Live jazz to see in Minneapolis-St. Paul: This week’s picks

Are you in your car or near a radio at 8:30 CST on Friday mornings? Tune to KBEM to hear me and Mr. Jones—Jazz 88 "Morning Show" host Ed Jones—talk about these events and more. 88.5 FM in the Twin Cities, streaming live on the Web.

As we look forward to jazz this weekend and beyond, let’s pause to light a candle for the Clown Lounge, the epicenter of improvised music in the Twin Cities for the past 10 years. Both the Clown and the Turf Club upstairs are under new management as of last Saturday. The Turf is scheduled to reopen January 11 (this coming Tuesday). Although talks were reportedly held between JT Bates, Michael Lewis, and new manager Josh James, the Clown’s resident band, Fat Kid Wednesdays (Bates, Lewis, and Adam Linz) has severed its ties with the club. Which won’t be open on Mondays anyway, the night FKW used to play.

JT has promised that FKW will go on, and many people (including this writer) want that to happen. Honestly, I’d open my own basement if I could get a liquor license and a bunch of beer signs. A Twin Cities jazz scene without regular access to FKW is inconceivable and just plain wrong.

Friday-Saturday, January 7-8: Debbie Duncan at the Artists’ Quarter

There are singers who sing with a band, and singers who are part of the band. They use their voices as instruments, they improvise, and they are equals with the other musicians on stage. Debbie Duncan is one such singer; Lucia Newell is another. Lucia was at the AQ last Thursday, and even though the band ran out to move their cars when the tow trucks came, it was a very satisfying show. Debbie Duncan always delivers, and it’s good to see her in the warm, intimate setting of St. Paul’s famous basement jazz club.

9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Artists' Quarter, in the basement of the Hamm Building in St. Paul ($10). Tickets at the door.

Changes at the Turf Club, no more Fat Kids at the Clown

The Turf Club on University Ave. in St. Paul closed its doors suddenly and without notice on Saturday, canceling a show scheduled for that night and hanging a handwritten "Closed for Repair" sign in the door. Former manager Dave Weigardt was let go and bartender Josh James was hired to take his place.

I don't actually care that much about the Turf Club, though I'm sorry to learn of almost any music venue closing. But I do care about a small, quirky, beat-up but enchanting little place in the basement of the Turf Club called the Clown Lounge.

Years before I headed down the stairs, I heard of the Clown, the regular Monday-night home of the jazz trio Fat Kid Wednesdays, often featuring guests from out of town. My first time there was in April 2008 to hear percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani. I've since returned several times, but not as often as I wanted, because I do supposedly have a day-ish job and leaving home at 10:30 on a Monday night for music that starts at 11 or later just isn't an option very often. Am I sorry that I missed John Betsch last Monday? Yes, I am, and sorry that I missed many other shows that were spoken of after in glowing terms.

A night of new music at MacPhail: The Bryan Nichols Trio and the Paul Renz Quintet

When: Saturday, January 23, 2010 • Where: Antonello Hall, MacPhail Center for Music • What: MacPhail’s Spotlight Series, featuring members of its teaching faculty; this was “Jazz Innovations” night

First set: The Bryan Nichols Trio
Bryan Nichols, piano; Adam Linz, bass; JT Bates, drums



When pianist/composer Bryan Nichols told me that his upcoming performance at MacPhail would consist of all-new music written the week before and rehearsed only once, I was more excited than skeptical. I’ve heard Nichols and the other members of his trio—Adam Linz on bass, JT Bates on drums—often enough that I know to trust them. Pretty much anything they do is interesting, much of it deeply interesting, whether they’re playing ensemble or taking solos.

I expected to like the music; I loved the music. Five selections, the first four untitled. “Song 1” was a perfect opener, a warm and welcoming piece in which Linz literally leaped into his first solo, playing a rapid series of low-to-high notes on his bass and rising to his toes. Not an in-your-face piece, but an invitation to sit back and enjoy.

