Last Sunday, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue took to the Chan Centre's Shun Concert Hall stage for a performance that was best encapsulated as “fucking awesome.” The concert was fantastic and by far, one of the most entertaining shows to come to the Chan Centre in some time.
Calling this a jazz concert might convey the wrong idea about what experiencing this concert was like. The lights flashed, sound shook the walls at an amazing pitch and old, rich, white people were dancing in the aisles like it was still the 1960s. The vibe was a rock concert through and through, with insane solos from all of the band members and that frenetic feeling which seemed almost out of place in the rather proper aesthetic of the Chan Centre. For most students, who have only been there to see the dean speak or watch the symphony perform, it was an amusing contrast of sound and setting.
Trombone Shorty and his band are meant to be seen live. The difference between listening to their music online and watching them perform live is striking. That is not to say that their recordings are bad, because they are not. But there is something about their onstage presence — seeing them and hearing them that makes the experience all the more vivid. The banter between band members, the fullness of sound, the audience all up on their feet dancing and Shorty's strong presence as both musician and frontman make them an ideal live-act.
The band got straight into it from the moment they walked on stage, filling the room with complex instrumentation and a lively beat. A few years ago when Wynton Marsalis came to the Chan Centre, he gave a performance that was carefully considered and paced. Between songs, he would tell stories about the musicians whose works they were playing and talk about jazz much like Jonathan Girard might introduce Beethoven or Stravinsky. There is that sort of jazz performance, which is a concert in the traditional sense, and then there is Trombone Shorty, who barreled through song after song with hardly enough space for a breath and a drink of water. It was a solid, intermission-free, freestyle performance straight out of the clubs where jazz first began.
In spite of how it is presented, this show was not just Trombone Shorty with a selection of replaceable musicians to back him up. The members of Orleans Avenue were each given a hefty share of the spotlight, which they all commanded with impressive talent.
Pete Murano, who was on the guitar, breezed through insane solos with ease and made his presence know, engaging in some fantastic musical banter with his fellow musicians.
Michael Ballard, on the bass, was not the sort to be content with the anonymity typically assigned to his instrument and laid down some mean rhythms throughout.
At the right side of the stage, the two saxophonists were a reliable presence both for entertainment and amazing orchestration. Dan Oestreicher, on baritone sax, maintained a hilariously dry persona on stage, swinging in time with his fellows and belting out notes with a casual sort of air. Oestreicher's complicated, sonorous solo was also the sort of thing no one knew they needed ’til it happened. It was by far a highlight of the show. He and the tenor saxophonist, BK Jackson, were great to watch as well as listen to.
Joey Peebles did a fantastic job on drums but felt slightly underutilized, mainly because there was no drum solo. Maybe Whiplash has conditioned audiences to expect these, but especially since there were so many solos flying around that night, the absence of one from the drums was a bit sad.
The concert, true to the form of Trombone Shorty, dived through song after song and genre after genre with ease. There were times where the music was much more rap than anything else and others where the sound became infused with deep, bluesy sentiments.
The band left the stage, on the dot, after a solid hour and a half of performing and, much to everyone's pleasure, retook it for two more traditional sounding jazz songs, the latter of which was a solid 10 minute rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” which was the perfect way to send off the night. For this, they took their instruments on the move and paraded around the seats, stopping at the heart of the audience for a while before continuing on. It was the perfect way to end the night and was made all the better when they brought a little boy from the audience up on stage, who had come with his very own trombone. It was his solo that brought a truly memorable concert to a triumphant close.
The Chan Centre's 2016/2017 season has started with a bang and everyone should be excited for what is to follow.