A Year In Review Like No Other, Really

It was a classic July evening in L.A. as I rolled my camera case the mile or so up to the Greek Theatre from Los Feliz Boulevard. I was excited to be covering one of Neil Young’s two shows at the Greek as part of a brief West Coast solo tour announced just a few weeks before. But something was off. I was huffing and puffing, stopping several times to catch my breath, an eddy to the steady flow of fans passing by. It was balmy, not hot, and I chalked it up to putting on a few more pounds and less time on the trail. By the time I got to the box office to pick up my ticket, I was a wet rag of sweat. I cooled down, met the press escort and got into position for a show I knew would be special, having attended one of his four nights at the jewel box 1,200 seat Ford Amphitheatre the previous week. What I didn’t know is that a week later I would find myself hospitalized with a 90% blockage of my Left Anterior Descending artery to my heart, also known as “the widowmaker”, awaiting a cardiac procedure that saved me from a potentially unsavory fate.

So, consider that a wind up to this is not a “typical” year in review. Not when I was throwing myself around shows and festivals oblivious to the bullseye on my ticker. If I didn’t appreciate the privilege of being in the pit, shooting in if-walls-could-speak rooms of yore and bonding with photographers, managers, crew and musicians already, I have a rather refreshed “this could be the last time, may be the last time, I don’t know” perspective every time I pick up the camera at a gig. I missed Newport Folk and Newport Jazz for the first time in many years, the oldest events of their kind in North America, where I’m one of the only West Coast photographers not named Blakesberg or Diltz. I slowed my roll for a few months, emerging for the 66th Monterey Jazz Festival in late September, an event at the top of my list as long as I’ve been shooting jazz. A perfect re-entry. And I wrapped my year with the golden stringing of Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway at the world-famous Troubadour.

January’s Winter chill thawed a bit with the newly minted Jazz Is Dead (XXV), a reinvented take of the original incarnation, a brief but brilliant jazz constellation that featured the likes of Billy Cobham, Jimmy Herring and Alphonso Johnson. Only Johnson remains in a quartet that also features veteran jam guitarist Steve Kimock and Bobbie Lee Rogers’ banjo sonics. Terence Blanchard sat in for a very special “Love Revolution” performance with drummer Oscar Seaton, Jr., trumpeter Keyon Harrold, Brandon Coleman on keys and DJ Ginyard on bass, at the almost century old Paramount Ballroom. And a taste of Jazz Fest came early to the Venice West, with George Porter, Jr. and those Runnin’ Pardners, in March. A month that included an album cover shoot for the blues duo of Celso Salim and Darryl Carriere, and the opening of a five-week showing of my work at the Olympia Club in Santa Monica, with a smokingly eclectic set from soprano player Ian Roller and his trio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fifth edition of the Deadcentric Skull & Roses Festival in Ventura overlapped with a three show Phish run at the Hollywood Bowl, unfortunate scheduling that undoubtedly stepped on part of the draw for the five-day festival. I managed to get to the Friday Phish show, then up to Ventura for the last day of S&R featuring Phil Lesh & Friends closing it out, before heading out to New Orleans for my 19th Jazz & Heritage Festival. A head spinning few days to go into the whole enchilada of both weekends.

 

 

 

 

 

The sheer breadth of music over the seven days of Jazz Fest is unmatched, with close to 500 different performances and interviews. It keeps me coming back. Year after year. Only at Jazz Fest are you steps away from the bounce of Big Freedia, and the sublime jazz vocals of 92-year-old Germaine Bazzle. Only at Jazz Fest can you finish the day with a lap of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Wu-Tang Clan with The Soul Rebels, trumpeter Nicholas Payton with bassist MonoNeon, Mavis Staples, and Lizzo. Or, as we call it, first Friday. Throw in the skies opening up more than once with heat and humidity that take their toll, and it keeps things interesting, with the happiness of that shared experience among 460,000 attendees prevailing, as it always does. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The NOLA all-star horns of the Midnite Disturbers still get me every time, as did the feathered flurry of a jazz funeral for the late Walter “Wolfman” Washington. Buddy Guy at 86 let the crowd know “if they weren’t into the blues, they were at the wrong fucking stage” was followed by Santana seemingly turning the clock back to 1969. And the chemistry between John Hiatt and guitarist Sonny Landreth felt as fresh as it did 35 years ago on their Slow Turning collaboration. That’s just a small slice of Jazz Fest 2023 that I look back on at year end. As the T-shirt said, “Jazz Fest is my love language”. XL please.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I still haven’t wrapped my head around the fact that I was doing what I do, racking up 7-8 miles a day, with 25 pounds of gear, sometimes under a faucet of precip, all with a heart sipping a milkshake through a cocktail straw. Retroactive fear is a strange thing.

