CHICK COREA ELEKTRIC BAND
With Dave Weckl, Frank Gambale, Eric Marienthal, and Victor Wooten
Friday, December 21, 2007
Catalina Bar & Grill, Los Angeles

by Dr. Zoltan

Rock concerts be damned, with their crowd of drunken, ugly, screaming young humans with no appreciation for sophisticated music. The music so loud that its volume cloaks the mistakes of the amateur musicians, the atmosphere so filthy that it often lacks toiletries, and the audience so ignorant that the majority of emphasis is placed on the costumes, dancing, lights, and audience participation.

Is there nowhere for serious music enthusiasts to experience the extraordinary?

Catalina Bar & Grill is one such establishment where civilized humans seat themselves at tables in order to deconstruct the intellectually stimulating arrangements of artistic athletes such as Chick Corea Elektric Band. They do not throw things. They do not run in circles and collide. They sit calmly and focus their attention on the fascinating sounds being presented, clapping when appropriate, and maintaining a safe and mature social atmosphere. All this while consuming a bowl of pasta -- or perhaps some nachos!

Luckily: the worlds of Bela Fleck & The Flecktones and Chick Corea Elektric Band are presently colliding: Victor Wooten (one of two technical bass monsters living on planet Earth) is participating in Chick's Band, and Bela Fleck Himself (prog banjoizer) recently released a collaborative collection of compositions with Captain Corea. Why it took so long for these two incredible bands to intermingle is a mystery that is beyond Dr. Zoltan. Forget Fantomas-Melvins Big Band, for it is a mere pop culture joke in comparison.

Let us get specific: Victor Wooten and Dave Weckl conjunct and combust in a thunderously obtuse rhythm section. Dr. Zoltan swears by his life and his love of it that there is no greater display of technical facility where drums and bass guitar instruments are concerned. And there is no more efficient manner in which to study that echelon of percussive performance than from the North side of the Catalina stage.

Eric Marienthal played correctly, which is more than can be said for 99.999% of the humans who proclaim to be musicians.

Always the educator, Chick Corea paused briefly between songs to inform the customers that keyboardists are the smartest (or perhaps it was the best?) musicians in any band; as they are often the ones who write all the songs. As examples, he presented the names of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin. Dave Weckl found himself able to agree, and nodded his head from behind his collection of drum set instruments.

Earlier, a strange acoustic piano solo was emitted from the Southern edge of the stage, during which string-scrapes and percussive effects made their way into the sonorama. Impressive!

The evening's performance climaxed with a rendition of Beneath The Mask, during which Victor and Dave unleashed what Kurt Vonnegut would call a "Grand Ah-Whoom" (a.k.a. a Shit Storm); the rhythms so lopsided and the execution so uncanny that many humans lost their heads, the moon fell from orbit, and jazz was destroyed that night, forever.

-Dr. Zoltan!