When I saw her at the Folly a couple of years ago, I got in the autograph line and proposed to her. She said no, she was married to her bass (and I realized that this particular question didn't come up all the time), and I said, 'Well, then, an autograph?'
But she was the headliner that evening. She played, she sang, she worked the room. If charisma were breasts, she would have been Morganna the Kissing Bandit.
The Us Five set was maybe not quite as accessible to someone exposed to jazz primarily through the band at Blue Room poetry slams. When I realized Joe was announcing the band because it was the end of the show, I was like, Not already! But it was 9:35, and the band had been on stage for around ninety minutes.
A fast ninety minutes, but a mix of straight ahead and free jazz that wouldn't probably be the gateway drug for someone who spent the years I spent in jazz band and music theory classes on the judo mat. She said she enjoyed it, but she also said, 'I thought you said she sang.'
She does when she's the headliner. This show actually showcased her virtuosity on the bass a bit better.
Anyway, a great show, and just so I'm not claiming to be too sophisticated about jazz, it was ten minutes in before I realized there were two drum sets on the stage. Not a drum kit and a Latin percussionist, two regular drum sets. I haven't seen that, I don't think, since Frank Zappa played the Uptown in 1984.
They're great musicians, though, they never step on each other's toes, trading off between color commentary and play-by-play duties.
And yeah, we rode there. In case you wondered. The Gem doesn't have much in the way of a bicycle rack, not even a Hersey Meter I could see, but we locked up to Flossie the Guard Cow.
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