The Musical Box

peter frampton. photo by david dobson.

Did you know Peter Frampton was a neighbor? For the better part of the past decade, the artist that turned Frampton Comes Alive into one of the top selling concert albums of all time has resided to the north of us in Cincinnati. Now the big question, did you know the pop superstardom Frampton gained and lost in the ‘70s is but a chapter in a rock ‘n’ roll life that stems back 40 years?

Stumped? Then last night’s unexpectedly vast, guitar-rich career overview performance and homecoming at Cincinnati’s National City Pavilion was for you.

Admittedly, much of the crowd came to hear music Frampton penned for his first four albums that re-surfaced on Frampton Comes Alive in 1976. Some of the tunes have aged almost eerily well, like Lines on My Face, whose soft-spoken sentimentality, not to mention an arrangement of Santana-ish cool, revealed a strangely sagely quality. Others like Baby I Love Your Way remained disposable pop confections.

The program’s more arresting moments came almost in spite of Frampton Comes Alive. For Wind of Change, originally the title tune to his 1972 debut album, Frampton strayed little from the acoustic version fashioned for Frampton Comes Alive. But he dedicated the tune to George Harrison, whose guitar tunings inspired the composition in the first place. The Beatle was more roundly acknowledged during an encore update of his signature song, While My Guitar Gently Weeps which Frampton sang and soloed on with solid emotive authority.

Equally intriguing were the often monstrous instrumentals pulled from 2006’s Grammy-winning Fingerprints album (“I had to live in Ohio for five years before I won one,” Frampton remarked to the crowd). Jeff Beck seemed to be the role model here as Boot It Up and a fittingly cranky version of the Soundgarden hit Black Hole Sun bordered on an almost corrosive mix of funk and fusion. The songs were also highlights in a performance that strived to underscore Frampton’s sometimes neglected reputation as a guitarist.

The biggest delight, though, closed the show. It wasn’t a hit, but a wildly electric take on Ashford & Simpson’s I Don’t Need No Doctor that was once a performance staple of Humble Pie, the maverick British band Frampton was a member of prior to his solo career. Frampton favored clarity over the death rattle urgency injected into the tune by the late Steve Marriott on another epic concert album, Humble Pie’s Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore. But there was a wildness still to this reading that illuminated corners of a pop life seldom explored by Frampton fans.

Sure, it was fun to watch the audience light up and smile along with the hits. But hearing Frampton make room for Harrison, Humble Pie and his newer guitar-slinging exploits was what made this homecoming really come alive.

dave matthews band. from left: leroi moore, carter beauford, boyd tinsley, stefan lessard, dave matthews

Initially, this looked to be an arduous summer for the Dave Matthews Band. In late June, a mere month into a tour that was plotted to extend into October, saxophonist LeRoi Moore was seriously injured in an ATV accident. That brought Jeff Coffin on board as a fill-in. But last night at Riverbend Music Center in Cincinnati, Coffin was absent, as well. Turns out, this was one of two dates he was previously committed to playing with his regular band, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.

So what the Cincinnati audience got was something of a first – a completely sax free DMB show. But if you think the music suffered as a result, then you have underestimated the band’s core resources. When the two-and-a-half hour performance commenced with Don’t Drink the Water, Matthews and company summoned a thick, sweaty groove that turned dark with a mighty vocal wail, a hardened rhythmic drive and a video backdrop of stampeding natives that looked like something out of Apocalypto.

Of course, when the show’s theme actually turned apocalyptic on the following One Sweet World, the musical mood brightened with feisty riffs and broad grins exchanged between Matthews and drummer Carter Beauford.

While Matthews is a Riverbend regular, he hasn’t played Lexington in nearly a decade. So watching the DMB’s slightly rewired roster click into gear was anything but another seasonal rock show. The ensemble shifted deftly from the torrential grind of Halloween (after the majority of the Riverbend pavilion chanted its title, almost in protest) to the lighter pop celebration of Everyday to the anthemic country-funk of Tripping Billies (which finally let loose violinist Boyd Tinsley, the band’s ace-in-the-hole instrumentalist).

Of course, Matthews had some help. Longtime pal and frequent touring partner Tim Reynolds, who also opened the performance, sat in for the entire concert on electric guitar. The breezy bit of psychedelic blues that fueled his solo during Crush was a performance highlight. Trumpet and flugelhorn ace Reshawn Ross, a DMB touring accomplice since 2005, also helped color in the contours vacated by Moore and Coffin. But Ross took full advantage of his allotted time in the spotlight by sharing lead vocals with Matthews on a highly faithful funk cover of the Talking Heads staple Burning Down the House.

