fred's redux, thelonious, goodwin, robin syler, green party

i smoked what i sincerely hope will be my last cigarette ever at the moon last night. right now, my entire body feels like your face does when you're coming out from under novocaine. i plan to drink extra special double amounts of water the next three days. then i'll prolly be jumpy and irritable for, oh, say the next three months after that. funfunfun.

my sweetie and i went to the reopened fred's friday night (they'll be open thursday thru saturday from now until they get the main cafe refurbed and ready to go) for burgers, beers 'n' jazz by saint frinatra. took my middle dtr and her b-f along. he's considering army rotc; i'm hoping he doesn't -- told him if he's determined to serve his country, i'm not gonna try and dissuade him, but if he's going for any other reason, it's a b-a-a-a-d idea. we had four fredburgers, two with jalapenos and two without (or "two boyburgers and two girlburgers," as patio-meister lee allen put it). "are the burgers not as delicious as ever?" the patio-meister asked us rhetorically after we had chowed 'em down. you betchum. there was something _reassuring_ about sitting on that patio, surrounded by ppl we know 'n' love, eating good food (even substituting chips for fries -- no sink) and listening to brian sharp's crew hittin' "nostalgia in times square," "song for my father," and "linus and lucy" for the godzillionth time. it felt like ... community.

next it was on to arts fifth avenue for thelonious, a tribute to the estimable mr. monk, maybe our greatest jazz composer after ellington, but one whose works don't get performed nearly as often as they oughtta, outside of an occasional "round midnight" here 'n' there. i'd heard nothing about the event (granted, i'm pretty web-centric when it comes to keepin' up with local happenings; don't read the fweakly and only pick up the startlegram to do the crossword puzzle) until her friend poet-performance artist-activist tammy gomez called my sweetie on the afternoon of the show to make us aware. i'm mighty glad she did; i'm fairly certain a coupla the musos involved have e-mail lists that i'm on, but i never heard word one. (note to self: remember to surf to the arts fifth avenue website more often.)

musician-wise, the lineup was pert stellar: the ubiquitous joey carter doing the hard job on piano and vibes, tcc jazz director rick stitzel on trumpet, the solid young bassist danny stone (who seems to be everywhere we go of late), drummer pete wehner (a new name to me, but awesome in a middle period tony williams kinda way), gtrist sam walker (whose brainchild this project was), and dave williams of dave and daver fame on tenor sax. even more impressive was the size (around 80 paying customers) and _attentiveness_ of the crowd -- proof positive that there's an audience in this town for jazz repertory, and that it doesn't need to be relegated to the itty-bitty children's stage at the jazz by the boulevard festival, either. the first set started off with the skewed blues "mysterioso" and continued with the obscuro "light blue," the ballad "ask me now," and a version of "bye-ya" that featured wehner applying some nawlins second-line strokes to monk's toon, then finished with a bravura blast of "brilliant corners," a composition so challenging that it reputedly had to be recorded in sections and pieced together at the editing desk (as carter reminded us, monk never showed the musicians his charts -- rather, he taught 'em their parts by rote, playing them on the piano).

before kicking off "nutty" (a fave of mine from the thelonious monk and john coltrane alb), carter read some quotes from jazz luminaries like chick corea, sonny rollins, max roach, john coltrane, and miles davis that attested to monk's influence. second set was a li'l hotter, as the musos started warming up and playing the toons with abandon, especially carter, who did a good job of invoking monk's spirit by employing some of his signature devices (sparse single-note lines, seemingly random atonal clusters), but also soloed convincingly in his own voice, particularly on vibes. walker's a gtrist of rare economy; he has great ideas but never feels compelled to lay them all on you at once. bassist stone's tempo is solidly grounded in the masterwork of wilbur ware and paul chambers, while his solo work is agile and inventive. dave williams was in his astringent sonny rollins mode, while rick stitzel couldn't help looking professorial while watching the other players in between his own quicksilver solos. when one of the musos "refused the obstacle" at the beginning of "epistrophy," carter shrugged it off: "this is jazz, this is real life -- sometimes we _miss_."

it was a gas to hear toons like "jackie-ing" (which i told carter afterwards was named in honor of alto saxophonist jackie mclean, who grew up in monk's 'hood and used to woodshed with him; in a.b. spellman's four lives in the bebop business, mclean tells a story about hiring monk for a gig when he was a teenage bandleader), "pannonica" (on which carter surprised me by playing piano; i was kinda hoping he'd play vibes to achieve some of the texture monk did playing celeste with one hand on the brilliant corners alb version), and "bemsha swing." only way it coulda been better woulda been if they'd played "ruby my dear." dave williams says there are more jazz repertory-type programs in the works at arts fifth avenue (in addition to their annual django reinhardt festival). they've done a great job creating a community arts space on the southside. must get out there more often. and joey sez there'll be a "3/4 of bertha coolidge" reunion (with danny stone subbing for aden bubeck, who's touring with miranda lambert) at cachonga's on april 22nd.

with unusually good timing, we arrived at the moon just as the goodwin boyzzz were getting into their first number. i _don't_ wanna be the only one to make noise from the crowd, but that wasn't a problem in this particular case, as the place was jammed with fans of goodwin and sunday drive (whose cd's didn't make it in time for the release party, sigh), yr usual moon habitues, and assorted berry street irregulars. goodwin was in full flight, too, in spite of relatively sparse recent live activity. visually, they abandoned their usual matching attire for varicolored shirts, with all the instrument players in black ties, but more importantly, they were clearly feelin' the music: damien stewart pummeled his vistalites with both authority _and_ flash; matt hembree was a comic presence, pantomiming the lyrics in between staging felonious assaults on his bass; a fit-looking new papa, daniel gomez continually defied gravity while making his axes alternately squeal and roar; and tony diaz staked his claim on the ground immediately in front of the moon's mini-stage. "arm and mouth" (which has yet to be recorded for the second c.d.) is becoming the same kind of anthem that "march" was / is, and they played 'em both.

sat'day morning, fell by the house up the street from me where the late madman gtr-slinger and artist (he designed a line of western shirts and amps, and built crazy tricked-out bicycles that looked like motorcycles) robin syler usedta live. his sister virginia is here from new york and was having a garage sale to dispose of some of his possessions; there was also a birthday party-tribute at j&j blues bar last saturday, but because i suck, i didn't find out about it until today. guh. i'm contemplating a break in my self-imposed retirement from scribin' for publication to do a piece on robin, if i can get anyone interested. just a thought.

today, made it out to the trinity park bandshell (old shakespeare in the park location, where i have fond memories of seeing my kids slide down the hill on sheets of corrugated cardboard in between and sometimes during the plays) for the green party. heard johnny case play with a quintet that also included chris white on trumpet and flute, keith wingate on gtr, danny stone (again!) on bass, and dwayne durrett on drums. we signed the greens' petition to get on this november's ballot in texas, where they have 22 candidates running for office, including governor and lieutenant governor, many in races where the republican candidate is running unopposed. met ramsey sprague, the impressive young cat from the tarrant county greens who's done yeoman work organizing around the 1919 hemphill collective. he emphasized that if you wanna sign petitions for kinky friedman's gubernatorial candidacy _and_ the greens, you're allowed to do so as long as you haven't voted in the democratic or republican primary. you can sign a petition for one independent candidate _and_ one independent party; just can't do two of either. also, you _don't_ need to have your voter registration card on you to sign (altho you _do_ need one one record); they greens will look up the number. so there.