Dead & Co.’s final Fare Thee Well launched with two May shows at the KIA Forum (sluggish Jazz Fest set aside), and this was a band energized like no other tour, despite the last-minute replacement of drummer Bill Kreutzmann with Jay Lane. I followed the Nugs feed for as many shows as I could manage until the end of the run by the Bay. The boys dug deep to find new curves, tune after tune, show after show, with a poignancy and celebration that hung over every gig.

 

 

 

Summer gave way to Ivan Neville debuting his fine new solo record “Touch My Soul” in interview and performance atop the roof of the Grammy Museum, and African pianist Ndudzo Makhahtini and his trio channeling the spirit of McCoy Tyner, and then some, at Musichead Gallery in a special Just Jazz performance. Couldn’t miss Eric Lindell and Anson Funderburgh stopping by The Mint.

 

 

 

 

 

And then Neil, despite my mop-ish state, this was one of my favorite shows of the year. Dropping in subterranean cuts alongside etched in classics, the two shows I caught were deeply personal, from raw tenderness and goth blues behind an upright or pump organ, to righteous six-string fury and healing acoustic hugs. All the while puttering about a stage filled with literal and figurative totems, this brief tour was living room Neil.

 

 

 

And then…my world changed. Yes, angioplasty and stent placement are rather routine (I was the fifth procedure my Cedars-Sinai cardiac team had performed that day, and not the last). Except when they are happening to you. My recovery was a new frontier. As were the emotions that followed. But all lanes were bright green lights. The blockage eliminated. Newport Folk and Newport Jazz were a few weeks away, but it became obvious I would miss them. So, I did slow my roll, recalibrated my priorities, and got reacquainted with my favorite couch.

I dipped my toe back in with “Jazz Unleashed”, a Just Jazz sponsored event at the Music Center featuring an all-star collective of players brought together by pianist Luca Mendoza including a guest appearance by vocalist Gretchen Parlato, and headlined by Chief Adjuah (formerly Christian Scott), the stretch music N.O./L.A. composer and trumpeter who’s excited my lens since the first time I laid ears on him in 2011. Low impact shooting against a dramatic DTLA backdrop. That toe was wet.

 

 

As September approached, I still didn’t know what I could take on. What I should take on. The 66^th Monterey Jazz Festival, that granddaddy of West Coast jazz held every year at the Monterey County Fairgrounds since 1958, was a motivator. I’ve worked closely with jazz personality, radio host and musical curator LeRoy Downs, aka “the Jazzcat” for some years, and he’s been holding down one of the (now) five stages at Monterey Jazz for 20 years. Temperate days, cool nights, short distances, intimate stages (and a large arena stage) and the deepest jazz lineup west of Newport, Rhode Island seemed do-able. It had to (I told myself). Shooting for Just Jazz Magazine and Just Jazz TV, supporting LeRoy and Just Jazz co-founder, Fred Smith throughout. Hanging with the Monterey Jazz team and the musicians, family and friends who make it happen. Empowering. Reassuring. Healing.

