Posted by On February 5th, 2016 I had the great pleasure of joining a couple of good friends for an evening of stellar music in a nice and cozy semi-new venue a short and chilly stroll from my home.
The semi-new venue was the recently revamped 4th Stage, which the good folks at the National Arts Centre had recently transformed from a cold, impersonal, awkwardly-shaped storage room with a tiny stage and a girl in a closet that barely functioned as a bar into a significantly warmer, slightly less impersonal, still awkwardly-shaped bona fide nightclub chock full of low-rider comfy couches and tiny candle-lit tables. It even had a proper bar with a proper bartender; I liked the place. The stage was still pretty tiny but somehow it was big enough to hold the amount of talent that would be standing on it this evening, which was sizeable.
The show was billed as the Fraser Hollins Quartet, but not to me it wasn’t. As a matter of fact, as I sit here writing this I had to google Fraser Hollins to be reminded who he is (turns out he’s a Canadian bass player based [bassed?] out of Montreal). No, to me this was a Brian Blade concert, as is pretty much any show I see that Brian is a part of, going back to the first time I ever saw or heard of him, when Blade’s blissful drumming made me almost forget that I was in fact attending a Joni Mitchell concert*.
Joel Miller and Jon Cowherd – on sax and piano respectively (thanks again, internet) – were also on the bill and I’m sure they added greatly to the experience (especially Cowherd, who google just told me is co-founder of the amazing Brian Blade Fellowship), but like I say, I only had eyes for Brian. And my eyes didn’t have to work that hard either, sitting as I was just ten feet or so from his drum kit. I suppose a lot of people would have considered my seat two rows off of stage left fairly poor, which is how we managed to snag the table despite being fairly late through the door – but again, not to me it wasn’t. Blade’s trap was set right at the edge of my end of the stage and though my side view afforded me only the occasional glimpse of his ever-smiling face I did have a perfectly unimpeded view of his hi-hat.
And it was glorious. It was like a whole night of watching the intro to Magic Bus by Keith Moon up close. Imagine that!
Oh, and the couple of good friends who were along with me were those happily betrothed local musical mainstays, singer/pianist Megan Jerome and her drummer husband (and my old bandmate) Mike Essoudry, and to have witnessed such jazzical infinitude whilst among such pleasant company made the wonderful musical evening just that much wonderfuller.
My thanks to everyone involved.
*Okay, there was that one Daniel Lanois show I saw at The Black Box where the three musicians musically morphed into such a perfect sonic entity that I had to force myself to zero out in order to focus on Brian Blade as an individual, though when I did it was only to the detriment of the musical space that was being conjured in what has stood as one of the greatest concerts I have ever witnessed.
Todd Man Out 