2007: A Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey

Ever since the break up of Phish I have concentrated wholly on lyrical based music in terms of writing and listening too. I was sick of all the jam bands because although they created the desired tension and release with their music, lets face it, they write songs about stupid shit. Goodbye to Phish, moe, Galactic - Hello to Bright Eyes, Modest Mouse and Rilo Kiley. But lately I’ve been sick of how boring the latter's concerts are. No surprises, no crazy covers, terrible light shows and virtually the same set list every night. And NO ONE even dances anymore, argh!

Last Saturday night I took a step backward and went to an all instrumental show with neo-space jazz cats, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. The Fred played at a local artist's commune called the Narrows complete with church pews for seats and a wonderful BYOB policy. Truly a great environment for organic music. JFJO hails from Oklahoma (which must have something in its water considering the Flaming Lips are from OKC) but I have only seen them at HSMF in Cali. Recently they added a new drummer who is rediculous. Alongside monsters such as bassist Reed Mathis and pianist Brian Hass, the Fred might just be the best young original instrumental act out there and it showed that night. I don’t know any of their songs but I did notice a vocalless devouring of the Beatles “Happiness is a Warm Gun” that would send Brad Mehldau into a cheer. The small crowd was absolutely floored. The whole show there was no talking (you could hear a pin drop except the music was playing ), no flash cameras, and plenty of dancing in the back row. A truly unique vibe considering the state of concert goers and their damn cell phones these days.

Opening the show was The Life Effect, a jazz super goup (so to speak), which consists of pure improvisation between Brad and Andrew Barr (The SLIP who by the way survived my musical shift by shifting their music to more progressive indie rock, but that's another story), JFJO’s Reed Mathis and Saxophonist Jim Hobbes of the Fully Celebrated Orchestra. Unfortunately I arrived late due to another wedding (Congrats Dean and Lizzie ) so I only saw one “song” of theirs. I walked in as Brad and Andrew were both playing drums while Jim was going off. Then Brad hopped on his guitar and free styled some lyrics over a bluesy vamp with Andrew beating on an old oil drum. It was short, but it was nice to see the Barr’s get back to their improv roots.