This year I was blessed (and cursed, depending on how you look at it) with
going to the Playboy Jazz Festival in Hollywood at the Hollywood Bowl.
The festival had its moments - good and bad. I regret saying that there
were more bad moments than good, but the quality of the good ones made
the show overall equal in both.
I went on June 11th, so those of you who do not know the program was as
such: the Los Angeles Multi-School Jazz Band (which my friends Isaiah
Morfin and Josh Crumbly were featured in), the Jazz Tap Ensemble and
Caravan Project, Stix Hooper and Viewpoint, Joey DeFrancesco/Kenny
Burrell Quartet, Israel "Cacheo" Lopez with the Cineson All Stars (with my
favorite flute player - Danilo Lozano), Joshua RedmanElastic Band (my
hero), Keb' Mo', The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra Legacy (which
an old teacher and friend, Bijon Watson performed with), Ramsey Lewis, Boney James, and Norman Brown's Summer Storm featuring Peabo
Bryson, Brenda Russell, and Everette Harp.
The festival itself - and not the performers::
Okay, the sound guy should have gotten fired, and if they didn't fire him,
then they are stupid. The sound sucked, it kept changing, the balance was
off. One band you couldn't hear, the next you had to cover your ears for. It
was horrible.
Second, the temperature extremes were kind of crazy. It was blazing hot
during the day, and freezing cold at night. It wouldn't have been bad if it
was one or the other, but both was hard to deal with.
Finally, there were a lot of drunk people acting loud and stupid. So if the
sound was down and the band was barely audible, the yelling drunk people in
the box next to you guaranteed that the group was going to be inaudible.
People have no respect for music any more - light conversation is polite, but
yelling is not. However, it was pretty amusing to watch some of the people
who had a little too much to drink get up and try (keyword: try) to dance to
the music with no time or grace.
The performers::
Since I couldn't really hear every band because the sound guy sucked, I will
talk about the ones that I did hear. The Cineson All Stars and Israel
"Cacheo" Lopez was pretty interesting. Because the sound guy was bad,
the monitors must not have been up or may not have even been on stage,
so everyone was way out of tune. Danilo Lozano, my favorite flute player
was playing with them, and I was disappointed, he must not have been able
to hear himself because he was playing really sharp. Justo Almario was also
playing with them - his mic wasn't turned up on a lot of his solos, so you
couldn't really hear him.
Joshua Redman and the Elastic Band - what can I say other than they
totally made the night? However, it was not really THE Elastic Band. The Elastic Band is Brian Blade, Joshua Redman and Sam Yahel, at this it
was some other drummer and a guitar player - so it was a quartet, not a
trio. So really, it was Joshua Redman and kind of the Elastic Band.
However, Joshua Redman played his butt off and I was very impressed. But
as much as I love Joshua Redman's playing, Sam Yahel actually impressed
me the most. He was doing real bass lines (interesting, cool ones) while
playing real solos. I've heard pianists do bass and solos at the same time,
but no one I've heard has come close to what Sam Yahel did. Joshua
Redman and the Elastic Band was definitely the best band of the night.
As for Boney James - there is nothing I can say, and that is not a good
thing.
Ramsey Lewis was pretty awesome. He was amazing, and his bass player
was even more amazing. What else was amazing in a bad way about his set
was how much the sound guy sucked.
Lastly, the group with Everette Harp, I feel really bad for that guy. He
played so well and played his butt off, but he sounded bad because of the
stupid sound guy. But I know that if his mic was right, he played great -
because he always does.
So overall, the show was pretty good except for the sound guy who sucked.
