Charlatans, do-gooders, civic boosters and business people spent months organizing entertainment for the scores of visitors to the area during the World Cup. Perhaps inevitably, what may have been the best outing by locally based talent in recent weeks had no apparent ties to the global event.
Seventy-five in-the-know locals attended a concert by Gerald Spaits’ Sax & Violins at Greenwood Social Hall on Wednesday, July 1. The free show was underwritten by a musicians union.
The veteran bassist’s endeavor isn’t just another jazz-with-strings ensemble. Equally conversant in classical and jazz idioms, the members of Sax & Violins’ string quartet- Adam Galblum, Marvin Gruenbaum, Ezgi Karakus and Joanna Metsker- possess a natural sense of swing.
Two of Kansas City’s most exciting saxophonists, Charles Perkins and Rich Wheeler were born to swing. Brian Steever, Plastic Sax’s reigning Person of the Year, powered the 75-minute performance that flowed between vintage bop, classic rock, chamber music and Americana.
Exceptional moments included a cutting contest between Galblum and Gruenbaum, a vigorous reading of Frank Zappa’s “Peaches en Regalia” and an intriguing arrangement of Thelonious Monk’s “We See.”
Perhaps sensing that Sax & Violins had just won the artistic equivalent of the World Cup after the concert closed with a thrilling reading of the Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus,” Spaits invoked the famous John Lennon quip “I hope we’ve passed the audition.”