Oak Cliff, 9.5.2025

Photo by Kat Shimamoto.

This month is providing an unparalleled opportunity: seeing my two favorite bands on the same bill, not once but twice. Last night's show behind the screen at Texas Theatre teamed Stefan Gonzalez's Trio Glossia with Gregg Prickett's Monks of Saturnalia on the occasion of Stefan's 40th birthday -- actually a week early, because next weekend they'll be in Austin playing Ingebrigt Haker Flaten's Sonic Transmissions Fest. Then on the 20th, both bands will be at Full City Rooster, celebrating Gregg's 60th birthday. Y'all come!

I make no bones about the fact that Gregg Prickett is my favorite guitarist, and Monks of Saturnalia -- a going concern for 25 years now, in spite of the difficulty of scheduling musos to rehearse challenging original material -- played one of the best sets of theirs I've witnessed, despite some churn in the horn section. Tenor mainstay Steve Brown was sidelined for knee surgery, and tenor/altoist Dale Fielder was a last-minute sub. Baritonist Aden Sears wasn't scheduled to play the gig, but showed up just in time to solo on "Lamentation Nathan" (dedicated to another absent reedman, Nathan Collins). He and Fielder cracked each other up conducting spirited dialogues a la Booker Ervin, John Handy, and Pepper Adams in the classic '50s Mingus band that cut Blues and Roots.

The set opened with a bit of audience participation on Gregg's Albert Ayler tribute "He Walked Into the River," a tune dating back to the guitarist-composer's tenure with Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society, with the audience responding "My name is Albert Ayler," "If people don't like my music now, they will," and "Music is the healing force of the universe" on cue. Prickett played pianistic chords and locked in with bassist extraordinaire Drew Phelps (who's playing a 10am solo set at the Denton Arts & Jazz Festival on October 4) and Alan Green, a drummer of unparalleled subtlety, swing, and taste. Phelps soloed with fire and inspiration on a galloping, Western-sounding original of his, and when Prickett threw in some bluesy bends amid the note-splintering on the closing mutated Texas shuffle, the crowd responded enthusiastically.

Trio Glossia returned from a brief hiatus flush with new material (the only vestiges of their debut disc were in a version of "Dream Travelers" with a brief percussion interlude from "Nerdy Dirty Talk"); the rest of their set was previously unrecorded, if not unheard. The hot rock PA mix made Matthew Frerck's acoustic bass sound immense (also noticeable during Monks' set when Drew played arco), and all three musicians played with a new level of aggression and fire -- Frerck and Joshua Canate hitting like "flying brick wall" era King Crimson when Stefan was on vibraphone, the ensemble playing a rock groove behind Joshua's fire music glossolalia on tenor. I'm looking forward to hearing these tunes again on the 20th at Full City Rooster when they've had more time to percolate and been tempered by the energy exchange with an Austin festival audience.