This was the moment when all the darkness and tension in Matthews’ music briefly subsided. In its place was a joyous, textured groove that kept the audience on its feet as it, pardon the pun, brought the house down.

king crimson's 40th anniversary celebration kicked off over the weekend in nashville.

Greetings from Nashville – or, as Jason and the Scorchers so ceremoniously dubbed the city two decades ago, “the new L.A.”

There was no country rocking here tonight, folks. Instead, Music City was host to the second of a two evening engagement at the very cozy Belmont Theatre that kicked off the 40^th anniversary rites of King Crimson. For now, that means a modest swing through Chicago, Philadelphia and New York (the Belcourt shows were promoted as warm-up gigs) for the long standing but ever-evolving prog-rock ensemble.

The lineup? We start with two guitarists. Founder Robert Fripp sat in the stage right shadows largely (and purposely?) obscured by gear. But together with Kentucky native Adrian Belew (a member since 1981), he created orchestral touches that were monstrous indeed.

During an encore of Indiscipline, Fripp unleashed an ominously playful deep pocket groove with guitar squalls that bolstered the tune’s already heady tension. Belew had all kinds of delicious moments, from the whammy bar police siren that kicked off a lean and nasty Neurotica to a faithful reading of Walking on Air that was a slice of comfort and grace.

Behind the two guitarists were two drummers: Pat Mastelotto (a member since 1994) and new recruit Gavin Harrison (on loan from new generation prog brigade Porcupine Tree). Their mounting, harmonious and, of course, percussive voices opened the 95 minute show without accompaniment like distant thunder of a storm that soon gathered into the title tune from 2000’s The ConstruKction of Light album. Another duet blast, B’boom, further enforced their rhythmic drive. But on Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Pt. 2, each skirted into different but complimentary lands. Harrison played beat-keeper by piloting the tune’s mighty ebbs and flows while Mastelotto served as a percussive adjunct that, through sounds of squeaky toys and electronic mimicry, echoed accents Jamie Muir designed for King Crimson in the early ‘70s.

But if there was an MVP on this very heavy hitting team, it would be bassist/Chapman stick ace Tony Levin, a Crimson alumnus who has rejoined after an absence of over a decade. Levin’s musical highlights were many and generous: fat-bottomed pops that percolated during Red, winding and almost melancholy funk lines during VROOOM and muscular jabs that drove Thela Hun Ginjeet. But more than that, Levin was a presence. Flashing huge, Cheshire grins during ‘80s tunes like Frame by Frame and Three of a Perfect Pair, Levin appeared to be the Crimson-ite having the most fun tonight. His jubilance was almost as infectious as the music itself.

In the end, only 30 of Crimson’s 40 years were covered in the program (from 1973’s The Talking Drum and the aforementioned Larks’ Tongues to 2003’s Level Five). But King Crimson has never been, even in a remote sense, a nostalgia vehicle. The music at this Nashville kickoff celebrated the arrival of a new member, welcomed back an old one and, best of all, gave the veteran hands the chance to paint a brave new face on darkly complex but richly engaging music.

Happy anniversary, guys.

pieces of a dream: curtis harmon (standing) and james lloyd. photo from heads up records.

The first time James Lloyd performed in Lexington with Pieces of a Dream he was wearing an unusual fashion accessory: a cast that encased most of his left arm.

The school of elemental thought for any professional musician dictates that an arm cast is often not the most preferred of performance devices. That’s especially true when said cast is in place to heal a broken bone.

“I broke my left wrist three days before a three month tour with Grover (Washington, Jr.),” Lloyd recalled. “So basically I was a left handed keyboard player who was playing piano, Fender Rhodes (electric piano) and synth. It was definitely a memorable time for me.”

For this famed “one handed” local debut, a Memorial Hall concert in the fall of 1983, Lloyd was part of a Pieces of a Dream lineup that was already creating a sturdy national buzz through an ongoing alliance with Washington, the late saxophonist whose music bridged worlds of jazz, pop and vintage soul. Pieces was also forging its own national fanbase through radio hits like Fo Fi Fo and Mount Airy Groove.

But Lloyd and company will be more than well healed when they return to town next weekend as part of the African American Forum’s ongoing series of smooth jazz concerts. In the 25 years since the Memorial Hall performance, Pieces of a Dream have become a cornerstone smooth jazz group with top-selling albums for the Elektra, Blue Note and, most recently, Heads Up labels. Lloyd, the band’s principal composer, has also penned compositions for Najee, Walter Beasley, Wayman Tisdale and others.

