France and Germany were tied at the half when left the house for the jazz fest so we had to finish that game before we moved over to the U.S. vs. China match. France had outplayed the No. 1 German team in the first half but Germany regained their form in the second half. The game stayed tied for the two overtime periods and then our recording ran out. The penalty shots are no way to settle a match anyway. We were happy to see the U.S. playing like champs, quickly moving the all with one touch passing. Everyone was doubting the coach but she fielded a great lineup last night. Left the lumbering Abby on the bench for most of the match and came to her senses near the end and put Heather O’Rielly in.
We saw three early shows last night and hustled home to watch soccer. Ikebe Shakedown at Montage is from Brooklyn New York and were here two years ago playing at the Bug Jar. The seven piece band apropriates Afrobeat and is really smart to play only the essentials in fairly tight arrangements of simple parts. Imagine Fela Kuti at a frat party. The horn players were really good, good enough to play with with Sharon Jones last night at Kodak Hall. They get the party going with no misfires.
Before they started their gig at Christ Church Denys Baptiste said his Triumvirate doesn’t discuss what they are going to play before they start the set and he said he was not really the leader, “the best idea wins.” They play versions of pop songs or iconic songs from the recent past. They don’t stop between songs and their set is one continuous piece. They really take their time skirting around the theme of each song and then easing their way out and into another. They were laid back and slightly detached from the material. Their music would work well in a moody Film Noir movie. We realized how narcotic-like their sound was once we were back out on the street.
Melissa Aldana is a great tenor sax player. Her young Crash Trio was doing Ellington’s “I Got It Bad” when we walked in and the drummer was sounding especially good with the brushes. They work well within the tradition of jazz but at the same time their sax, bass and drums trio shows how elastic the form can be as they carved out their own sound. They asked if they could do an additional song and finished with a one Aldana wrote for Sonny Rollins called “Back Home.”
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