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Part 2 of MY NEW YEAR'S PRESENT !!!!!

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1Part 2 of MY NEW YEAR'S PRESENT !!!!! Empty Part 2 of MY NEW YEAR'S PRESENT !!!!! Thu Jan 17, 2013 2:08 pm

Ted E. Bear

Ted E. Bear

this is the second time I'm writing this. When I previewed the first time, it all got erased .... Evil or Very Mad


Last night I witnessed the opening night of the Spectrum 40 tour at BB King's in NYC. As advertised it featured Boomer on drums, Jerry Goodman on violin, Gary Husband on keys, Dean Brown on guitar and Ric Fierabracci on bass . the place was packed !

It was a special night for me for 3 reasons: first, Boomer and Jerry playing together for me for the first time since the M.O. days. Although they played together with the HR Bigband in Germany a few years ago, I wasn't able to attend that, although I did hear it . And 10 years ago at the Spectrum 30th anniversary , also at BB King's , Jerry played with opening act Jazz is Dead but he did not play with Boomer.

Second, I had the honor to be joined at our table for the evening by Rick Laird whom I had invited to be my guest for the show. He graciously accepted and he is one of the nicest and friendliest persons you could ever meet .

Third, I was able to finally meet Jerry for the first time and have him add his signature to complete my autographed Birds of Fire album . He also kindly signed the first Flock album for me as well.

Though it was billed as Spectrum 40, the band played only 3 songs off that album: Stratus , Quadrant 4, and Red Baron , which of course are 3 of Boomer's signature tunes . The rest of the music was contributed by the other members of the band.

They opened with Mushu Creole Blues off The Traveler album which Gary Husband appeared on and everyone took a turn loosening up with a solo.

Stratus was the second tune . The next three tunes I did not know, though I did get the titles . The first was called Two Numbers and was written by Dean Brown. The next tune was written by Jerry Goodman and was entitled Brick Chicken and featured Jerry playing some neat pizzacato violin thruout. The Third pice was written by Ric Fierabracci and was called Sphere of Influence. It featured an extended bass solo by Ric on 5 string bass. This was the first time I've seen Ric play live and was very impressed with his playing !

Boomer then picked up four sticks and began an extended drum solo . He was playing a Yamaha kit. 10 pieces: 5 racked toms up top, 2 floors, double bass and snare. They were brown . Not sure if they were the Phoenix series or not. Boomer ? It was a spectacular solo which brought the crowd to its feet at the end !

They immediately launched into another Boomer composition off of the Traveler album entitled Fragolino which I haven't heard in a long time. The piece has a lot of tricky unison lines in it so everyone had their eyes on the sheet music for this one !

The next song was written by Dean Brown and dedicated to Jaco Pastorious . It was called The Battles Over { Jaco Pastorious }. I was a little familiar with this tune as Dean has played this song before with Billy.

Up next they launched into Quadrant 4 , walked off, and came back to encore with Red Baron.

If you count up the songs, it's not many. However the concert lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes so I guess you can tell that everyone had ample space to stretch out and solo .

It goes without saying that these are great players , so I will just say that the music was superb !

You'll notice that there were no tunes from Gary Husband. Billy explained that the tunes they had been working on by Gary were so uniquely special that they were not ready to be presented yet, so perhaps some of those may turn up later in the tour. I also found out later that poor Gary had the flu, but you wouldn't know it by the way he played !

Some of the other noted musicians in attendance besides Rick Laird were Wayne Cobham, drummer Rod Morganstein from the Dixie Dregs, drummer Joe Franco from the Good Rats and music writer and critic Bill Milkowski.

thank you Boomer ! Thank you Rick ! Thank you Jerry ! Thank you Gary ! Thank you Dean ! and Thank you Ric ! for a wonderful evening and getting 2013 off to a great start !

I hope all of you reading this come out and see the band on this tour. You'll be sorry you didn't !

Peace, TED


[img]Part 2 of MY NEW YEAR'S PRESENT !!!!! 100_1410[/img]


I was unable to put up more photos due to the host image thing not working. I will add more later.



[img]Part 2 of MY NEW YEAR'S PRESENT !!!!! 100_1411[/img]

[img]Part 2 of MY NEW YEAR'S PRESENT !!!!! 100_1412[/img]


[img]Part 2 of MY NEW YEAR'S PRESENT !!!!! 100_1413[/img]


[img]Part 2 of MY NEW YEAR'S PRESENT !!!!! Ted_ga10[/img]


[img]Part 2 of MY NEW YEAR'S PRESENT !!!!! Ted_je10[/img]


Managed to get some more up, but not the photo with Rick Laird .......... I dunno. guess this will have to do .

Peace again, TED




Last edited by Ted E. Bear on Sat Feb 02, 2013 5:54 pm; edited 4 times in total

http://www.drumminfool.com

D. Slam

D. Slam

Thanks, Ted!

tconrad



Wanted to briefly compare notes. .... .Saw the Spectrum 40 show 1/22 (Tuesday) at the Birchmere--the place was packed. .... .In agreement with Ted: Great show, fantastic playing. .... .They played about the same amount of time (1 hr & 45 min), played most of the same tunes--except they did play Gary Husband's "If The Animals Had Guns Too". .... .And Boomer's drum solo where he started playing with his bare hands and snapping his fingers--that was a new one for me. .... .So it was a great night. .... .My biggest gripe was with some of the other audience members--they talked too much and too loud.

---TConrad

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