Military Madness.”
He brought gentle intensity to the oft-heard Beatles tune, “Blackbird,” while his straightforward cover of another Beatles song, “A Day in the Life” was engaging in its simplicity. Ever the astute storyteller, the audience learned that Neil Young, upending hearing of the Kent State shootings, walked into the woods with his guitar and come back an hour later with “Ohio.”
And those devoted fans of Joni Mitchell (myself included) learned that “Our House” came from an early morning breakfast and walk with the young folksinger who lived with Nash for two years. (Fellow band mate David Crosby would go on to produce Mitchell’s debut album).
How fitting that the evening came full circle with the final encore of CSNY’s “Teach Your Children.” With Graham Nash, the lessons nearness from his songwriting are just as important—and timeless-as the music.
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