With Mark Knopfler’s career taking him now to record on the jazz-associated Blue Note Records, one must have wondered where this new association would take him. Even the music piped in recorded music was flavored with sounds of swing, as tunes by Lester Young and Duke Ellington were played to set a certain musical ambiance. Were we to hear covers of songs by The Jazz Messengers?
Well, 140 minutes, 15 songs and 8 guitars later, Knopfler and his 9 member band (“together they outnumber me, 49 instruments to one!” he joked) showed that the sounds of late night California Cool was simply another color from the palate from the brush of the master painter and storyteller. The addition of Graeme Blevins’ warm toned saxes and Tom Walsh’s trumpets were extra ingredients that were stirred into the pot of Knopfler’s compositions, making a rich curry of flavors that juxtaposed pub tunes from the Isles with second set relaxed bop.
Knopfler is nothing if he isn’t a storyteller, and with his glasses he looks completely professorial as he becomes a troubadour dropping into Matt Malloy’s for Celtic themed pieces like “Why Aye Man” or “Once Upon A Time In The West” that were flavored by John McCusker’s fiddle, Danny Cummings’ percussion and Mike McGoldrick’s pipes and flutes. For the ballads such as “Sailing to Philadelphia” or “Romeo and Juliet,” his casual and leathered voice is perfectly set for a night at Belfast’s Dirty Onion as he weaves minstrel’d stories, with gentle and delicate piano support by Jim Cox.
From his appropriately title recent release (Down The Road Wherever), Knopfler tells yarns of hitch hiking on Christmas on “Matchstick Men” or taking the packed theatre to a smoky nightclub as he mixes his tasty guitar selections with Richard Bennett’s thick and rich solos.
Bennett, by the way, is Knopfler’s answer to Count Basie’s Freddie Green, supplying a consistent and relentless rhythm of support, be it on the Andes themed “Postcards from Paraguay,” as he strums the charango alongside quena’d woodwinds, delivering a relentless raga on the traditional English jig “Speedway to Nazareth” or picking the Irish mandolin during the tale of a soldier from Russian during “Done With Bonaparte.” Long time members bassist Glenn Worf and keyboardist/director Guy Fletcher are able to link in together with Bennett and drummer Ian Thomas to give exciting pub grub of rhythms on the fist raising tunes such as “Corned Beef City” and the delectable “Money For Nothing” that featured Knopfler’s patented, often imitated by never duplicated guitar intro.
By the time Knopfler ended the evening, and essentially the US tour, with the Celtic flavored “Going Home: Theme of The Local Hero,” one couldn’t help but be impressed by the loyalty of the packed house, who have followed him on his journey since he “first came to LA on a Greyhound Bus Ticket” and has since achieved fame and consequently eschewed it for evenings like this of casual yet sublimely adroit musical journeys. When confronting himself on stage on retiring, he simply reflected “What would be better than this?” to which the appreciative audience concurred, not only to the evening, but to the career and man behind it.
Upcoming shows at The Greek include Lauren Daigle 10/25-26,Barbara Mason/Brenton Wood 10/05 and Incubus 10/26-27