Michael Landau Group at the Baked Potato

     Saw a pretty cool concert tonight at the Baked Potato. This is my third time there. This wasn't as good as the last show I saw there, but still better than the first show. I saw the Michael Landau Group, which consists of Michael Landau on guitar, Reggie Hamilton on bass, and Gary Novak on drums. I gotta say first of all that Landau is a great guitar player but I can see that most of his skills come from being a session player, and that perhaps he doesn't really have much of a career going for him in terms of the performer context. The one thing that surprised me was that he has such an amazing rhythm section, why don't they get to play any solos? The obvious answer is because Landau is the leader but with a bass player and drummer that good, its a bit wrong not to feature them. The style of music they play is more akin to blues-rock and progressive-rock, but most of what they played was based on the blues. There are moments where he adds some spice to the chords, maybe playing some slightly jazz sounding chords but I wouldn't call Landau a jazz guitarist. I noticed his favorite chord is a simple bluesy 9th chord. However, Reggie Hamilton sounds like a jazz bass player to me, I could see him playing jazz fusion or standards. Same with the drummer. When it comes to improvisation I'd say that Landau is great when it comes to great rock and blues licks, and he adds a lot of chromatic jazzy licks in there as well, but his improvisation only goes so far. However, he does have his moments and those moments were amazing! There were times when he pulled off these great blues licks that sounded just like stuff Jeff Beck would play. Another great thing about Landau's guitar playing is that he has a great guitar tone. He sounds like Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Johnson, all great players with great tone. Do I think he has his own sound and personality? Sound, probably not. But I do think he has his own personality and unique sound as a player, one of the all time great achievements in being a musician. Part of his own voice is that he rarely ever 'goes for it' when he's playing solos. By that I mean he never gets into a show off-y kind of thing, he's very relaxed and he's always holding back until just the perfect moment to cut loose with a flurry of blues based licks. It's actually amazing how he never overplays. If anything, he underplays, which me and my friend both agreed he did that.
     Now, let's talk about the rhythm section. Reggie Hamilton is an amazing bass player but he played much better bass just warming up before the show started testing out his 12-string bass with a huge neck. He played some jazz stuff on it but when it came to the band playing together, he was confined to simply playing root notes and background, not even really playing fills. He is another great example of not overplaying. But when you don't overplay to the point where everything you play is very simple, you run the risk of underplaying, which I felt happened for sure. I don't think regular people notice it that much but musicians can definitely tell. Its a shame because he sounded like a monster bass player when he was testing out some jazz stuff on his 12-string bass but when he was playing it with the band he was just playing single note stuff. A little underwhelming but he did have a great sound. It's hard to say who he sounds like as a bass player because I'm not familiar with enough great black bass players to say who's who, but he does sound like a funky bass player from the 70's, that's for sure. I think Hamilton is probably the most talented musician in the band, especially judging from the jazz stuff he was playing just testing out his bass before the show started.
     Next, Gary Novak is a good driving drummer. Again, he kind of underplays. I would say he had maybe one moment where he sort of kind of had a drum solo, but I don't think I can call it a drum solo because it was just a flurry of great fills, but it only lasted like 30 seconds. They could've let him stretch it out a little bit longer than that! His style is really good. He's a great all around drummer and he can even do a bit of that fusion stuff, he sounded great on the more moody jazzy sounding stuff, especially his cymbal work. I could see him working in a fusion context for sure, he would probably sound better than doing simple blues-rock stuff. He sticks to the rhythm mainly, and he doesn't really add too many fills, a great drummer for a leader who doesn't want a a drummer who shows off. He was really good.
     Lastly, it was a bit hard to enjoy the show because I was standing in the back. However, I was able to see all of the musicians clearly, especially the guitar so that was cool and satisfying for the money I paid. It's become a hang out place for me lately, but it isn't cheap. It was $25 at the door plus 2 drinks that came out to $14, not exactly cheap for me because I only work part time. However, it is worth the money and I did enjoy it. Even my friend had a good time. The sound quality was terrific too by the way. Everything in the mix was clear and sounded 'tasty', as they say. One thing I have to say is that every tune he played sounded the same. They all sounded like some kind of blues-rock jam with some quiet jazzy parts. At that point, he's not really playing songs, he's just playing an outline of a song just for the purpose of extended solos. Nothing wrong with that because I love solos, but this isn't really a band that plays 'songs'. Every time I go to these concerts I feel like I'm learning something on the guitar, and as a musician in general. Came for the fun with friends. Left with some great blues-rock guitar sounds in my head.