B.B. King Tames Crowd At Saratoga Arts Center
by Bill Rice, The Times Record, June 28, 1973
B.B. King, a blues singer and guitarist out of Mississippi who is riding as high on a crest of popularity right now as any blues singer probably ever has, became a crowd tamer at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in what was not very correctly termed an “Evening of the Blues” Wednesday evening.
Of the three groups presented, King’s was the only one that had the kind of roots real blues must spring from.
Bobbing and bouncing around the stage like a big Teddy bear, and singing in a voice that is part Louis Armstrong and part Joe Williams, King held firmly in hand an audience that had first been rocked into a frenzy by an English group called The Climax Blues Band, and then bored to varying degrees by a jazz rock group called the Weather Report.
It was recognized by Arts Center regulars, including this reporter, that this was a crowd, though small, that easily could become hard to handle, given enough encouragement in the final act. There was enough wine, beer and pot in the audience to keep things at a constant high throughout the dullest of concerts, which this was not. The official attendance figure posted in the press room was 3,528.
The size of King’s band may have been a surprise to those who think all blues artists sit all alone on a chair while they strum and sing.
King fronted a hard-driving nine-piece jazz band called the Unusuals, led by drummer Sonny Freeman.
King didn’t have to win over anyone in this audience. They gave him standing ovations at the beginning and end of his concert, and cheered every time he flatted a fifth or finished a phrase.
The opening group, The Climax Blues Band, was a big hit with the audience, even though its music bears only the slightest resemblance to traditional blues. The group is from England, and hard rock is really its thing.
The Weather Report played songs that were much too long and featured soloists who were imaginative, but often out of reach of their audience.
Besides a regular drummer, the group features a percussion specialist (Dom Um Romao) who works with what looks to be the entire catalogue of accessories from Ludwig (drum company) in front of him, plus some things he must have invented himself.
Um Romao looked like an overly ambitious Swiss bell ringer as he performed a continuous shake-along with the rest of the group.
Other members of the group included Josef Zawinul, on keyboard, formerly with Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, and Maynard Ferguson; Wayne Shorter on reeds, another Miles Davis veteran who has also been with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers; Miroslav Vitous on bass, most recently with Herbie Mann, and a very steady drummer named Eric Gravatt.
There has been a lot of talk about the shredding of programs during the AlIman Brothers Concert last Friday, a practice which makes the grounds at Saratoga very difficult to clean up.
While there is no excuse for the concert-goers to do this (and no reason either), neither is there any purpose in having the programs there in the first place. There is nothing in them about the rock shows, and the kids apparently could care less about the ballet and orchestra season at SPAC.
I can understand it happening once, or even twice, but the B. B. King concert was the third time this season.
Firecrackers are another arts center problem, and they always start popping in concerts on a regular basis around the Fourth of July.
Recent Comments