Marcus Miller at Granada Theater

Marcus Miller and his talented musicians.

Marcus Miller
Granada Theater
Dallas, TX
June 13, 2015

When the bass player and band leader Marcus Miller is coming to town, it does not pay to procrastinate. Buy your ticket right away, or flirt with disaster.

I had always planned on going to the Marcus Miller concert at the Grenada in Dallas, but I failed to 

pre-order a ticket. I walked up to the box office and the guy said, Sorry, it is soldout!

Disaster! Luckily a guy was in ear-shot, and said, I got an extra ticket, my wife could not make it. He said, I would sell it to you for face value $50. I did not quibble; I handed him the money and got in just as Marcus Miller was walking on stage. (And they were great seats, too, fifth row!)

Marcus Miller, who gained a name playing for Miles Davis, opened the concert with the danceable and bouncy Hylife. The name is a play on African music called Highlife, a cousin to Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat.

Listeners have as much fun between songs as during the songs because Marcus Miller is very personable and he takes the time to relay the inspiration of the songs. He said the catchy chorus line from Hylife was written by some Senegalese musicians and it means Let’s all go to town!

During this tour – they just got back from Europe – they are featuring his latest album Afrodeezia; and Hylife and Senegalese musicians is part of the theme. He brought together musicians from Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, and the U.S.

He went into the second song B’s River. That song opens with him playing a huge string instrument; it looks like something one would find in an African museum. It was bigger than his bass; he had to prop his foot up on a speaker in order to play it.

He makes good use of his cast of musicians. One of the musicians was percussionist Dominique ‘Nino’ Cinelu, who also played with Miles Davis. During one song Nino Cinelu made incredible music with just a triangle and a wand. Each musician was celebrated with solos here and there: Alex Han sax, Lee Hogans trumpet, Brett Williams keyboards, Adam Agati guitar, Louis Cato drums. (Brett Williams took a lot of good-natured ribbing because of his age being only 20 years old.)

He also took the listeners on an excursion to Brazil. He said he was thinking about late keys players Joe Sample and George Duke. He told the story about the time they played in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. After the show, they went into a studio to jam with some talented Brazilian musicians. American keyboard legend George Duke was also there. And he said every time there was a lull in the conversation, George Duke would say, We were there! We’re here now, but we were there! So he named the Brazilian-influenced song, We were there.

The album has an international flavor so to the surprise of many, including New York Times critic Nate Chinen, the American soul classic Papa was a rolling Stone was included on the Afrodeezia album. The mystery of why this seemingly-misplaced song was included was explained by Marcus Miller: he was following the trek of his ancestors, not only from Africa to the New World, but from the southern American cotton fields to the big American cities.

In his concert, he included Goree, a song from his Renaissance album. This one was deep. He talked about his visit to Goree Island in Senegal. He said he visited what is now a museum called the Slave House. It was where Africans were gathered for the trans-Atlantic journey to the Americas. On one side the house opens to the ocean; that doorway was called the Door of No Return.

The song Goree starts like an elegy with Marcus Miller blowing a long saxophone-like instrument. But he said he did not want it to be only about anger; he also wanted the song to be a celebration of human endurance. And what a celebration it becomes! Midway through the song, the expressive Marcus Miller is dancing around his instruments and near his bandmates in what looks like an well-choreographed African, hand-swaying dance. His dancing – some of it, though he is from New York, is from his Trinidadian heritage – was as graceful as his music!

Vandell Andrew: Turn it Up!

Vandell Andrew, wife Dwanna, son Vandell, daughter Naima.

A musician hearing his song on the radio for the first time is a big thrill. Vandell Andrew – who is playing a show Friday, June 12, at City Tavern in Dallas – has had that thrill of hearing his song on the radio.

His song Let’s Ride was the first time people started to take notice and ask, who is that guy on alto saxophone, he said in an interview shortly after a two-hour practice with bandmates Jaquita Jones drums, Reginald Dunn bass, Lhanda Morgan keyboard and Josh Goode guitar. We sat outside on the steps of a former office building converted to music rehearsal rooms; inside was too loud with different bands practicing in different rooms.