“Song 2” began with mallets on drums, a solo that went from soft booms to sticks on rims and a moment during which JT seemed to be squeezing the snare drum head. This one was freer, edgier, wilder. More like what I originally expected, though “Song 1” had already taught me the futility of prediction. We were in for more surprises.

“Song 3” started with Nichols playing what sounded like a very old tune, something Bill Carrothers might play. Sweet and nostalgic, it took a sharp left into swing, with Linz walking the bass. Fierce drumming by JT brought it up to the present and kicked it into the future.

“Song 4” was the most traditionally structured piano-trio tune: Linz and Bates playing rhythm, Nichols chording with his left hand and exploring the keys with his right. Enjoyable hard bop, with band members trading eights.

The fifth and final selection had a title, “Stories about Stories,” which Nichols explained was inspired by the tales jazz musicians enjoy telling. A tune in the once crazy, now lilting 5/4 rhythm (thanks, Lisa Meyer, for pointing that out). Moody, lovely, and reflective, like the big floor-to-ceiling windows in front of which the band was playing. The curtain was open for this event, revealing the glories of the Antonello’s glass.

Throughout the set, the music was intriguing, engaging, sure-footed, and pleasing to a large crowd that included families with children.

Aside: Bryan Nichols on playing with Fat Kid Wednesdays

Nichols’ new groups feature members of Fat Kid Wednesdays (his quartet includes all three—Linz, Bates, and saxophonist Michael Lewis) but none of them sounds like Fat-Kids-plus-piano. Like The Bad Plus, Fat Kids is not a group whose members are interchangeable. It’s a unit, one piece, and formidable.

Here’s what Nichols said recently about this trio and his quartet:

“JT and Adam and I love playing trio, but that’s never been something we have pursued intensely. It just happens every now and then, and we really enjoy it. It’s been happening since I was 17. It’s a really fun group….

“The quartet right now will be 95 percent my songs. That’s one of the biggest differences between that and Fat Kids itself. They have a couple of originals, but for the most part they’re not a band that’s deeply concerned with playing original music. Which I totally dig, because the way they deconstruct standards or free tunes or whatever is amazing. They take stuff and make it their own in a cool way. But if I went and decided to do that same mix…. That’s not what I want to do. I don’t want to just hire them and then copy exactly what they do. I don’t want to insert myself into Fat Kid Wednesdays.”

I mentioned that I had been at the quartet’s debut in late December at the Dakota and remembered thinking how tough it would be to make a dent in Fat Kids. Nichols laughed and said, “They’re guys I play with all the time, guys I’ve grown up both listening to and playing with…. I’ve been talking about putting together a regular group for quite a while now. I’ve been back in town for four years, doing various pick-up groups, because one of the things about here I really like is I can play with a ton of different people. It’s tough to limit myself [to hiring certain people and not others]. There are all these great players. This town is a special town. For a place its size, it’s impressive….

“The fun thing about playing with [Lewis, Linz, and Bates] is not only do they have this deep connection to all the music I do, not only do they have the same reference points as far as growing up in a similar place and playing a lot of different music, but they all obviously have huge ears, they’re great listeners, they have a ton of energy, so I can take anything and bring it in there and it’s given a new life. Most of the material we’re playing is new anyway, but it becomes extra new….

“Those guys have a really intense and idiosyncratic and impressive thing themselves, and I love it, but just because I know them so well personally and musically, I don’t want to feel intimidated by them. And on one level I do, because they’re my favorite band to listen to. If I have to pick a jazz group in town to listen to, it’s them and Happy Apple, obviously. On that level, I’m impressed and intimidated constantly by what they can do, and the interaction, but on a level of ‘Can I play with them?’ the answer is ‘Absolutely.’”

Second set: The Paul Renz Quintet
Paul Renz, guitar; Andrew Schwandt, tenor sax; Brian Ziemniak, piano; Eric Graham, bass; Nathan Fryett, drums



The music Renz and his quintet played was not quite as new as Nichols’; all of the tunes were released a few months ago on Renz’ latest CD, In My Own Hands. All were written by Renz. I like the CD very much but hadn’t listened to it since December, when I included it in a list of holiday gift possibilities.

