LIVE: The Joe Locke Trio @ the Athens Cultural Center, 12/3/11

NOTE: We are proud to partner with Planet Arts and students from the Germantown Central School District on the Open MIC (Music Industry Connections) Project, in which select students had the hands-on opportunity to document a live performance by the Joe Locke Trio as part of Planet Arts’ Jazz one2one concert series and have their work published at Nippertown.com. Here’s the first of the two parts of the students’ work:

Review by Elizabeth Choinsky
Photographs by Jahn Jaeger

The Athens Cultural Center was packed with quite a few fans standing around the art-filled room, rocking rhythmically to the fantastic beats filling the air. To the uninitiated ear, the music generated by the members of the Joe Locke Trio — vibraphonist Joe Locke, percussionist Jaimeo Brown and bassist Jay Anderson — didn’t sound like jazz at all. However, the rise and fall in volume and Locke’s seemingly random scatting energized the crowd, as well as the performers. Jazz fans could recognize a few more traditional jazz tunes — Ellington’s “Caravan” and Miles Davis’ “Solar” — mixed in with the more abstract sound.

A brief Q&A with the audience revealed that these three had never actually played together. Without any kind of rehearsal, these three musicians got on stage in front of a crowd of expectant fans and produced something never before heard. This awe-inspiring performance was spun out of a great deal of improvisation.

The entire show went on for what seemed like hours, musicians and performers alike just flowing through time with nothing but the music to lead them.

See more of Jahn’s photos from this evening here.

SECOND OPINIONS:
Camille Parlman’s review and Harry Forman’s photographs at Nippertown
J Hunter’s review at Nippertown
Jeff Nania’s review at Metroland
Rudy Lu’s photographs at Albany Jazz