After a decade away from music, longtime fans of acid-jazz pioneers Digable Planets have high hopes for the reunion of Butterfly, Doodlebug and Ladybug.
Those hopes were tempered Friday when the three warmed up the Fillmore Auditorium for Sound Tribe Sector 9. Despite appearing with a live band and DJ – a recipe that proves addictive in the hands of a band like The Roots – the delivery of Digable Planets’ old-school material from “Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space)” and “Blowout Comb” was flat. The band’s arrangement failed to spotlight the smooth-jazz hooks that made Digable Planets’ hip-hop so special, and each of the three emcees seemed to operate in isolation on stage rather than in concert with each other and the band. Digable Planets have a long way to go if they hope to regain the commercial and artistic dominance they enjoyed in the mid-1990s.
– Elana Ashanti Jefferson
The Ike Reilly Assassination
To dub Ike Reilly and his quartet of roots-rockers “Dylanesque” sounds reductionist, but it’s a compliment of the highest order. Reilly’s husky pipes and cutting guitar work recall the best aspects of Bob Dylan without aping his work. Think of it as a razor-tipped update on a classic sound.
At Reilly’s Monday-night set at The Larimer Lounge, his band tore through tracks from 2005’s “Junkie Faithful,” including “God and Money,” “Heroin” and “I Will Let You Down,” buoying the crowd into boisterous applause and yelps.
The band’s overall professionalism showed when the bassist’s amp cut out, and the rest of the guys ignored him and plowed through the remainder of the song, the keyboardist’s jaunty blues-laden riffs cushioning the low end.
– John Wenzel
Edward Gardner with the CSO
Talk about wowing an audience. Conductor Gardner made an electrifying debut last weekend with the Colorado Symphony, leading two performances of a wonderfully adventurous program of early, little-heard works by Dmitri Shostakovich.
The 31-year-old Briton, who serves as music director of Glyndebourne on Tour and has already had major engagements with the Paris Opera and London Philharmonic, is clearly a talent to watch.
Conducting with abundant energy, incisiveness and self-assuredness, Gardner was thoroughly involved in every second of this concert. And matching his superb music-making were podium remarks in which he managed to be erudite yet witty and appealingly down-to-earth at the same time.
– Kyle MacMillan
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club
After Slim untangled Munly like a roped calf coiled in mic cords …
After Munly’s washboard voice told us “This is how we do things in the country” …
Then came the real hallelujah moment Saturday at the Aggie Theatre, when Slim slithered off the stage into the pit of Cessnuts, who embraced him with arms raised.
“It’s nice to be back,” said the singer-preacherman as he went to his knees and the writhing pit quieted, following him down to the sticky floor.
The pool of bowed heads extended in ripples across the dance floor and lips moved in sync with the opening lines of “Roger Williams:” “We have found Providence and we will sing ’til the floods come to wash us all away.” By the end of the song, “He’s a man of the cloth/he likes to rock ‘n’ roll … Just like Munly/Just like Slim,” sounded like “Amen.”
– Kristen Browning-Blas