It was good to hear several of the tunes played live, with more room for the individual artists to stretch out—on the loose and funky “Take It Home,” for example. I enjoyed seeing Graham and Schwandt play, though I kept imagining Schwandt sharing the stage with Brandon Wozniak, another tall saxophonist (they could do it, too, now that Wozniak has switched from tenor to alto, at least when playing with the Atlantis Quartet). But while Renz’s guitar and Graham’s fretless electric bass were amped, Ziemniak was on his own with acoustic piano. The Antonello’s gorgeous Steinway couldn’t stand up to the amps. Much of the piano was lost—even where we were sitting, in the center of the front row. Ditto for Fryett's drumming. Schwandt usually played toward the front of the stage, near a mic, so we heard his saxophone clearly (but later learned that people seated further back weren't so lucky). The acoustics in Antonello can be pristine, but when some instruments are amped and others aren't, they need a little help.

Photos by John Whiting

Conversations on Improvisation: Adam Linz

Adam Linz

Bassist and composer Adam Linz is Jazz Coordinator at MacPhail Center for Music. He attended Park Center High School in Brooklyn Park, studied with Peter Olson at MacPhail, and earned his Bachelor of Music degree from William Paterson University in New Jersey.

Linz co-leads the group Fat Kid Wednesdays with childhood friends Mike Lewis and JT Bates and plays with numerous groups and bands around the Twin Cities. He also teaches at Augsburg College and the Minnesota Institute for Talented Youth (MITY).

His latest solo release, A Kiss for Luck (2009), is the first on his new Larusso label.

***

Pamela Espeland: As an educator, how do you describe improvisation to your students?

Adam Linz: Improvisation is kinda like riding a bike for the first time, or a skateboard. Someone is there holding your hand. You're nervous, and you don't know what is going to happen. As you let go of those feelings, you enjoy it. Pretty soon, you want to do it every day. Sometimes all day. You do it with your friends, you learn new tricks, you become cocky and humble all at the same time. Then someone amazing puts you in your place, and you work at it all over again. You do it so much that you say, hey, I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life.... It defines you, and you shape it to fit your life. It changes with time and, pretty soon, it's just like breathing.

PLE: Especially to someone who's new to this, good improvisation and bad improvisation can sound a lot alike. How can a listener tell the difference?

AL: I really enjoy seeing somebody improvise who's not very good at it, as long as they have an audience behind them that's full of love, whether it's friends and family -- to know they're thinking, "I have no idea what this is, but that's a person I love up there, and I'm here for them."

What separates somebody like [saxophonist and legendary improviser] Evan Parker from some 14-year-old kid playing a solo sax set at the Bean in Uptown? Parker obviously grew up in the European improvisational community. He helped define and develop it. He also has a huge record collection. You can hear that he's an educated listener.

We are all moving toward the same point, which is development and connection and the ability to say, "We don't know what's going to happen up here, but we hope that it's going to feel great. If it feels great to us, we hope it feels great to you."

PLE: When did you first get interested in improvised music?

AL: I used to go to Cheapo in Uptown to buy CDs. A guy named John Morgan used to run that store. All of us -- JT [Bates], Michael [Lewis], [James] Buckley, Tim Glenn, John Davis, and I -- would go to Cheapo, and Morgan would hip us to great stuff. Improv from around the world, but especially the European tradition, which none of us knew about. Half of my collection came from John Morgan.

PLE: When did you start improvising?

AL: As a jazz musician in high school, playing with Michael [Lewis] and JT [Bates] and my teachers. Then I went to a very strict bebop college, William Paterson University. There were a lot of misfits there. We all started thinking we could play free-we could have sketches of music instead of charts.
When I moved back to the Twin Cities, we developed the scene at the Clown Lounge, and improvisation was a huge part of it. But Fat Kids and some of the other groups I play with still love to play traditional stuff. We're still turned on by all aspects of jazz, whether it's Louis Armstrong and Ella [Fitzgerald] or the new Tim Berne record or somebody from Japan playing a piece of wood with nails on it and rubber bands.

PLE: What goes on in your head when you're improvising?

