Holly Bowling Re-Imagines The Grateful Dead and Phish on Piano at Higher Ground (SHOW REVIEW)

Holly Bowling was utterly captivating in her first headlining appearance at Higher Ground’s Showcase Lounge on March 19th. During the course of roughly two and a half hours divided between two sets, she not only reaffirmed her concept of ‘re-imagining’ the music of Phish and the Grateful Dead, she placed the grand idea in a wholly different light by interweaving the songs of these two iconic bands.

In doing so, she reaffirmed a thorough knowledge of this music, crucially including an innate sense of its structure and function. As a result, and with increasing subtlety during the second ninety minutes of the concert, she matched tunes in such a complementary way, as “Cryptical Envelopment” and “Steep,” to name just two, began to sound like alternate versions of each other.

Bowling hit her stride about twenty minutes into her first hour behind the portable Yamaha piano, situated center stage beneath projections that, during the course of the concert, showed her hands on the ivories (and multiple variations thereof), liquid light projections and mandala-like designs, all of which faded away at certain junctures when they otherwise might’ve been a distraction. This move, and the production in general, illustrated her intrinsic understanding of public performance in contrast to studio work like Distillation of a Dream and Better Left Unsung.

Perhaps because the latter album is the main subject of support on this winter tour of Bowling’s, material of the Grateful Dead was the focal point of this March 19th presentation, with selections from the Phish discography utilized the way a frame works around a painting, for specific purposes of highlight. So, after something of a warm-up with “Unbroken Chain” and “Talk,” Bob Weir’s “Sage and Spirit,” performed a function similar in this first set to that which it did on Blues For Allah, that is, a gateway into deeper improvisation, the likes of which became palpably suspenseful after the short break.

With her use of “The Other One” and “Wharf Rat,”  Bowling found pathways for jamming in and out of a pair of those iconic culls from the San Francisco band’s repertoire. The cinematic likes of the latter Garcia/Hunter song was the fulcrum of the first hour or so, where she knit it together with “Althea” and “Seven Below;” a sequence which typified her exploration of her song choices throughout the evening. Such configuration appeared in slightly different form later on with “A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing,” “Estimated Prophet” and “Roggae.”

As a classically-trained musician, Holly Bowling is empowered rather than restricted by her technical knowledge and, as evidenced by her shifting body language, she relishes digging deeply into both the melodic and rhythmic nuances of the songs. Perhaps the most striking aspect of this performance lies in the fact there was no sense of other instruments missing from the mix: stretching her long fingers and often crossing long arms allowed the woman to span the ivories. As indicated by the range of merch available for sale, the woman’s obviously making the most of her career opportunities, but her musicianship definitely supersedes the commercial propositions aspect of her work. Hence, her personal choice for an encore (after soliciting suggestions) in the form of “If I Could.”

Bowling’s act of stamina at the keyboard often brought to mind the acrobatics of a high-wire artist. While she rarely wanders too far away from the structure of a song, preferring to embellish and embroider its various motifs, there are those moments when, like a trapeze artist, she lets go from one swing for a split second before grabbing on to another  headed in another direction: often as not, it was possible to imagine her twirling and tumbling in mid-air. Particularly during the long interrupted segment late in the concert, it was as much a mystery as a pleasure to wonder, then marvel, at what would come next in the sequence of song(s).

In a way, it was a shame only a hundred or so were able to witness the beauty of such a superior performance like this one in the Showcase Lounge. Yet the intimacy only brought greater focus to Holly Bowling’s intense concentration, which in itself might account for the rarity of overt response from an audience equally absorbed in their own rapt attention (apart from the bobbing heads and bodies weaving to and fro in their seats). But the enthusiasm of the attendees belied their number and rightly so; even though there were mere flashes of transcendence this evening at the threshold of spring, when they did occur, they lit up the room as brightly as the broad smiles that invariably appeared on Holly Bowling’s face at those moments.

 

SETLIST

Set 1

Unbroken Chain

Talk

Sage and Spirit

Althea >

7 Below >

Wharf Rat >

Taste

 

Set 2

A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing >

Cryptical Envelopment >

The Other One >

Estimated Prophet >

Roggae *

Steep > **

The Other One >

Roggae ***

 

E: If I Could

 

*w/ The Other One tease

** w/ Roggae mashup

***w/ ASIHTOS & The Other One mashup

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