The central room is dominated by a bow-front musicians' gallery, through which is threaded an oval stairway with a velvet-topped balustrade.
Inside, the walls are brick, the lights and ceilings are low, and – if you can score a table near the front – the musicians are close enough for the experience to be especially intimate.
Now he sings, enunciating clearly, his accent a marvel of Southern California phonology, in front of musicians half a generation younger, in a band candidly based on his beginnings with early Black Flag: similar kinds of riff structures, rhythms, short and haywire guitar solos.
Our experts cited a strong neighborhood culture of front porch musicians, in combination with the theatricality of celebrations like Mardi Gras, as helping cultivate a vibrant jazz community.
Front Range musicians, rejoice!
All the front-line musicians (Mr. Printup, the saxophonist Walter Blanding Jr. and the trombonist Wycliffe Gordon) took thorough solos.
Remember again that the three front-line musicians didn't need to work this hard for their paychecks: so much less would have sold tickets.
But, aside from Aaron Goldberg on piano, Bob Hurst on bass and Andrew Daniels on percussion, the two front-line musicians were Wynton Marsalis and Greg Osby, both of whom are at the highest level of jazz improvisation, who hadn't ever performed together before.
It was good, too, to hear arrangements that contracted and expanded from solos and duos to full ensemble playing, and it was good to hear him let the young front-line musicians, the trumpeter Curtis Taylor and the saxophonist Stacy Dillard, take over and build solos almost as searching and confident as his own.
Pono, which is fronted by musician Neil Young, is one proponent of that approach, while Sweden's Aspiro — a company that was recently bought by rapper Jay-Z — offers similar high-def options in the form of its WiMP and Tidal services.
Women in headscarves peered down from balconies while children ran along in front of the musicians laughing and playing.