AL: When I play with JT and Mike, I think about the past. I think about our friendship. We've been a band for 17 years. I think about the song, the background on the song, the background on the person who wrote the song.

Before I improvise with anybody, I drill them with questions. Where are you from? What's your family like? Where do you live now? Where have you lived? Where do you want to live? How are things?

PLE: Why does that matter?

AL: I have to know the person I'm playing with before we play a single note. When Evan Parker came here and played with us [Fat Kids] for [the Minnesota] Sur Seine in 2005, I was scared shitless. This is Evan Parker! The guy! He invented modern improvising saxophone! Then we talked to him, and he is the sweetest person on the planet. He put my mind so at ease. I felt when I played with him, I could do anything I wanted to do, and he would react, and I would react, and I could be as silent as I wanted to be. I didn't have to prove anything to him.

PLE: Who have you learned the most from about improvising? 

AL: Oddly enough, two classical guys at William Paterson. One was Hugh Aitken, my freshman comp teacher, a monster composer from NY who grew up with [John] Cage, [Anton] Webern, [Alban] Berg and Elliott Carter, and studied with Nadia Boulanger. The other was Ray Des Roches, who was head of the classical percussion department and was on every one of those Nonesuch modern contemporary classical records from the late 1960s and early 70s.

Hugh [Aitken] was this old crotchety guy. His palette was huge -- it was atonal, it was gorgeous. I went to class one day and he pulled me aside and said, "You know, you jazz guys, you're the same as me, as classical people or pop people. We're all just trying to cadence or not cadence. You either want to finish, or you're trying to avoid finishing."

PLE: I'm not sure I understand that.

AL: How many times have you thought a jazz tune was going to end, and all of a sudden they keep going, or there's a pause, or somebody blows a little? Starting is easy. Somebody starts and then you play, or you all start together and find these little rivers of harmony and melody. Ending is hard. How do you get everybody to end at the same time? Who should end? When should it end? How does the ending feel natural?

PLE: That is a mystery to many people in the audience.

AL: It's a mystery to me. That's the connection. Especially when we're playing freely. It's the connection of someone playing something we all recognize, it's the connection of a vamp at the end, it's the connection of trickling down to one person and letting them in.... In most music, the ending is huge, and then it stops, and that's when people know to clap. But in improvised music, the ending might be ten minutes of silence, or what we call lowercase playing, lots of small noises.

PLE: What improvisers do you like and suggest other people check out?

AL: Peter Kowald was a bass player and monster improviser. He had a great spirit, a great free will.... I really like George Lewis, the trombone player who also teaches computer programming. I like Mat Maneri, violinist. Jen Shyu, vocalist. I'm a sucker for the classic guys -- Dave Burrell on piano, Sunny Murray on drums, Dave Holland on bass, [trumpeter] Kenny Wheeler.... My favorite guys are the ones that walk both lines. They're improvisers, but they can make a record with Charles Lloyd or a record with ECM.

Craig Taborn is huge for me. He's like the second coming of Cecil Taylor. And he's the nicest person. That means a lot to me.

PLE: Charles Mingus once said, "You can't improvise on nothing. You gotta improvise on something." What's your starting point?

AL: Sometimes my starting point is an interval I heard earlier in the day. Or, the vision of a couple I see walking down the street. Or, the people I'm playing for, the environment.... It's not just one thing. For Mingus it might have been a standard he could play off of and do his own thing. For Ornette [Coleman] it might have been a musical scale.

PLE: What would you say to somebody who's about to listen to improvised music for the first time?

AL: Have a good time -- don't have an agenda as a listener. Chances are, we don't have an agenda as players. But we're trying to invite you into our thing, and we want you to enjoy it. I'm not the type of artist who's like, "If you don't like it, fuck you, what's your problem, what are you, stupid?"

Look around and see what other people are doing. Are they intent on one person, are they focused on a certain instrument? What's your favorite instrument that you see up there? Focus on that. Then let the whole thing in.

