Vonski
I finally made it out to see tenor saxophonist Von Freeman at the New Apartment Lounge on Tuesday (12/18/07). I had been hearing about this place, and for some reason had it in my head that the New Apartment was going to be a normal sized venue. Well, it turns out that the room with the stage is about the size of my living room, and half of that space is the bar. It was so small that only the drummer and bassist could fit on the stage, and Von, along with guitarist Mike Allemana, were in front of the stage.
My only impression of Von had come a single track off his album The Improviser. The song is Blue Bossa, a tune I learned a long time ago and haven’t really played since. Von’s version is simply brilliant - the band sits back and plays quietly with very little energy, building up ever so slowly, while Von brought all the fire.
Even though the New Apartment was a tiny place, I got there early enough to get the closest seats to the stage. There were literally about ten people there when the FREE show started. Why the place wasn’t packed is beyond me. I guess in a way it was packed, though, because there are only about ten chairs around the bar, and one table next to it.
As for the music, I hardly recognized any of the songs. The only tune I knew was Four, by Miles Davis. As for the rest of the tunes - there weren’t that many more: in the 90 minutes that Von played, there were probably 6 songs total - they were all relatively simple tunes that I’m pretty sure aren’t played very often. Each song seemed to follow the same exact arrangement - head, sax solo, guitar solo, bass solo, drum solo, head. Stick with what works, I guess. I had hear that Mike Allemana is a very fine player, but I didn’t really find out until I heard him take great solos all night. He knows how to play really fast and tastefully at the same time, which seems to be one of my biggest complaints among guitar players.
On to the main attraction: Von. His playing is flooring. At 86 years old, the man has more control over his instrument than anybody I know. His style of blues and bebop played way behind the beat is exactly the type of music I am into these days. Von also has a way of playing sounds and emotions using chaotic blazes of notes and energy, rather than regular melodic lines, that you don’t get to hear too often. If you’ve never seen him, go check it out - every Tuesday on the south side of Chicago.