He looks a little exhausted, but above all satisfied, after the concert, and while the blues-loving visitors finish their drinks and slowly move towards the exit with their signed CDs in their hands, Bruce Katz praises Tübingen and the audience:
“I really liked it…university cities are often the best cities! The people today were so attentive from the very beginning, from the first note. It feels so good! … When an audience is so open, then we play at our best!”
Full, round and juicy jazz blues rock.
And they were actually there straight away, Bruce Katz and his band, in the tightly seated and fully occupied hall of the German-American Institute. It smelled of blues, and it doesn’t matter that the first two pieces were a kind of ‘floating – sound check – warm-up’ – round and the band only gradually found their level and balance.
Aaron Lieberman’s guitar still sounded a bit sharp and angular, the piano and organ were too quiet, drummer Liviu Pop played without amplification, heartily and courageously. By the third song at the latest, the sound was right, and the music as well. Full, round and juicy blues rock. ‘Classic’ piano riffs and phrases, a driving, sharp, or a bubbling, then hissing and in any case seductive organ.
Plus guitar runs or rhythmically contrasting chords. Keyboard and guitar share the vocals, and in the middle of the stage there is a solid and varied base on the drums. The basic mood for everything they play – for Bruce Katz this is clear:
“The concept is that everything we play is blues at its core. For me, blues is very broad – as long as that feeling is there. Even if we play something complicated or even avant-garde, in the end we always end up with blues. It has always been a kind of mission to play music with this emotional content. Blues goes in many different directions…”
A song by the Allman Brothers Band
About a third of the way through the concert, Bruce Katz upped the ante and really got his blues train rolling. That was after a song by the Allman Brothers Band was announced. There was a delighted murmur in the audience and when ‘In the memory of Elisabeth Reed’, a true classic, was played, there was blissful revelry in the audience and extensive solo excursions by the musicians into the spheres in which even jazz purists paid tribute to the ‘Allmans’ in front of these masters of flowing improvisation. Now on this evening in the dai, as part of the Tübingen Jazz and Classical Days, the songs, the blues, the jazz, the rock, the music simply flowed.
And Bruce Katz still had a kind of gleam in his eyes backstage when he talked about the six years he spent with Gregg Allman’s band on his last tour… “that was a really special band, I loved the Allman Brothers Band, I heard them when I was 17. And then I played with these people… exciting and crazy!”
Energy seemingly without end
Energy seemingly without end, red shirt with ‘southern style’ ornaments, dark long hair, skinny jeans, back on stage in Tübingen: Bruce Katz drifts with his band criss-crossing American landscapes and all kinds of blues. The long-time Berklee College lecturer has of course lived in Boston, but is geographically at home in New York, having grown up in Brooklyn. When he’s really into it, whether in his piano solo excursions, in his funky organ or with his band, then it’s deeply felt blues. No matter whether it’s Memphis, ragtime or gospel, it also becomes clear where Bruce Katz’s emotional and real home is…
“I grew up in New York, in Brooklyn, lived in Boston, but my love was always southern music… in Mississippi, New Orleans…”
And blues on this October evening in Tübingen means that after our lovely meeting and the really nice conversation about blues and the Allman Brothers, Bruce Katz grabs a catering roll and goes back up on stage, rolls up the cables, dismantles the keyboards and system.
Bruce Katz (org)
Aaron Lieberman (git)
Liviu Pop (drums)
