drums

The Lost Organ Unit

Jazz on a Sunday evening in a local pub. Hear them at SoundCloud.

Our week in Edinburgh coincided with the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival and we were lucky enough to get great seats for the Norwegian Mona Krogstad Quartet at the Jazz Bar on the evening of July 19th (over a month ago, now!) to hear this excellent ensemble. A great time and rather than describe the music subjectively and inaccurately, I can recommend you listen to them. Click any of the pictures below to see them all bigger (you may have to click the post title first if you’re not seeing this directly on the web site already).

For those interested in technical details, these were difficult shooting conditions as it was dark and I was just shooting with my walk-around zoom lens from my seat so as not to disturb those around me. Needless to say, they were shot at a very high ISO and were reasonably noisy as well as sometimes not that sharp at low shutter speeds. I used DxO’s Pure Raw to recover as much quality from the raw files as possible before processing in Capture One, simply using the default settings.

After the Concert

Jazz on a Sunday Afternoon

These guys played a great set, combining sweet lyrical pieces with wide ranging dynamics as well as driving, beboppy pieces from Chris Potter on sax, spectacular drumming from Nahseet Waits (who regular viewers may remember was in the trio I posted from a few weeks back) and confident rhythm support from Joe Martin on bass.

Click any image to see them all enlarged.

Jazz Yoga

As the concert, featuring Chris Potter on sax, Joe Martin on bass, and Nasheet Waits on drums, began, a demonstration of some kind of yoga or acrobatics was given to the music. At the end of the concert we heard that lessons were available. The photographer is Jimmy Katz, founder, with Dena Katz, of Giant Step Arts and the Walk With the Wind concert series.

Honoring John Lewis

Before the final Walk With the Wind concert honoring John Lewis, a Columbia professor (I can’t find his name or school), read to us from Lewis’ late work, exhorting us to hope and to vote, invoking MLK’s recommendation to practice good, non-violent, bad behavior.

Tal!

Went to see Tal Wilkenfeld at the Mercury Lounge last week. She’s a phenomenal bass (and guitar) player from Australia who burst upon the scene about a decade and a half ago. Known for a while for her playing with Jeff Beck she has developed her own voice and style, singing lyrically, and playing jazz-inflected kick-ass rock’n’roll.