California Guitar Trio with Tony Levin
The Jazzhaus — Wednesday, April 19, 2000Outside the Jazzhaus Wednesday night, there was a hint of guitar music, a whiff of the kind of slickly orchestrated romp you hear when you tune in to the Weather Channel for the local forecast, or when you take a nighttime stroll down the streets of a hip town that plays soothing music through outdoor speakers. Hmm. Don’t see any speakers. Only silence all the way up the stairs. Finally, the pleasantly Muzak-y strains resume when the door opens to a room of rapt, seated tastemakers. Ahh. This is the California Guitar Trio.
The Trio, a nerdy, X-Files Lone Gunmen club of acoustic guitar wonks who all play custom-built Ervin Somogyi instruments (eschewing endorsement income that would probably better their album sales), is easier to swallow than your average jam band. That’s actually not its beat, but it’s hard to define what they do. Its recent live album backs Beethoven’s Ninth up against Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The Trio also writes convincing originals. The silky quietude of its sound suggests New Age music, but then that’s what they called Michael Hedges, who was an acoustic guitar hellion.
Bert Lams, Paul Richards, and Hideyo Moriya don’t come on like Hedges, barefoot and fret-crazy, but the presence of former King Crimson bass player and Peter Gabriel stalwart Tony Levin made them seem relatively cutting-edge. Levin, a virtuoso fretless player (and Chapman Stick hero), has been the Trio’s guest through a couple of tours (including the shows recorded for Rocks the West, the live album). They should consider offering him citizenship; his lines allowed the three guitarists to distinguish their parts from one another, but he refused to become the center of the compositions. His solo turn, performing a song from his unfortunately New-Age-titled new disc, Waters of Eden, started out charming (with a funny, self-effacing introduction to his brother, Electronic Pete, whose cameo came via a tape recording) and finished hypnotically.
The Trio’s performance was flawless — and flawlessly tasteful. At one point, Richards asked the reverent audience, “This is a jazz club, right?” and earned some affirmative applause. Well, the Trio doesn’t really play jazz either, but no one inspires clapping by asking if the house is into New Age — not around here, anyway. However, once the nagging thought that you might be listening to something used by masseuses to lull people into a readily blissful state escapes you, the highly skilled Trio can be fresh and involving. Wednesday night, anyway, they made their politely palatable sounds into a filling meal; that they did so largely by packing Levin should be considered a bonus, not a cheat.
