Fresh off a summer tour with his band Galactic, Stanton Moore kicked off a new run with The Stanton Moore Trio. The first stop was Boston for a gig at the newly renovated and expanded Paradise Club.
The current Trio lineup was to include Will Bernard on guitar and Robert Walter on the Hammond B-3, with Stanton behind his Gretsch kit, but on the Boston show at least, the B-3 was handled by Wil Blades.
A small Tuesday crowd enthusiastically greeted the band’s late arrival. Stanton kicked off with two tunes from his new CD, Pot Licker and Squash Blossom. The band hit an easy groove behind Stanton’s drums. Stanton has said in interviews that the absence of a bass in the Trio’s lineup gives him the freedom to range more freely, not tied down to a specific groove, and allows him to roam within the song and this was evident here, the bass foot pedals on Blades B-3 filling the bottom without getting in the way.
The CD Groove Alchemy, is part of a multiple release which includes a DVD and a book of the same name, highlighting techniques from three of Stanton’s big influences, Clyde Stubblefield and Jabo Starks, the funk behind many of James Brown’s hits (http://www.jaboandclyde.com/), and Zigaboo Modeliste, whose drumming with the Meters in the 60’s and 7-0’s helped define funk (http://www.zigaboo.com/).
After two songs, Anders Osborne came out with his guitar. A regular Trio tour guest over the past year, the newly reenergized Osborne, a New Orleanian by way of Sweden, immediately raised the tempo with the new “On The Road To Charlie Parker”. Written following his recent recovery from the same heroin addiction that claimed Parker, Osborne strode the stage like Joaquin Phoenix’s unkempt cousin or a Mayan Shaman exorcising demons, guitar slicing the air, long hair and heavy beard bobbing and weaving, face contorted, pulling the notes off his guitar with distortion and feedback. “This is the healing,” Osborne has said of the song, “the patching back together of a man scattered to the wind, broken in pieces.” The band latched on and rode it out with him for over a half hour of new tunes from his new cd, American Patchwork before taking a set break.
The Trio returned for a final set and ended the night featuring several Will Bernard tunes, whose jazzier, funkier licks contrasted with Osborne’s more frenetic sound. A soulful, gospel drenched rendition of the old church song “Just A Closer Walk With Thee” was a highlight of the final set, The B-3 being just the right voice for that Sunday meeting song.
The Trio is on a run that will take them through October, with stops in the Midwest, and down through the South, ending in New Orleans at the VoodooFest on Halloween weekend. Look for the Boston show on one of the online torrent sites, the tapers were present and active.