“I draw from everyday life for inspiration,” Lloyd said. “Sometimes that is the musical inspiration itself. Personally, I feel I have to experience some of what’s going on from life itself and then draw from that.”

The nucleus for Pieces of a Dream came together in 1976 when Lloyd, drummer Curtis Harmon and bassist Cedric Napoleon joined forces in a thriving Philadelphia music scene.

“We’re definitely a product of our environment,” Lloyd said. “There was a lot of music – funk, jazz and soul – coming out of Philadelphia. You can’t help but be influenced by the music you actually grow up around.”
Enter fellow Philadelphian Washington, who signed Pieces of a Dream to his new production company while Lloyd was still in high school. The two acts toured together frequently up until Washington’s death from a heart attack in 1999.

“Very often in concert, we’ll do a song of his in tribute to Grover. Yeah, he is still a big part of what we do. Even though he’s not physically here with us, his spirit is with us.”

Napoleon exited the band after the release of 1986’s Joyride album, although Pieces of a Dream remains to this day very much a family enterprise. Lloyd and Harmon are still close bandmates while Pieces is managed – just as the band was when it began – by Danny and Bill Harmon, the drummer’s father and uncle.

“Curtis and I have been playing together for so long now that it’s like second nature,” Lloyd said. “The band’s longevity kind of spills over into the music, too. That’s especially true onstage. Curtis and I, when we’re playing together, have a sort of telepathy going on. We don’t even have to look at each other to know where one other is going.”

And then there is the music – a strongly pop-conscious, upbeat sound driven by keyboards. While guitar often rounds out the band’s sound, Lloyd’s keyboards provide the architecture for most of the band’s tunes, especially the ones on 2006’s Pillow Talk album. But the key is in the balance of electronic and acoustic sounds. Synthesizers and Rhodes keyboard may provide the orchestration and propel the groove. But the primary solo instrumental voice is acoustic piano.

“I think acoustic piano, especially the way it mixes with electric instruments, has become a major part of Pieces of a Dream’s signature sound,” Lloyd said. “It all blends well.”

A new studio album is in the works for the band. But for Lloyd, touring and recording with Pieces of a Dream remains very much a dream job.

“I’m living a dream,” he said. “I work here in my home studio, write, roll out of bed, and write some more until I pass out. I mean, who could ask for a better job?

“Every now and then, I get to go out on the road, travel, see the world and meet people. I get to take my wife as often as possible, too, to special places like Africa.”

“It’s like living a vacation and getting paid for it.”

Pieces of a Dream perform at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 2 at Equus Run Vineyards, 1280 Moores Mill Road. Tickets are $45 (single, general admission) and $500 (reserved table for 10). Gates open at 4 p.m. Call: (859) 255-2653.

alan jackson at applebee's park. photo by herald leader staff photographer david stephenson.

“Hey, you’re pretty lively for the middle of the week,” remarked the ever-casual Alan Jackson last night at Applebee’s Park.

To a degree, the Georgia-born hitmaker had correctly sized up the crowd of 4,500. After all, major country concerts are, as a rule, risky business when staged on anything other than a weekend night. And as any veteran of Jackson’s numerous Rupp Arena shows will tell you, 4,500 is roughly half of what the singer draws when he plays a Friday or Saturday in the great indoors.

But if this inaugural performance of the Alltech Festival lacked the sort of reckless abandon of a weekend bender at Rupp, it compensated by capitalizing on the unforced traditionalism that has long defined Jackson’s music. From a performance, performer and audience standpoint, this was an evening of artfully designed, G-rated, ultra-family friendly country. And, frankly, it wasn’t until Jackson’s 9/11 postscript, Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning) wound down, that one sensed what a rare and inviting thing such music can be.

Aside from a brief blast of guitar boogie that introduced Don’t Rock the Jukebox – an early Jackson hit that, underneath its electric exterior, was an ode to George Jones – nothing approximated the sleek pop that passes for country music today. Similarly, the show-opening Gone Country aside, Jackson didn’t waste time having to boast to his audience of just how “country” he was – which has become another cloying marketing device of modern day Nashville. Jackson, with a conversational tenor and unhurried stage demeanor, had credible country spirit to burn. He remains the biggest country traditionalist on the road today outside of George Strait. But where Strait’s music reflects the swing and honky tonk of his Lone Star upbringing, Jackson’s music opens up.

