The Baked Potato Jazz Club Festival

Review: The Baked Potato Jazz Club Festival

ARTICLE BY JAMIE SKOWRON
PHOTOS BY VERONICA MUNOZ

MAY 22-23 | LOS ANGELES—Most people do not know about one of the most supportive and influential jazz clubs that has nurtured some of the most prolific and mind-boggling virtuosity the world has ever seen. It has been 40 years since the inception of this West Coast jazz landmark, and The Baked Potato has transformed itself from an up-and-coming incubator to a must-play historical attraction for moguls from all over the world. The support that the club has received from fans and artists throughout this festival and the past 40 years is a testament to this solid fact.

The festival opened the bright, sunny California day with The Baked Potato All Stars, featuring Jeff Richman on guitar, who delivered a powerful 2 p.m. slot with his haywire blend of Jeff Beck-like fusion. At the beginning of this hot, sticky day at the John Anson Ford Theatre,OHM set the stage with Chris Poland on guitar, Kofi Baker on drums and Ralph Pagliari on bass. If you ever heard Poland play during the mid-’80s reign of Megadeth and heard of Baker (the son of Cream’s Ginger Baker), then you might have had the same excitement pumping in your blood as I did for the this set. Baker took the stage with long pants, a beanie and sunglasses, nonchalantly chewing gum and making his exceptionally difficult job of keeping up with Poland’s screaming bends and flowing legato appear elementary. In the midst of the bone-shattering episodes of Megadeth, Pagliari performed an epic solo, as he beat his ideas across the fret board of his gleaming fretless bass. Behind Poland’s tasteful use of effects was Baker, looking like a monkey with every appendage flailing independently in perfect time and rhythm, moving in and out of this cosmic puzzle with all three landing in the pocket of the last tune, which was a blues jam in which Pagliari exercised his soulful vocals. OHM is definitely the Ultimate Trio of Doom and shows the short-lived 1979 McLaughlin, Williams and Pastorius project that it has a few things to work on.

VOLTO! (featuring Danny Carey of TOOL on drums) was sure to be the favorite at this festival, but for some unknown reason, the band cancelled and The Bombastic Meatbats featuring Chad Smith on drums (Red Hot Chili Peppers) stepped in to show all these jazz kats why funk is the most energetic and fun music to play. More people started to pour into this fusion funk monster, with Smith radiating an enticing and casually comical presence. Smith’s personable small talk and comedic approach pushed the edges at a few moments, especially when he commented on Carey’s absence: “I think he is playing a wedding or something … heard TOOL isn’t doing so great.” The warm breeze rolling off the Hollywood Hills seemed to push him into the nextJames Brown-esque tune before he trampled through the intractable boundaries of insult. The Meatbats’ energy kept perfectly in line with the traditional funk atmosphere and carried everything between Jimi’s roaring riffs and subtle hints of Bo Diddley’s rhythmic contour. The audience was pleasantly surprised to see Smith’s versatility of style and joined in on a collective “tip of hat” for the first standing ovation of the night.

The sun is now starting to set on this first day of intense music, and Steve Lukather of Toto (’80s rock band known for being all studio musicians) walks on stage with his brash sense of gratitude and begins to talk a little about the spirit of The Baked Potato and what this small jazz club meant to him and his music. He also prefaced the set with an introduction of a man who needs no introduction, Mike Landau. Landauis a world-renowned guitarist, as most of the musicians here are, and long-time friend and colleague of Lukather, which added to the mushy and emotional nature of the event. Lukather’s punch-in-the-face blend of rock fusion was supported by a very young female bass player and legendary drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, who—as testimony to his stature—will play two more sets throughout the festival. Lukather kept up with the racy energy set forth by The Bombastic Meatbats with some sexually-referenced humor, but noticeably held his restraint in the good nature of the event and his persona. Besides his outgoing personality, he was an extremely humble and appreciative performer, as was every artist tonight. Colaiuta’s back beat seeped into the feet and hands of the audience and completely nourished Lukather’s improvisational skills, which proved to be extremely developed and thematic from crux to climax.

Following the very personal and almost unnecessary introduction,Landau trotted slowly to his battle station with another drum legend,Gary Novak, who performed two sets during the festival. With the complete disappearance of the sun, Landau’s blend of blues and jazz-fusion blanketed a thick otherworldly mask of dreamy energy, which remained for the rest of the evening. While sitting in the amphitheater, you could feel the Stevie Ray-driven music interact with the surrounding mountains, using the air as a conduit for our electrical enjoyment of seemingly religious sonorities. Being an instrumentalist myself makes it easy to interpret some of the tears in the audience members’ eyes from the musical excitement of hearing Landau dig deep into his fret board, searching for the perfect note. For the last part of the set, Landau invited a well-respected blues aficionado on stage, Kirk Fletcher, to back his soulful vocals and share in on the improvisation. Fletcher’s expression jolts that deep-rooted musical ventricle that screams for the happiest and most depressing moments of emotional absorption. These two moguls are blues linguists and idiomatic geniuses who sing with the power of Aretha and carry the fluidity of a Beethoven sonata. The set was concluded with a special mock-intimate appearance of Hazy Jane (vocals) in which they performed a Doors cover of “The Crystal Ship” and showed everyone that they can execute the essence of a tune and not just tear it to shreds.

