Around Town
TOP: The Jazz at the Edge Series at Kerrytown Concert House featured the American-French quartet The Turbine on November 15, two days after the terror attacks on Paris. The French manager of the group spoke about the difficulty the band members faced away from their loved ones in Paris. This context gave a unique emotional depth to the performance of the international group and emotions were further heightened when bassist Harrison Bankhead chanted “let there be peace on earth.” The Turbine has a unique instrumentation with two basses (Bankhead from Chicago and Benjamin Duboc from Paris) and two drummers (Hamid Drake from Chicago and Ramon Lopez from Paris). The surprisingly complex interactions between the four master musicians grabbed the audience’s attention throughout the concert.
ABOVE: Rodney Whitaker’s Quartet swung into Kerrytown Concert House on October 30 fronted by tenor/soprano saxophonist Diego Rivera and vocalist Rockelle Fortin as an added attraction. Backed by the booming bass of Whitaker and the powerful percussion of Sean Dobbins, Rivera swung elegantly on top on a series of standards and Whitaker compositions. Pianist Corey Kendrick is partly hidden behind Fortin in this picture.
LEFT: The Glenn Tucker trio celebrated the release of Tucker’s CD Determination at Kerrytown Concert House on November 6. Here is Tucker on the keybord (he also played the piano) with Kurt Krahnke on bass and Alex White on drums. All the songs for the night were from the CD, but the CD also included horns on some of the tracks. The trio was tight and swung hard on the fast-paced “EM Blues” dedicated to Detroit’s Emergency Manager. Tucker is a delightful improviser with a knack for creating solos with a visible logic. White was a new acquaintance and impressed with sensitive and dynamic percussive comments.
photographs by Lars Bjorn