Albert Ammons/Masters of the Boogie Piano

Much of the night I got the impression of listening to what must be the world's most prestigious cruise ship band. It was a generalized blues, both emotionally and tonally, and a generalized jazz, and a generalized gospel. The emotional specificity came in specific moments from specific performers, and in the meantime the multiple generalizations bolstered each other's improbable ascent, while the bassist's high mix replaced the types of fun those musics usually give off with a more funky variety. The fellow [note: James Andrews; tall, bald, smiley, and dancing] who was the physical and performative emblem of Pops on stage was not terribly impressive to me as a horn player, but maybe he wasn't trying that hard, I couldn't say. Microwave gumbo, all flash, no pan. Kermit was the real musical evocation of the presiding spirit, out of all else I saw. It has something to do with him being a horn player of quality standing in his shadow, there's a certain amount of cognitive overlap both for him playing and us listening at an event like this, but it also has to do with his ease and fluency. Kermit dug around in notes and melodies with the kind of attention and indifference that was more than reminiscent of the big guy, but his music was also loaded with jokes. And that's crucial. It takes alot to crack wise when you're kissing a metal tube, and it takes alot of good stuff to let your chops be more than just chops. He does what many solo horns don't bother doing, if most of them ever did, and turns the already existing music into a music he wants to exist: he took someone else's phrase and made it his sentence.

The other instance of Louis's presence among us, it seemed to me, was the intra-sex banter of John and his singer. The warm, open sexuality and charisma of both parties, loaded with outrage and relish, was the closest I got to seeing the man's spirit brought to life, or directly paid tribute to. Way out in left field, though, was Ms. Diaz and her concatenating assonance, which probably sounds sexual for a reason. I've listened to spanish island hiphop before, so I was  in whatever small way prepared for what the Spanish language can do in a context which prizes aural density, but since I couldn't say she was rapping, I wasn't all that prepared. What it reminded me of more than anything was listening to Italians read Dante. They're both good examples of the virtue of having languages in which most words rhyme with at least a few hundred other words, but I bet if I were Ms. Diaz, I would have to work just as hard as Dante at shaping that resource into an actual musicality. She was stunning and I thank her mother.

Dr. John held the center admirably, with a wise left hand and a voice that did its duty. I'm not sure if he was asked to do this or he volunteered, but he seemed sheepish enough about the whole idea of it, either way. If I were a musician and someone asked me to pay tribute to Louis Armstrong I wouldn't know whether to cry or declare war.

That covers the bulk of what I experienced most vividly about the event. The parts where I was bored I might have just been skeptical, but most of the parts where I was bored are very nearly gone from me, already, so it's certainly something I enjoyed. The backing horns were really tight.

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Looking over this I'd only add that Rene (who only gets a mention under intra-sex banter) was lovely, and the Blind Boys underused. The things me and Bob were in most direct agreement about were how impressed we were by Telmary Diaz, and how unfair it would be to hold the event and its members to the standard set by the man it was honoring. I'd never seen Dr. John in concert before, and had never really thought I would, so it was a good way to spend an evening.