Pandemic's Crushing Effect on Live Music

 

The past year has been devastating. As of 8PM on March 15, 2021, there were 533,057 deaths from Covid-19 in the United States.  Healthcare providers are exhausted and traumatized by all the death.  Millions of people (myself included) are still sticking close to their homes and are quite isolated from other human beings. School children and teachers are struggling to figure out how to keep education going during the pandemic. The economy has bifurcated into a group of home-working professionals (they're doing fine, thanks) and everyone else (folks laid off due to the illness, forced to work at low-wage jobs with exposure due to the essential nature of their roles, etc.). Food banks are seeing record numbers of clients.

In the middle of all this is the live music industry. It has been crushed. I know this isn't the biggest problem when we ponder all the effects of the pandemic, but it is still significant.  Concerts and local music venues build connection and community. I am a huge music fan (and amateur musician) and I feel a little lost without live music.  My musician friends are struggling. Their livelihood depended on performing.  Yes, they have shifted to livestreaming and other methods to connect with their audiences, but it is a very poor substitute. The local venues in Chicago are getting killed, as this video points out.

I am so very pleased that the Biden Administration recognized this crisis and included $15 billion of relief funding for independent music venues and other cultural organizations (museums, etc.)  in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Act of 2021.  This might be enough oxygen to get these important institutions to the other side of the Covid-19 pandemic. We are starved for the love and shared experiences these places and their passionate backers provide for us.  

I went to my last live concert at SPACE in Evanston IL on February 23, 2020 - I saw Howard Levy, the insanely great harmonica player & pianist. I can't wait to be in front of the stage with my music peeps again.

John Pizzarelli Quartet at SPACE in Evanston - October 6, 2013

My daughter, Lizz, and I caught John Pizzarelli at our local venue earlier this month.  Lizz is my one offspring who is into "old school" jazz.  My eldest kid, Ben, is more of a world music guy, and my two younger daughters are Nicki Minaj fans.  With Lizz, I feel that I have one success in implanting my musical tastes into my child.  Nothing is better than sharing a passionate interest with your kid. 

While this gig happened two weeks ago, I find myself reflecting on the evening frequently.  It was the first time I have heard a small jazz group perform at SPACE.  The venue is perfect for jazz - the acoustics are designed for music with dynamic variation and subtlety.  When a loud group plays the room, things get kinda ugly and painful.  At SPACE, the volume knob needs to stay below "5."

So the music presented well, and John Pizzarelli is a stone cold killa on the seven string electric guitar.  He plays an instrument with a low "A" string which allows him to play very cool bass lines when he plays solo guitar.  His use of the low A reminded me of a stride pianist's left hand.  In addition to being a true virtuoso, Pizzarelli is also clever and charming - New York hip in a pleasant, amusing, winking style.  The man can talk and digress far afield, but it works very well.  He is a Cafe' Carlyle player - full of banter and able to make every member of the audience feel like part of his life.

John is also a great singer. He has a casual, breathy tenor sound.   He sounds like a cheerful, energetic Chet Baker.  He can sing along with his guitar solos a la George Benson, but his solos are a helluva lot faster and harmonically complicated than the typical Benson offering.  Here is a video of John doing his solo thing.  Wickedly good and fun, too.

The highlights of the set for me were a mash-up of Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life" and Tom Waits' "Drunk on the Moon" and a minor key, quasi-kletzmer version of "Don't Get Around Much Anymore." Pizzarelli is extremely creative.  He is a musical omnivore, covering a broad range of tunes - from Nat King Cole to Dickey Betts.

The trio that backed John was an extension of his musical consciousness.  The bass player is his brother, Martin.  Larry Fuller is Pizzarelli's long-time pianist and is the sideman every jazz player and singer would love to have on the bandstand.  The drummer is the newest member of the group, and the youngest.  He had the taste and chops to hang with these veteran players.  Unfortunately, I did not get his name...maybe Lizz remembers.

The John Pizzarelli backstory is very cool.  He is the son of guitar great Bucky Pizzarelli, a legendary player still performing at a high level at the age of 87.  John is married to singer Jessica Molaskey - they often perform together, and they have a radio show (Radio Deluxe - 2 hours of great jazz and sparkling repartee').  Pizzarelli has worked hard to become a fabulous artist, but he certainly had exposure, guidance and support from his family.  John's wife retained her maiden name - Molaskey - and her comment about that decision is priceless - "I thought of changing it to Pizzarelli, but I thought that was a lateral move."

So the question lingering in my mind - is "Pizzarelli" Italian for "little pizza?"

Hang in There, Curtis!!!

I was pretty excited when I saw a poster at the used record store in Evanston - Curtis Salgado was coming to my suburb, playing at SPACE ("Society for the Preservation of Art and Culture in Evanston"), on August 11, a big Saturday night.  If you are a harmonica player who sings (like me), Curtis is who you want to be when you grow up.  I have been following Mr. Salgado for quite a while; he even has been a victim of this blog back in 2006.

A few weeks ago, I got on the SPACE web site to buy tickets and saw that the show was CANCELLED!!  "Uh oh," I thought.

Curtis is one of the under-appreciated super-talents of my generation.  He is my age (58), he is a fantastic white-boy soul singer and he is an amazing harmonica player.  Curtis has one main claim to fame - he was John Belushi's inspiration for the Blues Brothers schtick.  Curtis was playing the clubs around Eugene Oregon when Belushi and the National Lampoon gang were filming Animal House on the University of Oregon campus.  Curtis' style and talent fascinated big John, and he swiped much of Curtis' persona when he constructed the Blue Brothers - in fact, he split Curtis into two performers - the singer (Jake) and the harmonica player (Elwood).  Salgado was on the fringes of breaking through - he teamed up with Robert Cray for a while, he was the front man for Roomful of Blues,  he opened for Steve Miller in the early 1990's, he played on the Conan O'Brien show in 1997, he sang lead for Santana for a year.  Curtis toured heavily most of his career.  He also partied hard - alcohol, cocaine and a mix of other substances.  He had a "moment of clarity" during a coke binge, checked himself into the hospital in October 1988 and quit.  He stayed clean.

But the life he led left its mark  Or maybe it is genetics - Curtis' mom died of cancer when he was 23 years old.

In 2006, Curtis was diagnosed with liver cancer and was given eight months to live.  He had no health insurance.  He waited six months - the sands were running out of the hour glass.  Finally, he got a call to hot-foot it out to Omaha to receive a liver transplant.  The bills were massive - a series of benefits, donations from fans and fellow musicians and on-line contributions covered the bulk of the costs.  Curtis came back and hit the road, but he was taken down again in 2008 - a tumor metastatisized on his right lung.  That mass was removed, and he recovered again.  I saw him at the Chicago Blues Fest in 2010 and he killed it, man. Curtis Salgado live is an amazing experience.  No recording can capture his passion.  Here is a YouTube video that comes close.

So when Curtis cancelled his show in Evanston, I  knew he had cancelled his entire summer tour.  That can only mean that the cancer is back.  On July 18,  he went under the knife to have another mass removed, this time from his left lung. He lost a big chunk of his lung. Recovery is supposed to take about 4 weeks, and the doctors expect him to be back again.  I sure hope they are right.  I hope Curtis will retain his voice and his harp-playing skills with less lung in his body.  If you feel moved to contribute to his medical expenses, you can do so via his web site (click here).

Hang in there, Curtis. Please.