Piano, for example, drove a surprising portion of last night’s performance. As such, the light melodic drive of Little Bitty (which projected live shots of gleeful and genuinely jubilant kids in the audience onto three video screens behind the stage), Small Town Southern Man and even a tempered and playful cover of Summertime Blues possessed a distinct Southern air that fell well outside the Texas state line.

And when the sentimentalism of the program became a touch extreme, as on Remember When and A Woman’s Love, Jackson responded by underplaying the pathos. In other words, he remained last night one of the few country singers from the video age that didn’t try to sell a song like a bad actor.

Curiously, the concert’s highlight was the one tune where Jackson deviated from straight up country tradition. On the title tune to 2006’s Alison Krauss-produced Like Red on a Rose album, Jackson designed a studious after hours sound that balanced country sentiment with stark jazz and blues. The record was a brave experiment that worked. The performance simply made one hope for another royally blue sidetrip in the future.

Clouds quickly covered the setting sun when show opener Lee Ann Womack took the stage with her hit version of Buddy Miller’s swampy, spooky heartbreak meditation Does My Ring Burn Your Finger? The promised evening rains never arrived, however, so Womack launched into a diverse 50 minute set that leap-frogged from the traditionalism of the pedal steel saturated Never Again, Again (where the higher ends of Womack’s plaintive singing brought early Dolly Parton records to mind) to the rockier terrain occupied by Rodney Crowell’s Ashes By Now.

But like Jackson, Womack’s most emotive moments came when she tossed a blue-dipped curve to the ball park crowd. In this instance, it was an update of the spiritual Wayfaring Stranger. The performance’s mood bordered on the haunting with Womack elongating vowel sounds into teases of vocal wails that were balanced by raindrops of Rhodes-style keyboards and a touch of Santana-ish guitar. It all made for a display of inventive country cool.

dar williams. photo by traci goudie.

For the better part of the past decade, New Yorker/New Englander Dar Williams has performed regularly in Lexington, refining a songwriting approach rooted in the more sentimental regions of traditional folk. While certain themes in her songs have evolved over time, Williams’ music remains fascinated with affairs of the heart pared down to conversational essentials that are conveyed quite credibly by the more delicate contours of her voice.

Her nine-song return to the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour last night at the Kentucky Theatre was more of the same, although that is hardly an insinuation her performance (she was the program’s only guest) was a rerun. In fact, Williams was in the early stages of previewing and promoting a new album, Promised Land, which is still a month away from release.

The four songs pulled from the new record didn’t initially seem like the sort of confessional coffeehouse music Williams established her career with during the early ‘90s. Buzzer, in fact, was inspired by the Milgram experiments of obedience – specifically, a measurement of a person’s willingness to follow orders, even to the point of inflicting pain upon another individual – conducted at Yale University in the early 1960s. Seemingly consumed by a fear of fascism, the tune ripped along at a frantic clip. Yet it was riddled with a more pervasive sense of self-doubt – a very unromantic sense, mind you – that suggested the protagonist had indeed de-evolved into “a face, a cause of war.”

Heavy stuff, perhaps, but the song still possessed a wicked confessional streak. More in line with the sentimental ties of Williams’ past music was You Are Everyone, a story that began as a sort of Hollywood blues that sought comfort along darker, more distant shores as it forged a story of chance and trust.

The other Promised Land tunes, The Easy Way and It’s Alright, were simpler in design and flew to less dramatic extremes. The former quietly embraced a sense of freedom both elusive and deceptive (“easy is never easy anyhow”) while the latter seemed at odds with itself as it sought, and then resisted, personal change.

The WoodSongs set – an unaccompanied program, which is always the most complimentary performance setting for Williams’ music – stopped short of a full promotion for the new material, though. She opened with a long time concert favorite, The Babysitter’s Here, a hippie snapshot recounted by a child with a bittersweet air and ending. It’s hard to remember a time when Williams didn’t perform this one. But after nearly 15 years, The Babysitter’s Here still reflects some of her most direct, emotive and, yes, sentimental images as well as her ability to translate them into compelling storytelling.

Similar childhood themes ruled the Peter Pan-like parable When I Was a Boy  while a comparatively obscure cautionary story from 2000’s underrated The Green World album, Spring Street, closed the show, in Williams’ words, “at the crossroads of spiritualism and consumerism.”

The highlight, though, was February, a slice of subtle romanticism chilled by temperament as much as climate. Williams remarked afterward that she grew up in an upstate New York community where the winters were savage enough that spring seemed as though it had to be earned. Maybe so. But an hour’s worth of Williams’ wintry fancy on a midsummer night proved to be cordial and beautifully cool.