The final act of day one includedAllan Holdsworth (yet another legendary guitarist), Jimmy Haslipon bass (who also played with theYellowjackets on day two), Alan Pasqua on keys and the second set from Gary Novak on drums. Holdsworth wielded a small Steinberger guitar, of which there is a miniscule body and no headstock, and quickly proved that size does not matter when it comes to guitars. This fusion pioneer has set the standard for the past decade by experimenting not only with angels and demons of inside/outside harmony soloing techniques, but also completely brutalizing the traditional timbre of a guitar through a multitude of effects and synthesizers. If you try to follow his melodic alterations and bursts of chaotic dissonance, you could swear that someone might be pulling the old Milli Vanilli act of lip-synching to a backing track, but this only further emphasizes his flawless technique. Halfway through the set, a somewhat comical staple of Los Angeles life occurred as a deafening LAPD helicopter out on Saturday evening patrol interrupted Pasqua’s elegant Bill Evan-style piano interlude. Pasqua, being the professional he is, stopped and waited for the interruption to subside and then went right back to his intensely emotional solo piece. This band, along with every other artist during this festival, is the perfect physical example of what Ken Wernertalks about in his book Effortless Mastery, which deals with an individual’s road to success and the separation of the left and right brain. The Holdsworth band finished with a tribute to a late jazz great,Tony Williams, entitled “Blues For Tony.”

Sunday brought a huge drop in temperature that continued to decrease throughout the day. Day two had the huge task of competing with the energy of Holdsworth, but the John Daversa Big Band did just that with a spacey, traditional big band setting of approximately 20 musicians. John Daversa is a young conductor/composer/performer who is bringing new life to a genre of jazz that was thought to have been nearly extinct. His revitalization includes modern rhythms reminiscent of The Mars Volta or King Crimson, and it is perfectly balanced with beautiful arrangements of a celestial horn section. TheJohn Daversa Big Band can be seen the last Sunday of every month atThe Baked Potato. The second group of The Baked Potato All Starswas led by Mitch Forman (keys), who was accompanied by a spectacular percussion section led by Joel Taylor on drums, and the group introduced a song that was written by guitarist Mike Miller entitled “The Sky Lights Up.” Just as Forman said the title, the partly cloudy sky dispersed and the sun shined brightly. Improvisation is a huge part of the jazz language, and it can be easily observed as Forman points to individual musicians and endows them with improvisational responsibilities. The musical connection and onstage silent conversations are exemplary of the amazing level of musicianship that has graced this stage.

The proprietor of The Baked Potato is Don Randi, and he performed next with his group, Quest, in which he plays piano and showcases his insanely fluent bebop vocabulary. Randi is the epitome of the hip and intellectually beatnik persona, and he even prefaced one of his songs with a clever little phrase, “the music is outrageous and the musicians contagious.” He is by definition the original Baked veteran and has made many relationships throughout his time in the jazz community. Recently, as life dictates, there have been many passings in the jazz world, which Randi touched on with a very moving song that wrapped around a spoken diatribe of all the greats who made their way to the other side, as he dedicated the song “to the boys upstairs.” Randi’s musical development over the years has incorporated heavy use of effects and technology in his attempt to remain on the forefront of the jazz world and not be buried by musical Darwinism.

A very casually dressed Lee Ritenour took the stage as a 1974 Baked Potato veteran with the power of Melvin Davis’ seven-string bass and very young, exceptional drummer Oscar Seeden. The set consisted of some of Ritenour’s classic George Benson-esque R&B pop tunes with extra special guest Ernie Watts, who also is a 1974 Baked Potatoveteran, to finish off the set and pass the torch to the final artist of the festival, Larry Carlton. Throughout Baked Potato veteran Carlton’s set, he was backed by Travis Carlton on bass and Gene Coy on drums with some very special guests. Mike Landau returned for a collaboration with Larry, and following was Abraham Labroriel Sr. on bass, Greg Mathieson on keys and Vinnie Colaiuta on the kit. These three guys were major contributors to Larry’s first two releases and expressed nothing but gratitude as they tore through some classic jazz standards such as “Billie’s Bounce,” only to leave all the music lovers as cannon fodder in the still of the night and wanting more.

I was very skeptical about how this pricey event would turn out and if it was worth the cost of the tickets, let alone the $12 beers. I have been to many festivals, and they never really represent the music of the artists in an appropriate way and are ALWAYS late on set times. This festival on the other hand was very well put together and promoted throughout the jazz scene as a must-see historical spectacle—and it proved to be just that, a series of performances that has never and will never happen again. Beside the historical significance, every set was actually on time and most were even early. The sound engineering in the amphitheater was outstanding and definitely gave the artists a proper platform to prove why they are here. It’s actually kind of comical that these huge production companies can’t deliver the quality of festivities and amenities that a small jazz club is intent on providing. The Baked Potato did an excellent job at treating its patrons with the same respect they have been shown throughout the past 40 years, and it seemingly will continue to be the premier West Coast jazz landmark it has always been.