MARC RIBOT with Jay Rodriguez, Nasheet Waits, Nick
Dunston
April 3, 2018, Bar LunAtico, Brooklyn NY
Published
in “The NYC Jazz Record”, May 2018
Performance
Review by John Pietaro
The
faux old world décor of Bar LunAtico encircled Marc Ribot judiciously. Under a corroded
tin ceiling, the club’s shadowy lighting fed into the noir imagery that No
Wavers and other creatures of the night have always eaten up. Clearly, such
affections aren’t limited by generational bounds: the 20-somethings in black berets
and leather weren’t born when Ribot pioneered new sounds downtown, but at
LunAtico the guitarist and his searing new quartet were greeted by a cheering capacity
house.
Saxophonist
Jay Rodriguez emoted as if on a mountain top while young bassist Nick Dunston
laid throbbing runs about him and drummer Nasheet Waits evoked a sudden storm
over tom-toms. The guitarist leaned into his microphone to unleash radical
lyrics on this socially conscious crowd, offering new visions of the material
from his Songs of Resistance project. Adaptations of the Carter Family’s “When
the World is on Fire” and the Civil Rights anthem “We are Soldiers in the Army”
were stand-outs, but no more than Pete Seeger’s “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”,
its refrain of “the big fool said to push on” now a marked affront to Trump. Lost
in the fog of free improvisation, Ribot played with a frenetic blueness,
up-picking spiky motifs of a uniquely urban sort.
By the
final piece, charging Latin rhythms and an explosive montuno section pumped the
audience to exhaustion. As the final downtown groove burst forward, Bar
LunAtico’s inhabitants were lost to another time and place, all the better for
the journey.
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