Gary Clark Jr /Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue – Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, VT 6/29/15 (SHOW REVIEW)

At least on paper, the June 29th Concert on the Green at Shelburne Museum looked to rival the Discover Jazz co-billing of Robert Randolph and Matt Schofield on Burlington’s Waterfront Park earlier in the month. However on this bout, Trombone Shorty stole the show from Gary Clark Jr whose set failed to generate much momentum during its two hour duration.

The trombonist and his Orleans Avenue band maintained a precarious balance of showmanship and musicianship during their near ninety minutes on stage, generally avoiding the bombast to which they are prey, except, oddly, on a blues tune dedicated to the recently deceased BB King. Otherwise, at various intervals throughout their performance, the sextet pumped their horns and rocked the rhythm section in such a way they recalled no one so much as Chicago in their earliest days when the late Terry Kath would lead the charge.

In exhorting the crowd to party along, Shorty and company repeatedly referenced their New Orleans roots and the otherwise relaxed attendees responded kindly, though less overtly on the one selection with true NOLA roots, Allen Toussaint’s “On YourWay Down.” The ominous air the horns conjured here was in decided contrast to the exuberant mood Trombone Shorty aimed for and otherwise nailed virtually throughout, from their opening right through to its logical conclusion of a stage-front dance routine.

Gary Clark Jr’s understated, charismatic stage presence couldn’t compare to that ebullience, but the music he played with his quartet didn’t build in intensity during the course of their performance either. At this point in his still fledgling career, the Austin native is too good to offer a merely desultory performance, yet this one under multi-colored sunset skies (then a full moon) didn’t match the one at Higher Ground in February 2014 where he lived up to a similar opening of “Bright Lights” in which he confidently intones “You’re gonna know my name…..”

Individual tunes Clark and his band offered were striking on their own terms, particularly the overtly blues-oriented numbers such as “Catfish Blues,” “When My Train Pulls In” and a  twelve-bar homage to BB King. Still, a new number identified as “Hold On” failed to make an impression and while Clark didn’t exactly appear disengaged, his brief nonchalant comments to an audience hungry for some guitar heroism seemed telling, especially when he didn’t follow his own late set advisory on cutting loose with comparably fiery playing after his banshee wail.

If that had been the case, the solo numbers with which Clark began the encore would’ve made a deeper mark and the Chuck Berry-derived closer would’ve been literally over the top in a positive sense. As it was, Gary Clark Jr.’s return to Vermont begs the question of whether his new studio album, due out in September, will further the meteoric rise of his career rather than remain in fitful traction  like the traffic moving out of the soggy venue after he finished playing.

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