This guitar nerd picked the right MJF to cover for the first time, with John Scofield as featured artist. Sco x3, (Scary Goldings on Friday, a sextet anchored by keyboardist Larry Goldings and also featuring bassist Tal Wilkenfeld, Yankee Go Home, Sco’s take on Americana and roots covers with a quartet including bassist Vicente Archer, keyboardist Jon Cowherd and drummer Josh Dion, and a solo set on Sunday) doesn’t get much better for me, but it was his breathtaking solo turn to close MJF 66 that is indelible. Friday featured Arena Stage sets by Terence Blanchard and Herbie Hancock, the Terence set a career retrospective I found immensely satisfying with guest turns from Dianne Reeves, Christian McBride and Lakecia Benjamin. Herbie Hancock took the stage hand-in-hand with his grandson, Dru, on one side and Wayne Shorter’s grandson, Max, on the other. There is no photo pit in the Arena, so photographers find a spot along either side wall below the bleachers for a full stage view and I quickly sorted how to navigate to the best shots. Earlier in the day I caught a little of guitarist Lionel Loueke and vocalist Gretchen Parlato in a lilting duet. Overall, my pace was relaxed and easy which carried through the weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday we arrived around 2 for a day that included the robust blues of Chris Cain, a guitarist I’ve known of since the 80’s, but hadn’t yet seen live, Christian McBride’s latest New Jawn (on both the big and small stage), the rising Phoenix of Lakecia Benjamin, saxophonist (and former Bowie sideman) Denny McCaslin, pianist Connie Han’s trio and the incomparable Dianne Reeves. And, of course, the aforementioned Yankee Go Home, of which I only managed the last 10 minutes. The jammy popular Snarky Puppy had the last word Saturday on the Arena Stage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Sunday I was right at home and late afternoon sets by pianist Billy Childs and vocalist Catherine Russell were memorable. Catherine Russell’s skull and roses mug prompting some unexpected “first show?” chatting between us (we are everywhere, after all). I only caught the last song of 2023 Best New Artist Grammy winner Samara Joy at the Arena, but she had 7,000 people on their feet and with her every note. Her joy was their joy. Jamie Cullum may stand on that piano, but the dude can also play. Charles Lloyd at 85, or any age, exudes another plane through his playing in an all too brief set (he was slotted for 40 minutes) with pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Kendrick Scott filling out his quartet. Stephen Bruner, the cross-genre bassist that goes by Thundercat, closed the Arena. His Zappa influenced (to my ear) soul fusion was not to everyone’s taste, but his mastery of that Ibanez 6-string hollow body beast is something to behold. But it was Sco’s solo set in the tiny indoor Pacific Café Stage that will linger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bluegrass Situation approached me to cover the first annual Los Angeles Folk Festival at the Ford, a few days before the event. The two-day festival was curated by Americana locals the Milk Carton Kids and hosted by John C. Reilly (in full carney mode). Another low impact event that was an easy yes. I couldn’t make Saturday, but the guitars and voices of Willie Watson, Haley Heynderickx, those irrepressible Kids and Waxahatchee made for a mighty fine October Sunday.

 

 

 

If you know me, you know I never miss a JRAD show in my ‘hood (and elsewhere). Their Fall tour landing at the Greek. From the cranked up “Golden Road” opener, to a stunning second set with a centerpiece “China Cat” into a rousing “St. Stephen” that Marco Benevento stripped to its barest lady finger essence, then deconstructed into a hot mess, and rebuilt to an all hands crescendo, was a show in itself. Damn, if I can’t get enough of Joey Russo and the gang.

 

 

 

 

 

Texas slinger Carolyn Wonderland’s gig at The Mint was circled from the get go, and when Dave Alvin (who produced her last record) hinted he’d be sitting in, my return to The Mint since the “before times” was a homecoming. The Mint and I have been good for each other through many years, and owner Todd “TC” Christensen deserves a shout out for keeping on keepin’ on through COVID and whatever else gets thrown his way. Bonus points for a Joe Bonamassa sit in with Eric Krasno in December. Last I checked, Bonamassa headlined the Hollywood Bowl in August.

 

 

 

 

Molly Tuttle ain’t no crooked tree, she is a luminous bluegrass guitarist and vocalist with a band of equally talented misfit stringers that made for one of my favorite club nights of the year, at The Troubadour, to wrap my 2023.  Drawing heavily from her last two records “Crooked Tree” and “City of Gold”, Molly and Golden Highway had all of us saddled up and smitten, encoring with an all hands “Beverly Hillbillies Theme” and The Byrds “Down in the Easy Chair”.

 

 

 

 

A look back at the year would be remiss without mentioning two really sad passings. Saxophonist James Casey beloved in jam circles for his work with the Trey Anastasio Band and others, gone to cancer at the far too young age of 40, and New Orleans drummer, Russell Batiste, who died unexpectedly in his sleep at 57 from a heart attack. Rest in power and grooves, fellas.

 

 

 

I have no idea what 2024 holds musically and otherwise. But I will continue to shoot every show, festival or assignment like it’s my last. So, I’ll spare the world gone sideways commentary and just continue to revel in the music that tickles my ear, stirs my soul, moves my feet and makes me feel…alive.

And if you can hear anything I see through the lens, then it’s been a very good year, indeed.