Chris Madsen/Adam Larson Quintet

So tonight I ended up going to a great jazz concert for only 12 bucks! Beat that LA. Chicago is a great town for live music, there's always somebody playing somewhere. The Constellation is a great, intimate venue. Its basically a warehouse converted into a studio space, looking like a basement but with amazing acoustics and natural reverb. Last year I saw my former UW-Parkside jazz teacher perform with a quartet, a trumpet player by the name of Russ Johnson (look him up on YouTube). 

Tonight I saw a double tenor saxophone quintet perform, the Chris Madsen/Adam Larson Quintet. They play modern straight ahead jazz. These guys aim to please, they never hit a bad note nor an ugly note. They play pretty. At their best I would say that they're a modern evolution of the post-Coltrane, post-Brecker sound. That is, a deep, throaty, emotive, and expressive tone. 

Adam Larson is a young tenor player from Normal, Illinois. At the concert, the music was split 50/50 Larson and Madsen tunes. Of the two I would say that Larson's music was more exciting. His melodies are very angular, which is my way of saying that its modern, and has that Giant Steps 'sheets of sound' aesthetic. At the end of the concert they played one of Larson's tunes, and it was so memorable that I was able to recall the melody on the bus trip home. His playing was great, in fact I believe that he could become one of the front runners in his generation (same as mine) for really great tenor sax players. 

Chris Madsen's (from and based in Chicago) tunes were more spiritual and expressive. He writes better ballads (if I can say they were ballads, they probably weren't considered such by the composer) than Larson, which is understandable because I believe Madsen is older and more accomplished, being apart of acadamia. He teaches jazz music at University of Chicago Illinois and lives here, whereas Larson is a Manhattan School of Music New York jazz musician. Madsen's onstage persona was more expressive and solemn as well, just like his music. 

On piano was Rob Clearfield, on bass was an older gentlemen (oldest guy in the band, probably the unoffical leader) named Curt Bley (who said it was great that I came from California to hear that), and Greg Artry the drummer and only black guy in the band. 

Clearfield's piano playing was one of accompaniment. He had one solo that stood out as virtuosic but not as expressive as the tenor playing. The comping was quite good though. He was pretty much comping most of the time the whole concert, laying out occasionly for extended sax solos. 

Arty's drumming stood out for me. Not only was he a drum and cymbals virtuoso but he played with emotive style and grace. Sometimes he would go into double and even quadruple time on the kit, stunning artistry. I would say he plays the modern Brian Blade style of drumming. Brian Blade has been the drummer for Wayne Shorter's band for a long time now and he's been a big influence on modern jazz percussion, and for good reason, he's one of the younger leaders of the style. There were many moments when I had to tap my foot to the swinging beats, and I would move back and forth in my seat to the sound. It was infectious. Him being the only black guy in the band gave the band more jazz credentials, after all jazz is a black American art form. The guy had chops to burn and the tenor players, presumably the leaders here, let him play with wanton abandon. He owned the rythmn, alongside the bassist, Curt Bley. 

Bley was obviously the oldest member of the band, tall, balding, with plastic rimmed glasses. He played as any great bass player would play, he filled the space with low notes, and mostly stuck to the chordal structures of the tune. He only had one solo per say, which was just an introduction to a tune. It was very short and he spent most of the concert comping. His bass tone was so natural and loud, using only a very small amplifier, which probably broadened the natural acoustic tone of his instrument, a acoustic double-bass. 

It was an eventful day and night. I spent the entire day talking with my music mentor Frank Abbinanti, a new music composer based in Chicago. You can check out his album Labor Studies on YouTube, also check out a tune he wrote for me that I recorded back in March called Poachers, which you can find under my YouTube channel name Megafigueroa007. 

Anyways, it was a great concert, memorable for my Chicago trip. I plan on checking out more music from Madsen and Larson when I get back home. Apparently Larson has an album from 2017 that got four stars in Downbeat and favorable reviews in Jazziz, two magazines that I read often. Its good to see that jazz music is alive and well in the windy city.

Jazz in Chicago!