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.

POA and the Buzz Wizards live at the Baked Potato

  

     Last night I was at the Baked Potato again. The first time I went was ok but this second show was great! The first band that played was a band called POA-Planet of the Abts, which consists of the rythmn section of Matt Abts, Jorgen Carlsson, and Swedish guitarist and lead singer T-Bone Andersson. Matt (drums) and Jorgen (bass) are both from the famous jam band that Warren Hayes plays in, Gov't Mule. What did I think of this band? They were incredible. They blended jazz, rock, blues, and psychedelia all into one slamming power trio. I was sitting right in front of them. The music was so loud-Andersson played a black stratocaster through a giant Marshall stack, it was deafening. Andersson's sound and style is a mix of many other famous players, you can tell who's influenced him right away. The easy thing to say is that he sounds like Jimi Hendrix. But there were shades of the blues (people like BB King, Albert King, etc) in his playing, David Gilmour (they even played two Pink Floyd songs), and even some old school Black Sabbath Toni Iommi type stuff in there as well. Let's put it this way; while he may not be the greatest technician or shredder, he makes up for in terms of pure feel, raw emotion, and great screaming guitar tone that blows your head off with its sheer awesomeness. His guitar playing made my whole night, it was that impressive and amazing. Jorgen's bass playing is very lead bass kind of playing, while Matt's drumming sounds like a laid back John Bonham, complete with all the great fills. They played a bunch of great songs, but what particularly stood out to me was the song they opened with-a rock version of what sounded to me like Afro Blue, a jazz standard. It was incredible, especially Andersson's guitar playing. What stood out was his double stop licks he was using the Afro Blue melody line, and his screaming solo. He would hold a note, give it all the vibrato he had, and just hold it forever. Very simple but very effective. I learned a lot from Andersson's guitar playing-you don't have to show off or be all that great really if you just have a great feel. His playing is all about feel, although he does have his moment in the sun for technical guitar licks. But he isn't as technical as say me or the other guitarist that played after him.
     In addition, another song that stood out to me was when they played Frank Zappa's Dirty Love. That song is just so catchy, rockin', and is perfect for a blues-rock power trio to play. I enjoyed Andersson's vocals on this one especially. He has a pretty good voice. So that was the first band. A Swede that sounds like Hendrix, rather than playing metal like Ywngie and the guys from Opeth, my favorite Swedish band.
     The next band was Toshi Yanagi on guitar (from the Jimmy Kimmel show), Jorgen from Gov't Mule on bass, and Toss Panos on drums. This was their first show together as the Buzz Wizards, a cool name for an instrumental jazz fusion band. Toshi is a much better technician than Andersson is, but he doesn't have the same stage presence or feel. What I can say that was amazing was that the first song Toshi played sounded like something Jeff Beck would play, it was a great, rocking, jazz kind of thing that wouldn't sound out of place in the early or mid 1980's. Although Toshi is a lot older than me, I can tell that he is hip on the scene because he has tons of shred licks that young people would use-licks that sound like Guthrie Govan and Eric Johnson. He had this really cool Strat-like guitar with a Floyd-rose on it that sounded and looked super cool. Also, when it was his time to play, that was when all the Japanese people arrived. By this time (around 11-11 30pm) most of the people from the first set had left. His other songs are kind of songs that sound dated today. He even said some of the songs he was going to play were written back in 1992. You need to write more modern songs dude! Haha, but seriously he had this other really cool tune called 'Assassin', that was pretty far out. Also, it was pretty cool seeing the drummer, Toss, play jazz-rock beats using traditional grip. I've tried it myself on drums and it is not the easiest style to use when playing those more rock type beats-and he can go straight up rock at times, pushing the beat super fast and going for super fast fills. Toshi is a great guitarist but I want to see more out of him as a guitar player, I felt like he was holding back at times, not utilizing some of his best licks and ideas. Sometimes a song would go into a great groove that would have a perfect spot for more intensive solos from the bass, guitar, or drums, and instead they would just end the tune, and I'm just sitting there like "come on dude, you had the perfect set up!". All in all though this was the best show I've been to at the Baked Potato, the best jazz club here in the valley. I even had a cheese baked potato, a coke with margarita salt on the rim, and coffee. On top of the great music and eats, the guy at the door let me stay for the second set without paying-talk about cool. I'm going to start taking off Mondays from work to go to the jam sessions they have there. Planning on bringing my Hagstrom Super Swede Les Paul and show them my stuff. I'm especially excited about jamming there because on Monday Night Jams they have the guitarist Jaime Kime, a great guitarist that played with Dweezil Zappa in Zappa Plays Zappa. I really dig his guitar style. Anyways, it was a great show, check the place out if you can, its relatively cheap for shows, food, and drink. Cheers.