Marco & Friends, Night 3: Hey, Look, Songs!

There were plenty of opportunities for free play, but every time the class got let out for recess, it seemed like Friedman was taking charge more than anyone and, more often than not, he was bringing it down into a mind-bender rather than a booty-shaker. Most of it was still quite good, but somehow there was a disconnect between the three players that hasn’t been seen yet from Marco’s ensembles.

The second set opened with Stanton taking more control — it was almost as if by fiat, like Marco instructed: “Dude, take charge!” He was more front and center, and the other two played follow-the-leader quite happily. Moore can have an off-night and still beat most of the best of ’em, and despite a perceived lack of comfort, he made the most of it. For me, it was fun to watch him stray from his usual NOLA groovin’ and kind of plant a flag in the rockin’-out soil.

He was playing some fiercely slamming stuff, but his directions were a bit like grand master chess: he was plotting rhythms several steps ahead and it wasn’t always clear until a couple of moments later what he was working at. The rest of the trio seemed similarly steps behind. My guess is that with two more gigs, these guys would have the super-tight “this could be the band” edge that Marco’s other groups seem to have built in. I believe the first timeout for Benevento-Chamberlain-Mathis, it wasn’t 100% from the get-go either.

Sometimes you have to take each part as some wedge of a bigger wheel — while last week was the show where everything went just the way you imagined it would and could, and the 1st night was an unpredictable, deep improv, last week’s offering was a sort of fuzzy middle ground. Even if you went in expecting the unexpected, you were a bit thrown off. Were we supposed to sit back and watch the music take form in the aether before us, or were we supposed to dive into the pool and swim around in warm waters of Funksville? As it turned out, neither or both, depending on where you were standing and what you were hoping to hear. For me, it was one more moment in a perpetually thrilling experience, but I’m not sure it took hold for everyone equally like it did on January 10th.

A perfect example was when Stanton’s flailing moved the band into a “What Is and What Shall Never Be.” [Yes, if you shake the Eight Ball, it will read “All Signs Point to Led Zeppelin”]. This version didn’t seem to go anywhere in that it didn’t quite take off and it didn’t quite sink down, it just kind of treadmilled for a bit. So, if you were standing there in the crowd preparing to rage and shake fists, that moment never came and if you were hoping it would yield to some sort of next-level interaction between the trio-mates, that didn’t surface either.

Instead, the listener needed to give a little — the joy was in watching these three guys probe and prod each other with little expectations of each other and where things were going. Eventually, Marco lifted things up with a raging piano solo that worked so far into the upper registers that he just ran right our of room as he worked his way starboard. Fun to see the differences when he’s free to bring the left hand into the mix more. I think the freedom afforded is a double edged sword — having him concentrate on bass lines throughout a night can have some mind-expanding results (cf. 1/10/2008), but when it’s released, there’s twice as many places he can go…in theory, at least.

It took a second set appearance by Dave “The Fuze” Fiuczynski to take complete charge of the night. Fuze appeared with his sweet double-necked fretless 12/6 string guitar(s) and just eased in there. He didn’t do anything pyrotechnic or brain-welting with his axe, but his presence seemed to direct the music and focus it toward an end. I would never have guessed that it would take a guitar player added to the talent already assembled to make the best music of the night, but it was quite clear that this was the case.

I love watching Fiuczynski play, effortlessly switching between his guitars and working the neck like a slide-less slide guitar, giving off an otherworldly tone and knowing right where to place his notes in the mix. Plus, watching him on stage will invariable make me do the “You know those guitars that are like…double guitars” line from Otto the bus driver which may be in my top 5 Simpsons lines of all time. Thursday was no different, for the first stretch he wasn’t even soloing, as much as channeling the other musicians around him, giving them a chalkboard to sketch out ideas on and then reversing them into wonderful music.

Then Marco moved the music into his sick cover of “Fearless” and there was just a sense in the room that this would end up even sicker than usual. And it did. Again, Fuze settled in slowly and didn’t wrest control. He waited until it was handed to him and he obliged with the knock-down playing of the evening. A perfect reinterpretation of an already heady reworking of a mostly-ignored Floyd tune. At last, the eggs that had been scrambled all night were cooked to perfection, an omelet of rockadelic proportions for all to feast on. It was high fives all around after that one. It was one of those times when a sit in is just enough of a jolt at just the right time; an appearance you wish was longer but one you know would have been lessened had it not ended when it did. Sweet!

An interesting night to say the least, a nice complement to the other two nights and plenty enough to keep me way psyched for the last two. I’d put the 17th firmly between the 10th and the 3rd if I was forced to rank ’em. Can’t wait to see what the (new) gang brings to Sullivan tomorrow night.