The Lounge Lizzards are alive. Or their “not exactly jazz” spirit is in Elvind Opsvik Overseas. This band was here at the Lutheran Church in 2010. They were one of our favorites then and even sounded better this time. Of course they brought along two more members, a piano player and a tenor sax player. Each player has a distinctly different role in this band. No one is glomming on to another’s part or space. Consequently the ensemble creates a very rich pallette.
Led by the bass player, Eivind Opsvik, they opened with a car chase of a tune, one where the chaser forgot what it was chasing. They get cinematic in a hurry. The tenor sax adds a solid film noir aspect to the big picture, at times taking the band into Gato territory like Last Tango in Outer Space. We’ve heard drummer Kenny Wollesen with Bill Frisell a few times but he sounded better than ever in this setting, free to color the song as he sees fit. Brandon Seabrook could be the world’s most unusual guitar player. He bowed his guitar while Opsvik bowed his bass but mostly he adds angular punctuation, meloodic and rhythmic and WTF texture when rubs a mini cassette player across the neck of his guitar.
We came home with their 2012 “Overseas IV” white vinyl, small hole 45, No. 0175. It contained a download card for the whole cd. I really like this packaging idea.
I’m taking notes at the jazz fest and posting them over here.
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