Wilco, in my opinion, is one of the best live bands out there right now. And the Greek Theatre is legendary, known as one of the best outdoor concert venues around. It certainly is a beautiful and intimate theatre, although i have to say that the concrete benches are rather uncomfortable to sit on without some sort of padding. I can't complain, though, that it is a mere 10 minute walk from our house. Since Stella was unable to attend, I went with my friend Myra Melford, the wonderful jazz pianist who moved from NYC to Berkeley a few years ago to teach at UC Berkeley. She's generally not one for rock concerts (she said this is probably the first rock show she's been to in about 30 years), but she had an interest in Wilco and has performed with Nels Cline, the newest guitarist in Wilco. The concert was pretty great. This was, i think, my seventh time seeing them, and they get better each time. I love the way they vary the arrangements of the pieces from the studio recordings, and particularly when they deconstruct a piece in the middle, swirl it into chaos, then bring it right back on queue.The following day Stella, Jeffrey & I went to check out a couple of the free outdoor performances that were part of the annual Downtown Berkeley Jazz Festival. The festival was almost exclusively area musicians, so I didn't know a lot about the various performers. But Saturday at noon was the band Disappear Incompletely doing jazz arrangements of songs by Radiohead, who I think are pretty great. They did a pretty interesting set, although I felt they may have been keeping things a little tame to appeal to a more general audience. The start of their set had some really interesting and adventurous arrangements of tunes like "Optimistic", "Kid A" and "Climbing Up the Walls", but the second half seemed to consist of more conventional arrangements featuring the bass player as a vocalist.
From there we wandered over to the Farmer's Market where mandolin great Mike Marshall, who lives in nearby Oakland, was playing with a Brazilian pianist. I've listened to Mike Marshall for over 20 years now, typically playing the style of "New Grass" that David Grisman pioneered. In fact, Marshall was in Grisman's quintet for a number of years. This set of Brazilian jazz, also with a clarinetist/soprano saxophonist & percussionist, was quite good, but didn't exactly blow me away. But it was a wonderful way to enjoy the California sunshine while enjoying some tasty crepes (both savory and sweet) from the Farmer's Market.
And finally, that night was the only non-free performance of the festival I attended - the Myra Melford/Ben Goldberg Quartet. This was held in the performance space of the Jazz School, an interesting music school in Berkeley dedicated to the study of jazz. It was a nice space with a cafe vibe. They did two sets with about 60% of the compositions by Myra and the rest by Ben. It was my first time seeing Ben play, although I have several recordings he plays on. It turns out he lives in Berkeley not too far from me. The concert was truly amazing and I thought everyone played exceptionally well. I am very lucky that one of my all-time favorite musicians lives in town and I'll get a chance to hear her perform so often now. She has two more gigs in the area in September that I can look forward to.
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