So as I said, I had a great road trip upstate and into Canada. It started with a visit to Martin and family outside of Albany. The kids are sweet and delightful, the ducks and chickens and cows and game hens are doing fine, and the shale pit is full of birds and frogs. We all went out for a delightful dinner at the local German restaurant on the lake.
From there it was on to Lake George. Our hotel had a pool and a bar and beach right on the lake, with boat rentals and everything. It was a beautiful summer day and a perfect spot for relaxing enjoying the water and sun. In the morning we kayaked around the southern end of the lake, then spent the afternoon back’n’forth between the pool and the bar. What a great place. I can’t believe it’s been five years since the last time we were up there. Ah well it’s a big world and life keeps you busy.
In the evening we went on a dinner cruise on the bigger, fancier boat. (Last time we did the Mini Haha, which had tacos and no air conditioning. This was more like a reception or something.) Good food, nice views or all the islands and coastlines, lovely sunset. After the cruise Lizzy talked us into taking a tour of fort William Henry, rebuilt on the spot it originally stood in the French and Indian wars.
Lizzy normally loathes this kind of thing, and complains loudly whenever we approach any kind of museum or historical site on a vacation. Michelle, Jeannie and I, meanwhile are generally keen on kind of thing. So we were all a bit surprised but she talked us into it.
The hook that piqued her curiosity was that it was billed as a “Ghost Tour”. I have no idea where Lizzy’s interest in the occult arose, but we had tell her not try and bring a Ouija board to the Bermuda Triangle. Surely the ship would hit an iceberg and we’ll all die, or get sucked into a rift in the spacetime continuum. It’s just common sense.
Anyway the fort was supposedly haunted due to a massacre that took place shortly before it burned to the ground. The tour was pretty cool. It was nighttime and spooky, but it was mainly a tour of the fort with explanations of its history and snapshots of daily life back in the day, layered with dubious second-hand accounts of ghost sightings in every nook and cranny. At the end of the tour Lizzy declared “they tricked us into learning something,” but she had a good time anyway.
Also the kids turned us on to the show How I Met Your Mother, which was on-demand on the hotel TV, and hilarious. As luck would have it we watched the episode with Geddy Lee.
Next day it was on to a place called Ausable Chasm, which Jeannie had visited when she was a girl. She’s been telling us for years she’d love to get back there someday. As you might expect, it’s a gorge in the Ausable river, with hiking trails, rope bridges and catwalks, and raft rides thru the gorge and it’s (mild) rapids. So that was really cool and alot of fun.
We had taken two cars up and at this point the kids departed for home, while Jeannie and I headed further north. That was a bit of an experiment, but since the kids weren’t that interested in the second half of the itinerary and Lizzy wanted to work and make money, we figured we’d give it a shot. Happy to say it worked out just fine.
Jeannie and I trekked on into Canada, crossing at the north end of the Northway. For obvious reasons the Canadians are angry with the Americans these days, so the border crossing was extra slow. We waited in line an hour and a half, and then were subject to an interrogation the likes of which I’d never heard, and I’ve crossed into Canada hundreds of times. It was really not such a big deal, just a delay and annoyance. Luckily they were playing the new Coltrane album on the radio, which gave us something to do during the wait.
We got to Montreal quick enough after that. Our hotel was right downtown and offered parking, super convenient. And they upgraded us to a suite. Sweet! We set out to explore the neighborhood. Montreal is a beautiful city full of lots of old stone French architecture. The neighborhood where we were staying was funky and artsy but well kept, alot like the West Village in NYC. There were lots of food options. We went to a fast, cheap and yummy mideastern place.
We were in Montreal for the Jazz Festival, and the act we were there to see first, the motivating excuse for the whole trip, was Kamasi Washington. I’d heard him on the radio and consider him one of the most interesting new sax players in the last five or ten years. Unfortunately he doesn’t play very much in the States, particularly int he NYC area.
The venue was a short walk away. It was a good size; I’d compare it to Irving Plaza, the Capital Theatre or the Fillmore. They had a several bars in the place, including one in the lobby, which was a good place to sit and chill between acts.
My two favorite sax players of all time are John Coltrane and Clarance Clemons. Kamasi draws from both styles of playing. First of all, he has a great big tone, which I love. His compositions tend toward the abstract and soulful, and function as vehicles for both individual and collective improvisation. Crucially, Kamasi explores the question of where to go when your expressiveness and intensity are maxed out, and gets to some really cool and original territory.
Coltrane’s answer was to repeatedly push the boundaries, particularly with respect to harmonic complexity, and he passed thru several styles and did all kinds of amazing things before ultimately arriving at a kind of chaotic atonalism where few could truly follow. I’ve listened to most of his later albums and and some of them are, well let’s say more interesting than entertaining. Meanwhile Clarance was a guy who was not noted for complex playing, but for using big, bold strokes, almost like drawing with crayons. The result was almost everything he played was bold and anthemic, and you couldn’t imagine any other sax part.
And so Kamasi does this thing where you think the solo has nowhere left to go, and then instead of going more complex, he turns left and simplifies, repeating a riff, or just a single note, getting right down to the essence. Then the band builds up in intensity behind him and the whole thing just explodes. Very into repetition and dynamics, very effective.
So even knowing all this about the music coming in, I was not prepared for the live show. Cuz you know, the whole loop-and-build approach would fall flat and get really boring really fast if you don’t have a really good band. This band was several levels beyond really good. First of all, he had two drummers. And all that implies. Even though they were playing true jazz, there was a current of deadhead jambanditude in their collective improvisation. Or maybe King Crimson meets Curtis Mayfield. The bass player, Miles Mosley was out of this world too, on standup bass. The front line consisted of Kamasi on tenor sax, and then a trombone, flute, Moog/Rhodes and a female vocalist who sometimes sang words and sometimes not. The combined sound was very hipster sci-fi. They had definitely been playing together for a while, and were spontaneously, simultaneously loose and tight, often improvising a one cohesive whole, so you couldn’t really tell where the composition left off and the jamming began.
On top of that they had just released a new triple album the day before, and were hot to showcase alot of the new tunes. The opened with Street Fighter Mas, which Kamasi said he wrote about his favorite video game. They covered many moods, but it was all very evocative, free and precise. All in all I was just blown away. It was up there with the greatest concerts I’ve ever seen.
I could have stayed and got a copy of the new record signed by the man himself. I would have liked too; he seemed like a bright and personable guy. But the line got long quickly and by the end of the show we we were just too darn beat.
BTW I saw several really good trombone players over the weekend, and I’m kinda fascinated by trombone now. It’s not an instrument that offers great speed or facility, so most trombone players tend to play really soulful. It also kinda makes you wonder why the French horn never really penetrated jazz. It has a versatile and distinctive tone and a very broad range, and it’s alot more maneuverable than a trombone. But you only ever hear it rounding out the low end of some big bands.