In every genre there are quiet little revolutions going on, but the world is too fast, too busy to take notice. And I'm okay with that. We can try really hard, but we have to be happy with what we're able to do and who we're able to connect with in places like the Clown Lounge and the Rogue Buddha. We feel like we're doing things. We're putting things out in the world. We're meeting improvisers from all over. That's all we can do.

***

View a solo performance by Adam Linz.
View a performance by Fat Kid Wednesdays (Adam Linz, Michael Lewis, JT Bates).


Originally published on mnartists.org on January 13, 2010. mnartists.org is a project of the Walker Art Center and the McKnight Foundation.

Photo by John Whiting.

Thursday's musical feast

It is not decadent or greedy to see two or more live jazz performances on the same night. Jazz fans did it all the time on NYC's 52nd street back in the day, and musicians ran from gig to gig to play, sit in, or listen. Some nights it's possible to do it in downtown Minneapolis or St. Paul, and you can also go from city to city if you start early enough or stay out late enough.

Last night began at Orchestra Hall's outdoor Peavey Plaza with a free concert by Fat Kid Wednesdays: Michael Lewis on saxophones (tenor and alto), Adam Linz on bass, JT Bates on drums. The crowd was sizable, the beer cold, the music as intriguing and unpredictable as always with this trio. Looking worldly from his recent tour with Andrew Bird, during which he's been playing electric bass and singing, Lewis wore a new tattoo. FKW is (are?) at Cafe Maude tonight, at the Clown Lounge in the basement of the Turf Club on Monday.

At 7:30 we were inside Orchestra Hall for a concert by the Minnesota Orchestra and the Irvin Mayfield Quintet. With the charismatic Andrew Litton conducting (which tonight included jumping up and down, suit jacket flapping), we heard Gershwin's An American in Paris (which HH said sounds like music from The Simpsons--it does). We rarely hear the orchestra (so much jazz, so little time) and I had forgotten how delicious one can be--all those musicians and dynamics, that big instrumental voice. It was fun to see both Pete Whitman (who played last weekend at the AQ and returns there soon with his X-tet) and Dave Milne in the saxophone section.

Then the symphonic arrangement of Duke Ellington's Black, Brown and Beige, which Ellington called a "tonal parallel to the history of the American Negro." Dismissed by critics in 1943, now beloved, it includes the gorgeous and wistful "Come Sunday." The original is over 40 min. long; this shorter (18 min.) version is the one most often performed.

With the orchestra still on stage, Maestro Litton sat down at the piano to play Oscar Peterson's arrangement of "'Round Midnight." Litton told us how much he loves Peterson, that he probably owns 140 Peterson CDs, and that when asked "What's on your iPod?" he'll likely answer "All jazz and the occasional Ring Cycle." He was a classical musican playing a jazz arrangement, with great affection and skill. Afterward he joked, "It's so much easier when nobody's listening." (He played with a dislocated finger, injured in the Bahamas during a fall from a scooter and scheduled to be splinted for months.)

For the final piece before the intermission, trumpeter Irvin Mayfield, bass player Neal Caine, and drummer Adonis Rose joined the orchestra in an arrangement of "Over the Rainbow" that Litton commissioned during his tenure with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. (In Dallas, the trumpet part was played by Texas-born Roy Hargrove.)

After intermission, the focus of the concert: the world premiere of Mayfield's The Art of Passion, commissioned by the Minnesota Orchestra. Mayfield introduced it by talking about passion, how important it is, and how when passion is absent, resentment takes its place. He praised the orchestra as "the best distillment of love we do as humans." His quintet—which also included John Chin on piano and Ronald Westray on trombone—stood at front center stage with Maestro Litton behind them on his podium and the orchestra wrapped around them, like an embrace.

Through his music, Mayfield dealt with topics he cares about deeply: love, passion, truth, adventure. Sometimes the orchestra and the quintet played together, sometimes just the quintet, with lots of room for solos by individual members. The first part began and ended with a bass solo; the final part ended in a blaze of trumpet glory. The music was by turns thoughtful, beautiful, and lively. This was the first time it had been performed in public and the audience loved it.

