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| Clapton & Marsalis: Red Hot Jazz In the summer of 1997, Eric Clapton dipped his toe in the waters of jazz with David Sanborn, Marcus Miller, Steve Gadd and Joe Sample. On 8 April 2011, Eric Clapton jumped in head first at the deep end for a night of red hot jazz at New York City's Rose Theater. If music fans are lucky, he'll stay in these waters for a good long time. Although it is only April, the concert definitely is up there for "gig of the year" honors. During the show, Eric told the audience that when he was young, he would tell other musicians, "I'm just doing this (playing the blues) until I can get a gig in a jazz band" and that it took a lot of courage for him to sit in the chair on stage tonight. Well, he certainly got his wish to be in a jazz band and what a gig it was! Special guest Taj Mahal opened the show with a few songs before EC, Marsalis, Chris Stainton and members of the JALC Orchestra took the stage for a 90 minute performance. Taj Mahal joined them for the last two songs of the evening. The music was selected by EC and arranged by Marsalis. The set list was: Ice Cream Forty-Four Joe Turner's Blues The Last Time Careless Love Kidman Blues Layla Joliet Bound Just A Closer Walk With Thee Corrine Corrina (encore) A press release distributed before the show stated that the 10 song set would be drawn from a list of 13 songs. The three not performed were "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out," "When Somebody Thinks You're Wonderful" and "Taint Nobody's Biz-ness". For most of the evening, EC played a tobacco sunburst Gibson 335. One of New York City's newer music venues, the acoustics were suberb. The show was filmed for DVD. Here's what some fans told the Where's Eric! Team on their way out of the venue: Eric should take this show on the road! Tonight's performance is another watershed moment in his career, possibly more importantly musically than Unplugged was. Eric hasn't played this freely in a long-time, you could tell he was having fun and feeding off of all the musicians on stage. EC should do two weeks of shows like this here in New York; I'd be here every night. Can't wait for the DVD to come out so I can relive every minute! Another performance follows at the venue on Saturday, 9 April. Band Lineup: Eric Clapton - guitar / vocals Wynton Marsalis - trumpet Marcus Printup - trumpet Chris Crenshaw - trombone Victor Goines - clarinet Chris Stainton - keyboards Dan Nimmer - piano Carlos Henriquez - bass Ali Jackson - drums Don Vappie - banjo Special Guest: Taj Mahal - guitar / vocals write your comments about the article :: © 2011 Jazz News :: home page |