Curtis Taylor Quartet at Cliff Bells – 12/27/2015

 

Curtis Taylor Quartet l to r: Nate Winn(drums), Curtis Taylor(tpt), Marion Heyden (bass) and Kamau Kenyatta (piano) photo by Mark Brown

I went to Cliff Bells that night with certain expectations. I had never heard Curtis Taylor. The other three musicians are well known in Detroit although Kamau Kenyatta does not live in Detroit.

My favorite of the evening was Freddie Freeloader, an old standard. Curtis Taylor played a wonderfully melodic version of this and all songs during the evening. Nate Winn is an articulate was, as usual, able to raise the performance level.  I had expected to get “smooth” jazz from Kamau Kenyatta and instead got a fierce and passionate performance.

It was a good musical evening.

Noah Jackson Quartet at Cliff Bells – 12/26/2015

Cliff Bells 12/26/2015

The place was decked out for the holidays and for the first set it was standing room only.

 

Jazz Police in attendence…l to r Judy, Marsha, Mie and Pam

Noah Jackson is one of those many musicians who was raised in Detroit and now resides in New York. During the holiday season, many a of the Detroit born musicians return to Detroit for part of the holidays and play at he clubs in town while they were here.

The quartet was called Full Circle and three excellent local musicians filled it to make it a quartet.

 

Noah Jackson

And on keys:

 

Ian Finkelstein

On sax:

 

De’Sean Jones

And last and one of the best:

 

Nate Winn

The music was fierce and passionate. With the professionalism of the musicians, they pushed each other to excel rather than stepping all over each other.

During the second set, we got to sit down so it was much easier for me to just sit back and enjoy the music. For me, my favorite number of the evening was Nica’s Dream composed by Horace Silver. When a group plays a  standard, you get to hear how they treat the music. I found their version more dynamic than what I usually hear. It is so much fun to hear a song played a new way.