We went from OH to the Dakota to see the final hour of the Jazz is NOW! NOWnet, the composer's forum led by Jeremy Walker. Bonus: it was Jeremy and Marsha's fourth anniversary--a good feeling in the room, with friends all around. I've seen the NOWnet several times and like this group very much. It's more-or-less the same six musicians, with the occasional variation due to someone being out of town or otherwise engaged. This time was Walker at the piano, Chris Thomson on tenor sax, Scott Fultz on alto sax, Kelly Rossum on trumpet, Jeff Brueske on bass, Kevin Washington on drums.

They sounded great, their music new and modern yet very approachable--it approaches you. I spent a few moments talking with Larry Englund (KFAI host and the man who books the Hat Trick Lounge), who said, "What I like about their music is there's so much space in it." He's right. Walker doesn't play a single extraneous or disposable note. No one in the NOWnet does. Another reason to like them, and to pay attention to what they have to say. Some of what we heard: "Summer Sunday Afternoon," "So Long New York," Walker's arrangement of Ellington's "New York City Blues," something brand-new, and the lovely, romantic "Dorothy and Robert," Fultz's homage to his grandparents.

As the NOWnet wrapped up, people began arriving from OH: Mayfield and his quintet, Maestro Litton and his wife, Lilly Schwartz (the reason Mayfield is artistic director of jazz at Orchestra Hall, a position that was recently renewed), audience members who had heard that Mayfield might perform at the Dakota, as has become his tradition when he plays OH. After the NOWnet left the stage, once the quintet had dined and relaxed, they gave us what we wanted: an impromptu late-night jam. Mayfield played and sang and laughed and joked. We heard more of the marvelous Chin. Rose, still wearing his OH stage clothes, kept his jacket buttoned. Caine and Westray let loose. It was glorious.

And it was all one night and into the morning.

Photos: Fat Kid Wednesdays; Michael Lewis.
NOWnet; Neal Caine and Irvin Mayfield; Mayfield Quintet by John Whiting.

Talking with Adam Linz

Bassist Adam Linz (Fat Kid Wednesdays) has been tapped to head MacPhail's jazz program when Kelly Rossum leaves for NYC at summer's end. Read about it on MinnPost. Here's more from our interview.

PLE: Who were your influences?
AL: Those players that kind of blurred the lines between playing a lot of different stuff—somebody like Gary Peacock, Henry Grimes, Charlie Haden, Dave Holland definitely. Also I'm a big fan of Andy Simpkins, who played in the Three Sounds. And I was a fan of the lesser-known players...Israel Crosby, who played with Ahmad Jamal for a long time. I wasn't a kid who was like, there's Ray Brown and Larry Grenadier.... I kept my distance from the normal.

PLE: When did you start playing?
AL: I was a late starter. Electric when I was 16, double bass when I was 19. I grew up on rock and roll. When I was a really young kid, I saw a couple of band videos where the guitar players all had black guitars and the bassists all had white basses. I wanted to play the white bass. People thought I should be a guitar player; they thought my hands were too thick and chunky to play guitar. But my uncle was a bass player and the bass player seemed like the hippest player in the band..... I got into music through hip-hop, rock, and metal. The first three cassettes I bought were Run-D.M.C.'s "Raising Hell," Van Halen, and "Miles Davis: Greatest Hits." I definitely as not a musical kid. I did other things. I was in all kinds of sports, karate, BMX racing, skateboarding. I came to study music late in life but to appreciate it a lot earlier. I still have a huge record collection. I'm a listener.

PLE: What are you listening to lately?
AL: Today, a Gary Peacock/Bill Frisell duet record called "Just So Happens." I've been listening to this great singer/songwriter Sam Amidon, "All Is Well." He's on a label out of Iceland called Bedroom Community. The arrangements are lush. It's one of the best records I've heard all year.... An electronic duo from japan called Tennis Coats. They're awesome. I've been listening to Eliot Carter, the classical composer. Just his first symphony. I've been listening to the last Jim Black No Access record, "Dogs of Great Indifference." It's on the Winter Winter label.

