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| Bobby Lyle: Homecoming at the Dakota, September 6-7 by by Andrea Canter,Jazz Police He’s back! Keyboard prodigy-turned music director and bandleader Bobby Lyle comes home to the Dakota for two nights of trio magic as only a true master of funk and blues can conjure, on September 6-7--only a couple days after his appearance on the CBS Morning Show (September 3). Bobby Lyle was born in Memphis, moving north to Minneapolis with his family. He started piano lessons under his mother’s tutelage at age six, noting that “growing up in a climate where you had six months of winter every year provided lots of practice time.” Influenced primarily by Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, Bill Evans, Erroll Garner, and Art Tatum, as a teen in the early 1960s, Lyle was the talk of the town. At thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, he was burning up pianos and Hammond B3s, soon gigging in clubs that couldn’t yet serve him. Eventually he quit college to go on the road with Red Holt and Eldee Young, soon coming to the attention of Jimi Hendrix, with whom he worked a short time before Hendrix’ death. His family moved to LA and Lyle toured for a while with Sly and the Family Stone, then Ronnie Laws. After making a few recordings for Capitol, Lyle joined forces with George Benson, later touring with and serving as Music Director for Al Jarreau, Bette Midler, and Anita Baker. From the late 80s to mid 90s, Lyle made six recordings for Atlantic, still touring with his own bands and with Bette Midler. Three decades into a prolific career as composer, arranger, band leader, and recording artist of fusion as well as straight-ahead, Lyle released Straight and Smooth (Three Keys) in 2004 as an overt declaration of his dual keyboard personality. Anyone expecting him to give equal time to “straight” and “smooth” during his Dakota homecoming last summer in Minneapolis was in for a surprise as Lyle and his trio provided two nights of rousing, thundering originals and standards that joyfully define straight-ahead jazz. Lyle’s amazing stylistic range was on full display, as was the compatibility among Lyle and his bandmates—bassist Brennan Nase and drummer Clyde Adams. The trio burned and simmered through (gratefully) “unsmooth” renditions of such standards as “Wave,” “Yesterdays,” and (in tribute to Ray Charles) “Georgia”; Lyle’s “Flight to Rio” and “Deep Six,” swinging and sultry “Sweetest Taboo,” and a very “Spankin’.” write your comments about the article :: © 2005 Jazz News :: home page |