lydianchromaticconcept.com

Pure improvisation and the audience loved them for it. They seemed to explore the limits of tonality and dynamics from the point of view of pure sound and rhythm rather than song form. And in the middle of all this, there was a beautiful segue through a new arrangement of Footprints. Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade each led the music in interesting directions and Wayne Shorter sat on top of it all on tenor and soprano like the master he is - inspiring them onward.

Afterwards a friend said he thought they were playing with the physics of music, just like the Concept does.

It was a great concert. I hope they'll release at least one double-album from the tour.

b

You are making me so jealous.

One thing I love about him, out of so many, is his ability play so much using so little. That sounds very cliche! but he goes about it completely different than anybody else who has that same characteristic. You can just tell how sensitive he is to each passing tonality, and how much he is in tune with what Danilo is doing. And he has this incredible ability to pick the notes that you would have never known existed within that tonality! You really hear him toying with levels of tonal gravity you never knew existed. This is especially obvious on "Joy Ryder" from Beyond the Sound Barrier.

I knew you'd appreciate a short report.

Danilo did a number of things with staccato rhythms right at the bottom of the piano which he used to change the direction of a piece. Then it was like three drummers with Wayne on top. And when they came back for the encore there was some playful foot stamping and whistling - and Wayne played effortless percussion not so randomly dropping his mouthpiece cover on the music stand.

If you took everything else out, you'd just have four people dancing for an hour and a half. Maybe not releasing albums provides some liberation from making commercial sounds for sale and lets the music live again. What was it Monk said in those notes from Steve Lacy? "Don't play everything (or every time); let some things go by. Some music just imagined."

b

ps: let's hope for the live album anyway...