PLE: You're following Kelly Rossum as head of MacPhail's jazz program, but I'm not going to ask the hair question. [Rossum famously wears a mohawk. Linz has a regular haircut.]
AL: I had dreads for twelve or thirteen years. I cut them off and sent them to Atlanta so the cancer society could make a dreads wig for this lady.

PLE: Free jazz, avant-garde jazz, left-of-center jazz.... What do you call it?
AL: Just playing for me.

Fat Kid Wednesdays + Buckley

When: Friday, March 13, 2009 • Where: Café Maude • Who: Fat Kid Wednesdays: Michael Lewis, saxes; Adam Linz, bass; J.T. Bates, drums

I’m liking Maude more and more. Owner Kevin Sheehy is committed to keeping the music going, the food good, the art fresh. It’s a too-loud crowd for the music but these days the operative word is “crowd.” And somehow it has become a place that gets away with presenting real music, often cutting-edge music, where no one seems to be listening.

It doesn't seem that the musicians who play there are gritting their teeth and putting up with it just because it’s a gig. They like Maude, too. Plus other musicians regularly show up to see their friends play. Tonight it’s bassist/composer James Buckley, who sits in for Linz for a couple of tunes near the end of the last set. I know about Buckley and hear about him often but have never seen him play—the timing has never worked out—so this is a first.



FKW is fine tonight. They give their usual nod to the Shaggs with “That Little Sportscar,” which Don Berryman caught on video when they played it at the AQ in January.



But most of the night is mellow—ballads and standards. Lewis’s mom Mary is here and he’s making her happy. Vince Mendoza’s “Ambivalence.” “Makin’ Whoopie.” The killer closer, “In a Sentimental Mood.” I won’t say FKW “deconstructs” the standards—the melodies and rhythms are still strong—but they do stretch them, bend them, reshape them.



Although Lewis is best known for his out-there saxophone antics (and, more recently, for playing electric bass with Andrew Bird), he is a superb player of standards, with a meltingly, heartbreakingly beautiful tone. We’re all googly-eyed during “Sentimental Mood.”

What a great band. Why everyone doesn’t come out to hear them every time they play is a mystery. Mary tells us they have played together for 15 years—half their lives. That’s probably how they make it look so easy.



Hear more FKW on MySpace.
Buckley is finishing up a CD with his trio (Bryan Nichols on keyboard/piano, J.T. on drums) and posting tracks on MySpace.

Photos by John Whiting. Top to bottom: Lewis, Buckley, FKW, Linz.

Fat Kid Wednesdays at the Clown

When: Monday, September 1, 2008 • Where: Clown Lounge • Who: Fat Kid Wednesdays: Michael Lewis, saxophone; Adam Linz, bass; JT Bates, drums

Located downstairs from the Turf Club on University Avenue, the Clown Lounge is a center for improvisational music. During an interview earlier this year, Kelly Rossum said, "The Clown is a big deal. Out of all the clubs in the Twin Cities, it's the most consistently high quality music, week by week, month by month, year by year."



It's a pretty full house for Labor Day, mostly young white guys who are there to listen, including other musicians: Chris Morrissey, Bryan Nichols. Linz smacks his bass and pulls at the strings, Lewis paces (I wonder what he does on a shallow stage? Fall off?), JT rolls a ball around on top of his big floor tom. Lewis plays the same note over and over again, supporting Linz's solo; JT looks like he's trying to dig a hole in his snare with his sticks, or start a fire. At one point he seems to be playing goat toenails in a handkerchief.



Let me not give the impression the Kids are playing around. This is wholly engaging music, sometimes teetering on an edge but more often melodic and beautiful. During "Dewey's Tune," JT gives us a gorgeous drum solo. Lewis's tone is tender and sweet. Linz makes his instrument sing.

Words come into my head as I listen, and images, and this phrase, which repeats like a chorus: Jazz is contagious. Where did that come from? I don't know but it's the truth.



When we last saw Fat Kid at Cafe Maude, they played a tune by the Shaggs. I'm hoping they will again and they do: "That Little Sports Car."

Note to self: Get to the Clown more often.

Photos by John Whiting.