Sunday, May 10, 2009
Soulive: Building Their Own Tower
Doug Fir in PDX 5.10.09
Although they have featured vocalists and expanded their lineup to a horn section from time to time, Soulive is, at its core, a jazz organ power trio consisting of two brothers, Alan and Neal Evans on drums and keyboard, respectively, and guitar wizard Eric Krasno. In my preview post, I talked about how they live on the musical corner of funk/soul and jazz. And that is a musical address that was well founded for them by lots of organ trio and quartet forerunners; folks like Charles Earland and Jimmy McGriff. George Benson and Grover Washington, Jr. are two examples of musicians who cut their musical teeth in small organ groups before reconstituting their sound into commercial viability. Stanley Turrentine even more so--he was married to a superb jazz organist, Shirley Scott and they recorded and toured together for many years.
Alan Evans is a great drummer to watch. Last night he served as a kind of emcee for the evening. The latest Soulive tour is set up like an old rhythm and blues review. The trio does a couple numbers, they bring out the Shady Horns, and later their guest vocalist and opening act Nigel Hall to do a few numbers. Like the band itself, it is a format that provides them the ability to cover a lot of ground. The Shady Horns consist of saxophonists Ryan Zoidis on Tenor Sax and Sam Kininger on Alto Sax. Both are highly accomplished players when they solo, but it seems to me one of their most important roles is to fatten up key chords with Neal Evans and Krasno. Horns have an amazing quality in the context of funk/soul groups that can elevate them. The result is kind of like Tower of Power, but Soulive is out to build their own tower musically, now with their own Record Label, Royal Family, which for this band with a solid cult following probably makes sense, especially when one considers their prior history of multiple record labels (BlueNote and Concord, specifically)
Vocalist Nigel Hall sang a number from the new Soulive album Up Here, but he was most impressive in a mid-set cover of Curtis Mayfield's Move On Up and a very elaborate James Brown medley featuring "There Was A Time" where he calls off the names of dances and demonstrates them. Although he can do Brown's moves and shout and call out like the godfather, he also has a sweet way of delivering a song in a voice that reminds me of Tower of Power's former vocalist, Lenny Williams. Regardless, watching him, the horn, and the Soulive core trio together gave me a sense that these are folks who take their funk/soul/jazz very seriously. It feels almost like an enterprise where everything is at stake when they are on stage.
I waited around to purchase a live CD of the evening's show and watched the Doug Fir be transformed back to a room what needed to be cleaned up before the next concert. The Doug Fir has been open for several years now, but this was my first visit to the club. The downstairs performance space feels a little like going over to your friend's house after school, if your friend's parents owned and lived in a motel and a Denny's or had a ski lodge. I missed Nigel Hall's opening set, but was able to find standing room up on the bench level against the wall, leaning up against the cushions on the wall that were intended to look like a faux log cabin interior. I told Pam that if I had been in my twenties or thirties, this would be a place I would likely to go see shows at on a regular basis. It kind of reminds me of the old Pine Street Theater/La Luna venue, I frequented routinely in the eighties and nineties that was just a few blocks away from where Doug Fir is now. In fact, I remember coming to this location a couple of times in the La Luna days for a meal to escape an opening act that didn't seem to have much promise. Who would have guessed that twelve of fifteen years later that it would become eastside hipster central?
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:56 PM
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