Photos + Review: Guttman|Steve Earle et al

Tonic|Southpaw, 1 November 2006

Last week was the CMJ festival so there was a glut of music around town and I was lucky enough to get out of the house for some bonus live show action. So here's a quickie review to go with some nice photos courtesy once again of Mr Aiello...

Mid-week midnight sets are tough, but I couldn't let the opportunity to catch my main men Marco and Mike do their thing as Benevento opened up a 5-week residency at Tonic (no way I'm missing opening night!). My personal name for the nu-duo was "Ben-Gordon" which makes me chuckle on many levels, despite my UCONN hatred, but they called themselves "Guttman," although they seemed to pronounce it Gut Man, I think it's probably supposed to be like a Germanic Goot-mahn, i.e. Goodman [comma] Benny, the King of Swing. The entire, short set was music written by Benny Goodman. You probably think you don't know any BG tunes, but if you were at this show you would quickly realize that you know plenty of them.

With a Benevento/Mike Gordon hit, the expectation would be for a uber-improv late night mind-party, but as Mike said he'd only play if they could do a Benny Goodman set, there were some interested constraints on the music. They did not stretch or improvise or even really explore the music. And yet, it still had a wonderfully loose late-night feel from top to bottom. The constraints really opened up an interesting level in playing from both Marco and Gordo. On top of this, the music was obviously in-its-original-packaging new for both of them, despite any limited rehearsal they had done.

Marco sat in a jacketless tuxedo get-up at the grand piano, while Mike somehow managed to clash 3 different shades of black in one outfit, including a tie that his mother may or may not have helped him affix to his neck. Gordon's bass was a departure from his normal 6-string Modulus -- it was a funky, artsy-fartsy, curvy V-shaped, neckless thing which nestled nicely on his knee as he sat and played. The sound from the bass was a softer, jazzier ooze than the normal plunky funk you're used to getting from him.

The set was smoething along the lines of this: Bugle Call, You Be So Nice, Temptation Rag
Moonglow, Breakfast Feud, Exactly Like You, Sing Sing Sing, Don't Be That Way, Rachel's Dream, Elmer's Tune, Bye Bye; and like I said, you'd probably recognize a whole lot of it. This is especially true of Sing Sing Sing which is probably featured in about 150 different movie scenes, mostly involving some sort of swing dance number, although off-hand I can't think of an example. During Sing, the guys worked on some audience participation, having the crowd carry the rumbling rhythm with hand claps and foot stomps. Brad Barr (of the Slip) hopped up on stage and beefed up the sound by playing the beat on a drum that was on the stage.


The mood in the room was wonderfully loose. Both Mike & Marco were pretty comfortable with some back-and-forth between themselves and the audience. Despite the marquee names, it was a big week of music crammed directly between Halloween and a mammoth CMJ weekend, so it was a healthy sized crowd for a midnight set, but barely a half-full Tonic, which is already a nice, cozy room. Those who made it out, though, were treated to something really special. The only way to describe the set would be "professional" -- these guys were a bit out of their element, but they pretty much nailed the correct tone, attitude and energy of the Goodman tunes they were playing. This is even more amazing considering they were taking a big band genre with a lead clarinet and transcribing the music while preserving its spirit for a piano and bass. As someone said, just listening to the music made them feel classy. Both guys took multiple solos and then meshed back together in each tune quite wonderfully. Along the way they really opened up some interesting complexities within each composition. The only down part of the night was that there was some "college music"-type bass bleeding up through the floor. My guess is that this is why they ended up playing for just under an hour, but it was a nice tether to reality. Without it, we might have floated back to another time, anachronisms in the Lower East Side.

This is likely a one time thing, but who knows how it might open up the musical mindset of these guys... especially Marco who's in a real prolific space right now, weaving long-spun 1st rate improv nightly on the road with Joe Russo as well as churning out A+ compositions at a yearly rate.

The Tonic residency continues this week, and we'll expect more of the normal head-scratch/booty-shake delicacies as Benevento is joined by an interesting slate of local cats: Steve Bernstein, Claude Coleman & Dave Dreiwitz. If I make it, you'll be hearing about it.

Not being able to hit a midnight set cold, I hit a warmup other-end-of-the-spectrum show at Southpaw in Brooklyn. I don't get there often enough, but every time I do I remember that it's flat out one of the best rooms in the 5 boroughs. The show was headlined by Steve Earle and being that the last time I saw him with his band it was at the Beacon, seeing him for $20 in a perfect-sized room in Brooklyn was too tough to pass up. Although it doesn't seem the type, this was a CMJ show and there were small peculiarities that made it so. 4 different artists on the bill, a sold out show even though the room wasn't half-full, a young lady repping Magic Hat Brewery, floating around giving out free beer and t-shirts, etc.

We walked in when the first artist was on stage: Tim Easton. He played an affable solo guitar-and-self-penned-songs kind of set. The real highlight of the bill was the second artist: Laura Cantrell. All the acts had a sort of alt-country/folkie/Americana slant to them, but Cantrell definitely fit the part the best and was the most impressive. She was backed by a mandolin player and a guitar player while she played guitar and sang. I would easily put her a lucky break or two away from the level of a Neko Case or Jenny Lewis. Her trio-mates were fantastic pickers and she integrated them perfectly with her own beautiful voice and songs. Keep an eye out for her, highly recommended. Next up was Allison Moorer who brought us back to solo-country. She had the best voice of the night, just a haunting, deep instrument in its own right.

Knowing I wanted to hit that Tonic set, I was getting antsy waiting for Steve Earle and finally realized I wouldn't be able to stay for his whole set. He came on after 11 and launched nicely into anecdotes about Bob Dylan and this-and-that while building up a song around it. He was solo-with-guitar, which I've never seen from him before. With Steve Earle, you never know if you're going to get straight-ahead folk-country-rock star playing music Steve Earle or the rant-and-rave about the government and the man Steve Earle. It was dangerously close to Election Day, but for the 45 minutes I was there, he stuck on the preferred script and was pretty much a delight. When he's on, Earle is really as good as anyone. I never get that excited about him until he's right there in front of me, intoxicating with a legend's personality and skill.

Apparently, after I left Mr Hyde kicked Dr Jeckyll off the stage. My friend reports that the weird energy of CMJ and the long, 3-opener, beer-filled wait for his taking the stage created an unfriendly mix when Steve started into his political schtick. When he took the stage he offered that it was his first time playing in Brooklyn, and from the heckling and none-too-friendly back and forth my buddy described, it doesn't sound like he'll be back anytime soon. Too bad, the 5th Ave crowd is perfectly suited for his music if he only knew to play to them properly.