Back at Catalina’s for the first time since the draconian COVID lockdown, Hall of Fame drummer Steve Gadd packed the house to deliver music from his Grammy Nominated album Live at the Blue Note in Tokyo. While the weather was uncommonly cold outside, Gadd and company turned up the heat for a fiery and enthusiastic set of deep cut grooves for the first night of a three night stand.
The band members of Michael Landau/g, Walt Fowler/tp, Larry Goldings/key and Travis Carlton/b may also be known as the sidemen for James Taylor’s touring band, but the enthusiastic fans were not going to get “Handy Man” tonight. Simmering pulses were set up by the master himself, as Gadd gave a workshop on how to use the cymbals like guiding lights “Timpanogos”, sashay like Astaire on the brushes like Astaire on the slinky “Hidden Drive” or relentlessly hum on the high hats under Fowler’s muted horn on the soulful “Here’s Earth”. Gadd’s tom tomming rumble in the jungle, palpably egged on by Carlton and Landau’s wacka-wooka wonders cut the floor like James Brown’s Famous Flames on “Sly Boots” while a Miles muted Fowler swayed with the guitarist’s bluesy lines and Golding’s harmonies with Gadd’s percolating coffee pot of the slinky “Africa”.
The jam was sweet and pungent as Gadd strut o ut the beat like a jaunty stroll down Sunset, not letting go of the rivulet as Goldings soared into space and Landau rocked out on the fusion “ Oh Yeah”. For the more tender hearted, the pretty and delicate “Duke’s Anthem” displayed Gadd’s understatement as Landau’s strings tried to fly away, but Carlton kept him anchored down. The team had a gas with the closing calypso’d and kinetic “The Wind Up” as Gadd took the s harp turns like a Formula One driver, two stepping like a Funk Chicken while Goldings and Landau jabbed and punched, and “just what was that sound?” that came out of their speakers during the left hooks?
At exactly double the age when he was inducted into The Modern Drummer Hall of Fame, the man who has built up a catalogue with the likes of Chick Corea, Paul Simon, Eric Clapton and Steely Dan showed the crowd at Catalina’s that the heart beat of his music, as well as his heart, is still in the right place.
Upcoming shows at Catalina’s include Samaa Joy & Tamir Hendelman 02/28, Ada Vox, 03/03, Arturo Sandoval 03/04-05, Kevin O’Neal: 03/08, Victor Wooten 03/11-2, Dee Dee Bridgewater 03/17-19