Marc Millman

Eric Lindell @ Sullivan Hall, February 11

If you were around Manhattan in the late ’80s and early ’90s seeing music night in and night out, you lived through a special time. Bars and clubs all over town were pumping out soulful sounds, bluesy stomps and rockin’ romps. Delta 88 over behind FIT, Manny’s Car Wash on the Upper East, Dan Lynch’s on the corner of 14th & 2nd, the Mondos in the West Village and of course Tramps on 21st or the Lonestar on 5th Avenue. On any given night, at any of these venues, one could walk through the door to hear Dr. John or Joey Miserable & the Worms, The Meters or Joan Osborne, Stevie Ray Vaughan or Blues Traveler, Chris Whitley or the Spin Doctors. And in almost every band there was a guitar slinger burning up the stage.

[All photos by Marc Millman]

If you missed those seedier days in the City, but you’ve been down to N’awlins, then you can appreciate this type of atmosphere. And Eric Lindell from NOLA by way of San Mateo, CA is the right man at the right time to help invoke that atmosphere. Lindell has been making albums since 1996. But he really hit his stride after signing to Alligator Records in 2006, where he recorded three albums. The first album, Change In The Weather (2006) was a compilation of his early albums and EPs. He followed that with Low On Cash, Rich In Love (2008) and Gulf Coast Highway (2009). He played a sampling from those albums as well as last year’s Between Motion and Rest and Cazadero (set to be released on March 22nd).

Lindell’s band has a great mix of a young rhythm section and some older “veterans.” Watching Will McMains (drums) & Myles Weeks (stand-up bass) play off of each other is a lot of fun. McMains looks like he could just be graduating from high school. And yet he plays with a subtle swinging touch that most of today’s rock drummers seem to lack as they pound on their kits. And Weeks really works that upright bass, forcing even Lindell to watch him and just smile as they jam. These two were augmented by another band regular, Derek Huston (ex-Iguanas) on saxophone along with Chris Fitzgerald (saxophone) and Arne Wendt (keys).

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One Month to Mardi Gras @ Le Poisson Rouge feat. Eric Krasno and Chapter 2 & Big Sam’s Funky Nation, February 5

When people think of Mardi Gras, they think of N’awlins. And when people think about the music associated with the Crescent City, jazz and funk come to mind. Saturday night, on the site of the old Village Gate where jazz and soul greats from The Duke and Coltrane to Nina and the Queen of Soul once performed, two bands of slightly different minds came together to tear the roof off the sucker.

[All photos by Marc Millman]

Around 10PM, Eric Krasno (guitar & vocals) and Nigel Hall (keys & vocals) took the stage with Chris Loftlin (bass) & Nikki Glaspie (drums, backing vocals) for 90 minutes of tight jazz, funk and soul…or what in the ’70s came to known as fusion. After opening with ’76 and Be Alright, Krasno led Chapter 2 into an instrumental cover of Get Back keeping in line with what he and Hall recently did with one of their other bands on Rubber Soulive.

From there, the band worked their way through a ten song set that featured four tunes from Krasno’s latest offering, Reminisce. Highlights of the set included a killer version of Band of Gypsys’ Power of Soul that clocked in at just over 10 minutes (during which keyboardist James Hurt sat in for a solo near the end where he left it all on the stage. He also returned during their last song before the encore) and an incredible version of Stevie Wonder’s beautiful composition Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers made famous by Jeff Beck on his album Blow By Blow – the album that defined the Fusion era. It was here that Krasno showed just how good he is. You don’t attempt to cover the greatest living guitar god unless you have some serious chops of your own.

• Marc’s One Month to Mardi Gras Videos: Get Back, Power to Soul Pt. 1, Power to Soul Pt. 2, Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers, Everybody Wants to Rule The World, Big Sam Jam #3 Pt. 1, Big Sam Jam #3 Pt. 2, Big Sam Jam #3 Pt. 3, Give Up The Funk, Crazy & Fuck You, When The Saints Come Marching In
• Previously From Marc Millman: Ozomatli, Early Elton, Soul II Soul,

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