Don Grolnick, Michael Brecker, Bill Frisell, Jeff Watts, Marc Johnson - 7th Ave South, NYC 12/20/85

This is the kind of show you could expect to see at Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village in the first half of the 1980s: local jazz giants teaming up in an ad hoc configuration for a couple of shows. Not a touring or recording band, just friends getting together and having fun. Every week I would scan the ads in the Village Voice to see who was playing (the ad for this gig is in the graphic above - misspelling Jeff Watts' last name). After 7th Ave. So. closed down in 1986, Fat Tuesday's became the next best thing for current jazz/jazz-rock shows. Don Grolnick is one of those under-the-radar musicians everyone has probably heard (he played on many albums by, among others, Steely Dan, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Carly Simon, as well as with many jazz artists), but is largely unknown outside of the jazz world. He unfortunately passed away at a relatively young age in 1996. To me this was a dream band, as I was heavily into Frisell and Jeff Watts, and Brecker of course was legendary. This was the only time I saw Frisell play with Brecker. They played an interesting mix of tunes, including two by Wayne Shorter and a George Russell tune. In Grolnick's tune Human Bites, there is an almost 3-minute long stretch beginning at 38:30 where Brecker and Watts do this ferocious Trane-Elvin-like duo. It's probably the closest I ever came to getting a sense of what it must have felt like to see Coltrane live. Following on the heels of that duet is a Frisell solo beginning around 42:00 that sounds like heavy metal thunder.

Don Grolnick - piano
Michael Brecker - tenor saxophone and EWI
Bill Frisell - guitar
Marc Johnson - bass
Jeff Watts - drums

00:00 How Blue Is It? (later re-titled Nothing Personal) (D Grolnick)
13:35 Rambler (B Frisell)
25:10 Same Girl (R Newman)
27:54 Infant Eyes (W Shorter)
36:47 Human Bites (D Grolnick)
45:23 Stratusphunk (G Russell)
1:02:03 Regret (D Grolnick)
1:14:27 Fall (incomplete)(W Shorter)

Recorded on a Sony Walkman Pro D6C with Sony ECM-102 stereo microphone. Uploaded here solely for educational purposes and historical interest. Enjoy.