It almost doesn't seem fair for a review to be written about a show played for a student audience.  Especially an audience that has absolutely no idea how to attend a jazz performance.  Either way, I'm going to take a stab at the concert.

It almost doesn't seem fair for a review to be written about a show played for a student audience.  Especially an audience that has absolutely no idea how to attend a jazz performance.  Either way, I'm going to take a stab at the concert.

            After knocking back two Cuba Libres and smuggling my third into Burruss Hall last Thursday night, I was sporting a smooth buzz as my friend and I waited for Cyrus Pace and the Non-Profits to take the stage.

            After a ten-minute wait, they took the stage.  The lineup featured a guitarist (Cyrus), a keyboardist, a tenor saxophonist, and a drummer.  “Holy shit,” I muttered a little too loudly, “where the fuck is their bass player?”  It was overproof rum, by the way.  It was my civic duty to ask my friend this question because I felt as if I were some kind of musical authority when it came to jazz.  Evidently, their keyboardist was their bassist.

            He played the left side of his keyboard as a walking bass and the right as an organ.  His solos were hearty and charismatic—everything you ask of an entertainer.  He jumped around on his stool as if it were uncomfortably warm, and the audience could feel his excitement.

            Cyrus and the band played a few tunes off their album which they described as New Orleans-influenced.  It caught me off-guard after Cyrus finished the first solo when our keyboardist stood up and indicated that the students ought to applaud.  “FML,” I wondered aloud.  After sitting through a couple of commonplace tunes, they decided to drop a bomb on us real jazz fans.

            “And now we're going to play a tune made famous by John Coltrane.  [I essentially shit myself.  I slapped my friend's knee and shouted, “Oh shit! Oh shit!”]  It's called 'Afro-Blue.'”  “Oh shit!” I wailed again.  Fucking rum—the people around me were snickering at me, and my friend said she could smell it.

            If you aren't familiar with the tune, it's designed to feature the pianist or keyboardist in the first solo, the tenor player next, and then just a bunch of smooth modal jazz to carry it through.  What I didn't expect was the drummer's batshit-awesome mimicry of jazz drummer great Elvin Jones' style.  His steady beating and seamless blending of his ride cymbal sort of gave me a jazz-induced stiffy.

             They played a couple more of their tunes and wrapped up the show.  The ushers collected the vouchers from the students to let the teacher know that the kiddies actually showed up. 

            Aside from the bangin' rendition of “Afro Blue,” the show was a standard representation of a present-day jazz ensemble.