His song Let’s Ride shot to number one on the Billboard smooth jazz charts and it stayed there for five weeks last year. It was nominated for a Soul Train Award. He said it was his first national breakthrough and fans and promoters started to pay attention and subsequently the phone started ringing and he got more bookings.

Let’s Ride was one of five songs on his mini-album Turn it up. All the songs are upbeat; that was intentional, he said, because his peers – he is 28 – have an antiquated view of what jazz is. He is on a mission to change the view that jazz is somehow elevator music or background music.

He has come a long way. He actually started to play trumpet at 13 when he was sent to a summer camp and like a typical kid, he said, he did not want to be there. He said, the teacher who was a sax player told him his embouchure was better suited for a saxophone and so he switched to sax. (His mom loved the saxophone so he swears to this day that his mom instructed the teacher to have him switch to saxophone.)

He went on to St. Augustine High School in New Orleans, a respected all-boys school which was actually started during the years of segregation to give black boys a decent education. Time magazine wrote about the school in 1965: "The boys are better trained than most Southern high school students of either race." The Time article quoted several Ivy League recruiters who said the school produces high-quality college students.

The school also has a famous marching band, the St. Augustine High School Marching 100. The band was the first to racially integrate the Mardi Gras parade. It has played for the Pope, at Superbowls, and at Presidential inaugurations. Vandell was to join this historic band and travel around the world as a member.

He said the school has become something of a fraternity and the tradition is passed on from generation to generation as sons of former students eventually go to the school. (He has accepted the possibility that his young son would not continue this tradition with his family living in Dallas.)

Vandell was able to get a great jazz education at St. Aug. He was a part of jazz ensembles where he learned the music of Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and other giants. The St. Augustine’s band would also play in the popular New Orleans Jazz Fest.

Vandell is also steeped in the traditional New Orleans songs like Iko Iko, Go to the Mardi Gras, and Tipitina because, he said, as a kid in New Orleans the music is all around you. He recalls the now-famous Trombone Shorty marching around the neighborhood blowing his trombone and his drummer beating a bucket.

After graduating in 2005, he moved on to Southern University to study under the respected jazz instructor Edward ‘Kidd’ Jordan. His studies there was brief though: a summer semester and early in the Fall semester was the devastating Hurricane Katrina; like thousands of others, Vandell evacuated to Dallas.

Dallas has been his home ever since. Dallas was in fact where he started his music career and started a family with his wife Dwanna, five-year-old daughter Naima and one-year-old Vandell. (Naima is named after a famous jazz tune.)

From New Orleans to Dallas to the world, Vandell Andrew is determined to turn it up!

The Rolling Stones at AT&T Stadium

Fan view. (Photo by wwwcrazymama.blogspot.com)

The Rolling Stones

AT&T Stadium

Arlington, TX

June 6, 2015

There were warnings about the sound quality in the cavernous Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, but when The Rolling Stones come to your town, the temptation is hard to resist!

The excitement of the walk-up to the stadium to a big event is always exhilarating: walking by the fans tail-gating in the parking lot, stopping off at the pubs along the way, seeing fans in their Rolling Stone gear, the excitability of the fans, that alone was worth the price which was about $70 in the nose-bleed seats and about $400 to get a good seat.

Once the show started, the excitement, the dancing, the cheering you would expect from a Rolling Stone concerts was all there. But from a sound quality standpoint, the guys in the cheap seats were left cold. May be the pure science of sound travelling such a distance from the stage to the outer seats, poor sound quality should be expected. (Some stadiums like American Airline Center in Dallas have speakers all around so that fans have a shared experience, but Cowboy Stadium after all is a football stadium.)

Judging from the dancing and the merriment, most fans did not have a problem with the sound, but for that guy who wanted to hear all the Rolling Stones hits in a live performance, the sound made it a bummer.

The visual was a bit lacking, too; depending on where they sat some fans never saw the drummer. The humongous screen that was to be the saving grace of the small man, alas, was pushed to the side and not used.