Thursday, April 17, 2014

Now's the Time: Nathan Davis


For many locally-based jazz fans, choosing between Saturday's two high-profile concerts will be easy.  The new-school crowd will elect to take in the performance by the Brad Mehldau Trio at the Folly Theater.  The lionized pianist is a media darling.  Hometown boosters and old-school swing aficionados will head to the Gem Theater.  The event is billed as a Lifetime Achievement Award concert for Nathan Davis, a native of Kansas City, Kansas.  Largely unknown in the United States in spite of a stint with Eric Dolphy, Davis will be joined by trombone legend Curtis Fuller, piano great George Cables, bassist Abraham Laboriel and drummer Winard Harper.  Cables and Laboriel appear with Davis in the embedded video.  Joe Klopus previewed the two concerts for The Kansas City Star.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You think the AJM and the Folly would avoid having high profile gigs on the same night. I mean, do these two organizations even talk to each other? Lame! I wish I could go to both shows, but I bought Folly tickets back in September so I'm locked in for Mehldau.

Cb said...

You know, the funny thing is that both organizations do indeed talk with each other, Anonymous.

April seems always extra challenging, considering all of the events that happen - Jazz Appreciation Month, Solo and Ensemble Contests, Holy Week and Easter.

The AJM also always hosts an educational jazz festival in partnership with MCC Penn Valley during the week of our Lifetime Appreciation Concert in April.

Polling the 50 student band programs who attend the 3-day event (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) resulted in April 19 being the best day to hold the feature concert with Dr. Davis.

Couple these factors with coordinating dates with touring artist schedules and you sometimes get conflicts like this one, in terms of it would have been cool to be able to go to both concerts.

Actually, it is really cool that we have a city that has such quality artistic offerings; with fans who want to support both great venues, like the AJM's Jammin' at the Gem series and the Folly series.

Peace, Cb