We had a good time listening to an ABBA cover band a few years ago. It was interesting and a hoot at the same time. The Leonard Cohen movie, “I’m Your Man”, only had one song performed by him in it. They should have just made an MTV video. Cover bands are usually sort of sad.
Everybody was saying how much they enjoyed Billy’s Band at the Jazz Fest but I kept thinking about how much better Tom Waits would have been in person. Even when the band is the same but the main dude is missing, it just doesn’t work. Van Halen without David Lee Roth? After Sun Ra died, Marshall Allen took the Arkestra on the road but Sun Ra without Sun Ra?
And we broke one of John Gilmore’s concert going rules this evening by listening to a recording of Chuck Cuminale playing solo at Rising Place in Rochester in 1976. John says, “Never listen to a bands’ cd on the day of the show”. I missed Chuck Cuminale tonight at WXXI and maybe that was the idea. He had a perfect sense of rhythm and timing in his guitar playing and vocal delivery. This is all laid bare on this solo performance. And then of course, he was a poet.
Musical director, Ken Frank organized other former CBJ members (Rita Coulter, Phil Marshall, Charles Jaffe, Jim McAvaney, Bernie Heveron, Rush Tattered) and Chuck’s son Mark for this performance and their stellar performance almost made Jaffe’s wood inlay Chuck portrait (propped up behind the band) come to life. Julia Figueras asked Mark what he thought his father’s legacy was and he said “it has something to do with truth”.
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Who did the artwork? It looks like a sheet of copper.
Thanks Bob. I amended my entry to credit Charles Jaffe for the portrait of Chuck. It was done in wood inlay.
and don’t forget Bernie Heveron on doghouse bass!
…and Mark wielded his father’s guitar as if Chuck was shadowing him. Stellar.