Alex Sipiagin

I am seriously looking forward to seeing the Alex Sipiagin Group tomorrow night at Small's in NYC. Its my first time checking out Sipiagin after listening to him for the better part of 3 years.

I first heard Alex on a Mingus Big Band album and never really thought much at first. He sounded like my hero Eddie Henderson, a section mate in the band, just without using the same amount of space in his playing. However, my curiosity was strong enough to buy one of his quintet albums on Criss Cross; Prints. Great CD and great band. Chris Potter is on sax and Dave Kikoski hangs on piano and fender rhodes. Their rendition of Monk's Epistrophy is my favorite track.

I later heard Sipiagin when he recorded on Dave Holland's sextet and then later octet albums. I recommend both to fans of all ages.

Alex's newest CD a dedication to Woody Shaw and his compositions I strongly recommend. I am throughly enjoying this record alot. Alex takes 5 Shaw compositions, reworks them to sound fresh and exciting. My favorite is his, ostinato driven version of Blues for Wood. A huge difference from the shuffle swinger from the original 70s version. Adam Rogers's playing, especially his multi-tracked guitar, sound dark and lurking.

The group on Thursday will be:

Alex Sipiagin - Trumpet
Donny McCaslin - Tenor Sax
Adam Rogers - Guitar
Boris Kaslov - Bass
Antonio Sanchez - Drums

A review to come later on.

The Bootleg

This past weekend, my reggae band, The Dharma Bums debuted at a new club in the CT area called the Blue Moon. I have to admit when I took my first look at the audience, I was worried. It is usually a bad sign when I have more teeth in my mouth than most of the patrons put together.

We hit with Duke Ellington's classic "Black and Tan Fantasy." Conveniently these old jazz tunes always work within the reggae beat and this tune is definitely my favorite tune to play right now with the group.

I was surprised at how receptive the audience was to us. When you play one of these kinds of joints the crowd can pretty much be lost the second you pull your horn out of its case. (And especially when your tbone player is practice long tones aimed at a wall.) I have played some gigs where an audience member looks at my trumpet, the rhythm section, then asks us to play Guns n' Roses. At least this time, some asked for Tijuana Brass. That I don't mind hearing, at least that makes sense.

So anyway the gig went off without any real problems. We got plenty of applause and positive responses from the crowd but I was surprised at how mellow the whole night felt. Even our faster, more frantic tunes were dropped down signifigantly. I thought it was a lack of rehearsal which has been a Dharma Bums staple. Like I said we opened with Black and Tan instead of our usual opener which is faster and I am not thinking that, that may have led to the overall vibe of the night.

Either way, I decided to set up my portable recorder in an attempt to document the band live and maybe release CDs at shows of the band at a very low cost to us. Currently, I am listening to them now and quite taken at how the band has gelled together in the last 6 months. One thing I did not focus on when writing tunes is things for the other horns to do during solos...

Backgrounds!! I never wrote any! Give me a break! I usually play in a quartet setting!

So I have to admit when, I heard my fellow horns creating sweet backgrounds during my solo I was excited, I was down right jumping in my seat when I heard how great they sounded on the play back! Holy Shit!

The two best moments for me were the newer material that I slapped together not too long ago. I wrote haphazardly two new tunes (one doesn't even have a melody) back in July or so and they sound great. The level of musicianship is most evident during these tunes where you hear the band listening and creating. Its the jazz vibe at its best.