Another Peter Mazza sighting

Dan Adler

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Feb 2, 2010, 7:06:46 AM2/2/10

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I got my lazy behind down to La Lanterna in the village this last
(freezing) Sunday night to see Peter Mazza again - what a treat!

He had Thomson Kneeland on bass and Jaleel Shaw on Alto. Both
humongous players whose music I didn't know well enough. No drums,
just a trio playing Mazza's originals and his never-obvious
arrangements of standards. If you can imagine a reharm of "Giant
Steps", where they start slow, double-time it, and THEN, Peter takes
it as a chord solo on his own. Stunning work. Then there was all the
rhythmic stuff, "Naima" in 5, "Moments Notice" in 7 with a reharm'd
interlude. On that last piece they had a surprise sit-in from Wayne
Escoffery (who plays with Tom Harrell and has recorded with Avi
Rothbard). Out of respect, Peter asked him if he'd rather call a tune
or play the chart as is (at a moment's notice, as it were), Wayne
sheepishly said he'll try it as is, and then he glanced at it for a
moment and proceeded to tear through it like the giant that he is.

Thomson Kneeland (http://www.thomsonkneeland.com/) is a super solid
bass player, and amazed everyone with his solos (especially his
comfort with holding down the odd tempos - at some point he was
superimposing a walking 4/4 on 7/4 by accenting), and Jaleel Shaw
(whose name I had obviously heard before) - was out of this world. At
times he sounded like Bird with super clean bebop chops, other times
like Paul Desmond, and then suddenly he was all over the place with
the modern linear style - finding all kinds of secondary rhythmic
meters in the groove and really exciting the audience. Both Jaleel and
Thomson were sight-reading Peter's music and arrangements, and this is
some TOUGH music, with key signature changes and multiple sections and
intros and extended outros. It's scary to see the level of reading
these guys bring to the gig. I see in the archive that PMB posted two
albums that Jaleel has on emusic (with Lage Lund) - check them out!

Peter Mazza is really one of the most surprising and enjoyable guitar
players to listen to. He can take a 10 minute solo section, and you
might not recognize a single chord, or he might lay down a super
rhythmic groove on his RC-20 with an acoustic guitar (often in non-
standard tuning) and then solo over it with his archtop - he is just
full of little twists. When he gets burning, his style might remind
you of Kreisberg or early Metheny, but he's pretty much his own voice,
and you can just marvel at his level of harmonic and linear mastery
and artistry. A really enjoyable evening. Peter is at La Lanterna
every Sunday night from 8pm.

Enjoy,
-Dan
http://danadler.com

Paul Mitchell Brown

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Feb 3, 2010, 1:04:22 AM2/3/10

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Maybe we can catch Peter when I'm next over, Dan. Jaleel Shaw has
monster chops (or should that be 'sure has monster chops') and I
really like his writing as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xuKtzZ6FVI